How To Engage With Your Customer's Basic Needs


Customers are the lifeblood of our organizations. They allow us to find means of ensuring renewed cash flow, and to make the purpose of our product or service design worth it all. Just as your business has needs in the form of organizational optimization, the use of hierarchies, a competent vision and the funding to back up all these processes, a customer must have their hierarchy of needs taken care of if they’re to interface with your firm in the long-term perspective. 

For this reason, knowing how to engage with these basic needs could be considered one of the most appropriate methods of retaining and restoring customer relationships, perhaps even operating through a lens of the best corporate culture and client relationship to be found in your industry. These methods could certainly help to promote this ideal outcome: 

Support & Information 

The first of your customer's needs is the willingness to promise presence to them. This means that providing a necessary investment in aftercare after a purchase or booking of services are made should be considered vital. 

If a support request needs to be made, ensuring you have a fully staffed support network using 1300 numbers, or live chat spaces tailored to help you respond to email after email, you can be sure to have the support functions necessary required to resolve issues. 

However, many businesses focus on the need to solve problems, but perhaps not enough time on the informational offering that they give to each new client, such as hosting frequently asked questions, or a troubleshooting guide online. A tailored, specific and continually updated error solution thread on your website could help prevent a call from being made in the first place, freeing your team to engage with the calls that actually matter. The customer’s first basic need is always that their awareness of your brand and the research they must complete is functionally done for them, helping them reduce the time between deliberating what products to purchase and actually completing that process. 

Value For Money 

The second most basic need of any customer is the deep desire to feel as though a fair exchange has been made. No matter if they’re buying into your brand for the reputation, for the excellence of the product, or for the fashion of it (perhaps you should focus on making all three your goal,) a customer should never have to question if your goods were worth it. This is why accurate pricing is almost always required to foster a sense of mutual exchange between you and your customers. You needn’t debase your product for selling it cheaply to stay competitive, but you needn’t become that firm most people find exhausting to do business with thanks to the hit in their budget you’re likely to bring. Of course, pricing is relative, so always be sure to find a good balance, and never be afraid to tweak the scales in either direction to best work for your offering and the period of fashion which you may have entered. 

Continual Reach 

The third need is the feeling of wanting to stay in the loop. If a customer enjoys your firm and the products you put out, they will likely desire to stay informed about new products in the future. Allow this to happen naturally. By adding them to a mailing list (pending their acceptance,) or perhaps opening social media profiles, you are always available for reaching depending on the curious whims of the customer in question. 

Never allow anyone with an internet connection or an email address to stay out of the loop on what your business is doing, providing they have volunteered their interest. Continual updates, efforts in celebrating your community and even asking for customer feedback or perhaps voting on the direction of new products can all have a significant impact on how engaged your audience feels with the direction of your firm, at least on the surface. 

Providing Good 

The fourth need to consider is that customers the world over are starting to understand the necessity of supporting companies that engage in good practices, and aren’t contributing to difficulties around the world with their blasé attitude to their functioning. For example, if you require high volumes of raw wooden materials to construct your products, a small effort may be to plant more trees than you use, and contribute to anti-deforestation causes in vulnerable areas. 

Trying to lessen your impact environmentally is only one part of the picture though. It might be that you decide to champion social issues, perhaps even celebrate a community that means something to your firm. You may have noticed many rainbow corporate logos in support of Pride month. Of course, only focus on a cause if you and your firm genuinely care about it, as caring for marketing purposes only can be quite nauseating to see and to practice. It might be that a cause important to you is perhaps not important to another firm. Be sure to contribute to an actual good however, because if you’re to come out in support of something, it’s important to be (and be seen) forthright and proper about your direction, hopefully making a difference thanks to your efforts. 

When customers interface with your products from then on, they’re much more likely to feel a lack of consumer guilt, perhaps even a sense of consumer pride in making ‘the right choice,’ knowing that in the long term, their purchasing power is doing some good for the world, rather than just contributing to a large, churning disposable product culture. 

Recommending & Sustaining 

The fifth need of a customer is convenience, but not simply the convenience we have previously laid out in this article. Convenience spans to perhaps offering goodwill even if your services are not enough to cover the needs of a certain customer. For example, if a customer comes in asking for a certain fixture for his mountain bicycle, but your store does not sell it, it might be that taking the time to recommend suppliers or retailers in the city can help you foster goodwill with that customer without even selling them an item. 

Recommending an item, giving advice, or generally being seen as willing to help in a respectful manner sticks in the memory of any customer. Perhaps next time they think of needing a product, they’ll come to you (a relevant store) once again, and this time you may sell them plenty of items. Simply operating as a good firm, of course attempting to monetize your contact time with your audience but also fostering good relationships can sustain a healthy, long-term business engagement. 

To Summarize 

Businesses are a set of complex hierarchies and systems, requiring a deft touch and a competent vision to get things right. However, like anything, if you focus from the bottom up, you can often direct yourself onto the correct path and make the right corresponding decisions that lead to success. Thinking of your customers first will nearly always be a solution, as will considering their needs. Their needs are to be catered for presently, to gain value for money, to be able to reach you and feel in the know, to feel comfortable in their purchasing choices and finally, to allow that entire process to feel convenient and supportive. If you manage to hit on all these points, you can be sure that in the future, you will build a solid audience for your operation, the kind of audience that sticks with you in the long term and helps you develop your brand through perception as you might.


I hope you enjoyed this article about how to engage with your customer's basic needs and to improve your bottom line.

Interested in more articles about customer engagement?

Read My Related Posts:

- Blog Tweaks To Boost Customer Engagement 

- How Social Media Has Changed The Fashion Industry

Read More Bootstrap Business Below 

Official Bootstrap Business Blog Newest Posts From Mike Schiemer Partners And News Outlets