Customer Value Propositions for Smarter Organisations

The most challenging business problems are like icebergs. You can see the smallest part of the problem, maybe highlighted by stagnating sales or high customer turnover, but the real issue remains hidden.

Perceived value is one of those iceberg problems. You know your business offers an excellent service or product, you’ve surrounded yourself with bright and committed staff, and you’ve set out to change the world.

So why are those sales figures so disappointing?

Unfortunately, they’re the tip of the iceberg. The much larger, much more dangerous problem is that you and your customers have different perceptions of your value. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the best product/team/service in the world if you can’t communicate its value to your customers.

So how do you avoid smashing into the iceberg? Well, it’s about closing the gap between your actual value and your customer’s perception of it, and a unique CVP is the first step on that road.

It involves building out your customer value proposition strategy, based on actionable insights revealed by meticulous research, intrinsically connecting you with your customers’ needs, creating an experience that they will truly value.

Most companies, on the face of it, have simple elements of customer value already in place. Levi's make a range of jeans to suit anyone, Samsung makes the smartphones with the most features.

The issue with these rather bland and high-level propositions is that they lack the nuance that is vital to connecting with the individual customer and setting your business apart from the competition.

By only appealing to the masses, you risk becoming irrelevant to the individual.

A customer value proposition is a roadmap to connecting with the individual, showing them that you truly understand their problems and giving them a compelling reason to choose you as their solution.

Like all roadmaps, the building blocks of your CVP should always be data. For over a decade, Proto have been pioneers of using critical insights to equip companies to grow with increased confidence.

Businesses are often caught up in their own internal perception of their value. They understand their product or service best, and when the customer chooses to go somewhere else, the blame is usually laid at the customer's feet for not understanding, or not currently needing, what they're offering.

Operating on an internal perception of value alone is going to be hugely costly in the long run because the only perceived value that matters is that of your potential customer. If you can't connect with your customer's needs and prove to them that you're their knight in shining armour, then one of your competitors will.

Having a research-driven CVP in place highlights the best options for your business based on the actual needs of your customers. By identifying what the customer truly finds value in, a CVP allows you to position yourself to provide the most compelling solution to a problem, remedy to a fear, or reason to act.

Music, as with all art, is emotive at its core, as are the reasons people seek it out. Working with a large well known media organisation to develop a new app, our research identified emotion management as central to success. And ensuring we designed a Value proposition that serviced the four need states of Needing Comfort, Enabling you to Escape, Improving as an individual and Elevating Special Events - was the central focus and core components to deliver a differentiated offer in what is an already crowded and highly serviced audio market.

This direct connection to the needs of the individual allowed us to work with our client to identify the way in which those needs were enabled, identifying the ‘must-have’ features, based on customer feedback, and highlighting ways in which they could position themselves above and away from their competitors.