Who Is The Mobile Customer?
Who Is The Mobile Customer?
Sales, marketing and customer service professionals are all familiar with the importance of segmenting customers and understanding their buying behavior in order to successfully identify new prospects, to close opportunities and to provide continuous support. Moving into 2016 and beyond, it is more important than ever to move to a customer engagement strategy designed to respond to the modern consumer.
The habits of customers past
The modern consumer is vastly different than customers of the past. Not long ago, customer interactions with businesses were limited to phone calls or physical visits to brick-and-mortar locations, Customers would only really share tales their customer experiences face-to-face with half a dozen of their closest friends!
A new brand of mobile consumer
Today’s customers are changing the rules of customer engagement and stretching business strategies beyond existing capabilities—inhibiting a business’s ability to accomplish its objectives and respond to customers. This new brand of customer is best described as the “mobile consumer.” Why?
According to We Are Social’s new Digital, Social and Mobile in 2015 report, the world’s population in Jan 2015 was made up of 7.21 Billion people, of which 51% were considered unique mobile users. It is expected that this number will grow at a rate of 5% per year, representing roughly 200 Million new mobile users over the next 12 months alone.
These mobile consumers now have access to the information, products, and services businesses provide at levels never seen before. We Are Social found that over one-third of all Web pages are now being served to mobile devices. This means that your business needs to be prepared to interact with customers when they want—whether they’re waiting for a flight, sitting in a doctor’s office, on the bus to school, riding a train or work, or in line at the grocery story. Mobile consumers wants to do business when and where their schedules demand.
Expanding mobile commerce
Not long ago I, like many of you, limited the use of our mobile devices to finding basic information. We reserved conducting highly personal interactions, like financial transactions, to a more ‘secure’ location – like our home or a brick-and-mortar store – due to the perceived security risks.
Now, many of us are confident that these issues have been resolved. We’re more willing to complete the transaction on the mobile device itself. That means we’re in a position to make and execute purchase decisions 24/7/365. For example, in the UK and US, We Are Social’s data suggests that almost one in five of these countries’ citizens have bought something online in the past month via a mobile device.
It’s also important to note that this new mobile consumer has more than just access to the information they want at the tips of their fingers and the ability to execute a transaction at their convenience,. They also have the ability to share that experience with their closest friends – your customers and prospects – in real time.
According to We Are Social, nearly one in four people now has an active mobile social account.
In other words, these customers can share their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with countless people in the blink of eye. This makes it more important than ever for organizations to understand mobile consumer behaviors, ensure they are positioned for success and guarantee that customers get the service they expect.
How to support the mobile consumer
To support the modern consumer, and therefore run a modern business, it’s important to consider this mobile consumer and their impact in order to compete and grow your revenue. Look across your organization and determine all the possible points of engagement. Anticipate how customers expect to engage via email, Web chat, text, voice, video, social media, self-service or other touch points. Then develop a strategy that ensures you have the right person in the right place at the right time to support individual request as quickly as possible—before a consumer has the chance to deflect, take their business elsewhere and share their negative experience.
To see the mobile consumer in action, check out this short article. It quickly puts in perspective who we are serving and what they have come to expect from Towner Communications. The question is, are you prepared to respond?
