Even in the best Business Schools, before confronting more modern marketing theories, learning marketers swallow the basics of business: one of them is constantly challenged in the current energy market: “listen to the customer and meet its needs “.
Why should this adage be called into question?
Which consumer could have said only a few years ago:
– I need solutions to produce my electricity
– I need solutions to sell my electricity production directly to my neighbor
– I need to value my flexibility of consumption and even,
– I need a share of independence regarding my energy supplier?
Solutions for these needs are now part of our daily lives. But who could have imagined them twenty years ago?
We live in an eminently technological world. Each new technology pushes the frontiers a little further with the impossible; it always opens up a new field of investigation to create more value.
In the world of energy, the changes are so numerous and so profound that no customer can formulate a need corresponding to what will nevertheless be obvious to him in a few months.
The marketer of an energy company has to be an assembler.
On one hand, he must have an intimate knowledge of his clients, their behavior, their profession, their aspirations, their values, their levers of action and decision, and for this, he must demonstrate of great empathy, and on the other hand, he must have an eye on all new technologies and new solutions.
He must be able to imagine tomorrow’s offerings as bundles of elementary bricks, available on the market, and then to “marry” them with his clients. The offers thus designed must be consistent with the future value flows and answer to the deepest aspirations of consumers.
Some say that marketers must anticipate the needs of customers: it is not a purely intuitive anticipation but rather the result of their immersion in the world of their customers. One thing is certain, their role is no longer just to meet expressed needs.
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