Over the last year or so, it’s safe to say that we’ve seen a lot of significant changes taking place in the IP voice and cloud communications space. There’s consolidation, mergers, and growth everywhere, with new services and providers entering the marketplace all the time. Since here at UC Today, we like staying up to date with the latest transformations in the UC space, we picked up our tickets for this year’s “Cloud Comms Summit” to learn more about communication evolution for service providers.
The Cloud Comms Summit, produced by the Cavell Group and the Cloud Communications Alliance is one of the most powerful conferences around for those in search of information about the communication space and the ways that service providers can differentiate themselves for the future. Perhaps one of the most exciting and interesting speeches that I attended this year was hosted by Nigel Risner – a motivational speaker with a lot of insight into communication.
Introducing the Problem of Communication
Risner started his captivating speech by asking his audience how many of them wanted to achieve at least 5% more success this year. He told us that making a big difference in the way that we serve and delight our customers, starts by following a few simple steps. We need to look at the best people in our industry and model our practices around them, be passionate in the things that we create and bring to market and communicate effectively with our marketplace.
One point that Nigel made, however, was that while a lot of people visit cloud conferences with the intention of learning new things and making big changes, very few actually take action when they get home. In fact, he said that only
“20% of any audience does things differently based on what I say, or what other speakers say”
Yet despite this, Nigel acknowledged that we are, as an industry, facing a problem with the way we communicate – and that’s a big issue in an industry that lives and breathes communication.
Animal Communication: The Different Categories of People
To make his point about the nature of communication, Nigel took us to a slide show, where he introduced us to four categories of people, differentiated by specific characteristics. He said that each of these categories is represented by a different animal, and most importantly:
“75% of your customers are in a different quadrant to you.”
The categories were:
- Monkey (25% of your customers) – sociable, dynamic, persuasive, and enthusiastic. As a monkey himself, Nigel said that this kind of person has an advantage over the average audience member because they don’t mind embracing new ideas and technology. However, they do have a very short attention span and a problem with long-term planning – something that can be tough to handle in a long-term discussion about digital transformation (DX)
- Lions – Demanding, determined, competitive, and strong-willed. Another 25% of your customers are made up of Lions – people who are on a mission to change the cloud communications world with something new and innovative. They want to be the biggest and the best, and they don’t always mind who they knock over in the process
- Dolphins – Dolphins are caring, and patient, they approach business with a relaxed and encouraging approach. Dolphins set themselves apart in the marketplace because they want to make the world a better place. They want families to be able to stay in touch, and companies to accomplish great things
- Elephants: Finally, the last 25% of your customer base is made up of elephants – cautious, deliberate, and questioning people. Elephants like plenty of useful information that they can learn from
Addressing All the Animals in The Room
According to Nigel, the problem with cloud communications – or any communication strategy for that matter right now, is that we have all four different animals in the room at once. Unfortunately, we’re also spending thousands on marketing and advertising equipment that all speaks the same language. You’re trying to get everyone to understand your product in the same way, but dolphins want to make sure that your product is friendly, while elephants want detail and data.
Nigel told the audience that companies need to start looking at their products from a wider perspective and become more effective at communicating with animals. “You need to become zoo-keepers, find out what each animal wants and give it to them.” In fact, when Nigel wrote his own book on communication, he made sure it was in all four languages, by implementing lots of fun for monkeys, important words for lions, graphs for elephants – and recycled paper for the dolphins.
Any company that isn’t speaking in all four languages at once when they introduce their cloud communications solution to the world today is missing out on a huge chunk of their target audience.
Become a Zoo Keeper
Nigel told us that, as always, communication is king.
Cloud comms service providers, vendors, and resellers are all in businesses that thrive around communication. Unfortunately, they’re still only speaking to around 25% of their audience at any time – particularly when they’re under pressure. When companies are trying to roll out new solutions and compete in a marketplace that’s growing more competitive by the day, they revert back to their own territory or language. Unfortunately, that’s not going to help you grow.
“Unless you become a zookeeper, nothing changes. This is your customer base; these are the animals you deal with.”
We need to figure out the nutrition and support that each of our segments needs, or we risk losing their attention. The question that Nigel left us with was what we are going to do to stand out from the crowd. How can we start acting differently from today forward?
The simple answer could be to learn how to talk to the animals in our consumer base.
See: https://www.nigelrisner.com/
