Today’s customers are more sophisticated than ever, sampling the wares of more brands in more locations than ever before, happy to journey to a café in the suburb next to the next suburb for a cold drip, encouraged to buy from overseas by far flung Friends’ waxings on Facebook and keenly eyeing the swings in their local currency for macroeconomic bargains. This Neo Consumer is older and richer than before too, more thoughtful, more discerning and always ready to Switch.
The Neo Consumer is empowered, in control and they know it.
Informed and empowered Neo Consumers are hard to impress too. Battling for their business is harder than ever, and the dangling of ever-oranger carrots has become an increasingly important part of the game. 3 Hour delivery, 100 day free returns, free international shipping, and super slick omnichannel blah blah have apparently become the battleground. But too much emphasis is lumped on the need to differentiate from the competition with whistles and bells at the expense of profit, and worse still, at the expense of consistent, good service that’s required to keep the hard-to-win Neo Consumer coming back.
With that empowerment also comes a willingness to walk away at the slightest hint their expectation won’t be met. And for the Neo Consumer, switching to a new provedore is easy come easy go. No warnings and no second chances, one slip, and they’re gone.
57 Signals 