Do You Have Buyers or Customers?

I’ve been catching up this weekend on some of the SXSW coverage. In this interview of Valeria Maltoni by Simon Mainwaring, he captures what I think is a gem of insight from Valeria.

After watching the video ask yourself, “Do you have buyers or customers?”

Don’t have five minutes to invest in the video, here is the gem from Valeria:

Let me take a step back and define what I mean by transforming buyers into customers. Most organizations think of customers as all the people who buy from them. I would like you to think about the transactions, the number of transactions. If you have have a lot of people who buy just once, what you have really is “buyers” you don’t have “customers”.

To me commerce begins, when you have those buyers who come back and buy a second time, and a third time. And then with social, you have those customers who not only come back and buy something, but also bring back their friends. You know, it’s kinda the word of mouth on steriods in social media. And now they are helping other people come to your business and make transactions.

So you see the multiplying effect of designing a conversation that allows people who are attracted to your business and solution to come back with other people like them and generate more business.

Pretty smart thinking, no?