By Adrian C. Ott



A CEO of a public Silicon Valley firm said to me last week, "Customers don't want to buy the drill anymore. They want to buy the hole." Although simply stated, this comment was very insightful.  Customers have changed.

Consider how busy our lives are today.  Do you get innundated with information?  Do you try to multi-task in order to accomplish more each day?

Below are our observations as to how customer behavior has changed:

• Customers want the problem solved.  They are not interested in the how. They want it to work, right out of the box...with as little explanation as possible.   When I received my first iPod it was very easy to get up and running.   Prior to that,  I had an MP3 player that never made it out of the box; I didn't have time to figure it out.   
• Customers are digitally savvy.   Consider your cell phone and internet usage.  Did you have these in the early 1990's?  Almost everyone these days is connected in some way.  We even see images in major magazines of camel drivers and cowboys chatting on their cell phones. 
• Customers are mobile.  Once the domain of the upper-class, cell phones, notebooks and digital devices are pervasive.  Wireless technologies are a reality.  Most airports, hotels and coffee shops enable connection.
• Customers are more educated on what they buy.  With the advent of the internet, never before in the history of markets has so much information been available to buyers.
• Customers want a two-way dialogue on product and services that matter to them.  The rise of blogs and communities enable discussions that were not been possible before.
• Customers want to save time.   Anything that saves time has high value.  As one of my colleagues say, "Their hair is on fire," particularly around the holidays. 

Plus, one thing that hasn't changed:  Customers want to save money.

This is more than just making more advertising noise.  In fact a recent study indicated that roughly 60% of early adopters are "sick of advertising." 

What stands out, will be those offerings that fit better into a customer's hectic day.  As with any change, opportunities to innovate new product and service concepts abound.  They simply need to be found. 

Businesses need to change their mindset to Share of Customer Time(TM) in order to manage in today's landscape.  Although utilizing customer behavior is not new, the need to understand the context of customer lives is more salient in today's connected economy than ever before.  Stories make sense out of our crazy lives.  They put our products and services in context.  They place everything into a topic that we can digest.

Is your organization responding to these trends? 
Are your products and services keeping pace with what buyers want? 
Have your operations changed to adapt to these new realities?