Customer First
- Yuvraj M
- Sep 30, 2017
- 2 min read
Every organisation today is suggesting that putting "customer first" in their business model or their marketing strategy or product development is the way to go. What might it mean for Health Insurance?
Recently, in meeting of senior managers of a company, we discussed a challenge.. We were behind the "Target Sales" figures for the year (even if significantly higher than previous year figures) and with several months into the year, something needed to be done.
Usual focus group ideas were simple:
Start a Marketing Campaign - Focus on the best products and reach out to our potential customers, potentially with a reward or discount
Start a Distributor Campaign - Incentivise additional sales with better commissions or rewards
Launch a New Product - Though usually a longer cycle solution, it might be possible to launch a fresh look package
I do believe that these are good solutions and might even bring the desired result - increase sales. But are these focused on the customer?
The first two options reflect one of two possibilities - 1) Our products are, to begin with, expensive and with large margins or 2) We are going to lose significant business value through these "discounts".
The third option is probably more customer focused - probably we can launch a product that caters to an untapped need of our customers. But if such a product is launched for a short term goal of "catching up" on the target sales figures, we will find that they would offer only little true value to the customer over any other marketing campaign.
We decided to focus, instead, on how we engage with our potential customers during their "Needs Analysis".
Customer research clearly indicates that "Maintaining or Managing Health" is among the top 3 needs of our target market. We also know that we have some of the best products in the market aimed at these needs.
We chose to integrate the above facts within our sales process and ensure that products on offer to our customers reflect what they themselves identify as their need.. NOT because there is a higher distributor incentive; NOT because we give a "season's discount" to our customers.
We simply asked ourselves the question - Why should customers buy our product? AND What are we doing to make sure we sell only those products that they want?
Our focus therefore turned to the following:
Reinforce to our distributors the process of "Needs Analysis" for our customers, and
Ensure that they understand which of our products meet those needs.
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