Can a brand stand up for its customers without being political?
Absolutely. Here are 5 ways to give customers more control:
Unbundle your products.
When brands only sell products in groups, they force customers to buy things they don't want. Let customers choose individual items. You can cross-sell by explaining how products work together, offering discounts when multiple products are bought at the same time, and still provide recommended assortments as buying options.
Sell direct-to-consumer.
Requiring customers to go to specific retailers to buy your products forces them on a journey they may not want to take. Instead, enable customers to buy directly from you, and build that direct brand relationship through an experience that lives up to your brand.
Enable product customization.
Being able to co-design a unique product is a fantastic form of control. This is especially true of product categories that are closely tied to identity (e.g. footwear and apparel), and categories that span diverse functional requirements (e.g. bags, trucks, etc.)
Help customers figure out what they want in the first place.
Especially for high-consideration products, brands can provide customers with a level of consultative guidance in the form of a dialogue about their goals and preferences. Instead of researching what customers want (let alone guessing), just ask. Where needed, guide their introspection. When designing a line or suite of products, develop the business logic that helps a customer define their goals and choose the product that fits. This serves as the foundation for a direct-to-consumer experience that facilitates à la carte product selection and customization.
Give customers the option to delegate.
Allowing customers more control does not mean swamping them with decisions to make. Let customers focus on the decisions that are important to them, and enable them to delegate the rest to your expertise. You can do this by providing defaults, needs-based recommendations, and priorities-based automation.
Customer control is often about choice, but not just product selection. It can be about where and when and how they choose to interact with your brand and your product. Therefore, it is often worthwhile to invest in flexibility, rather than trying to serve a "mainstream" that you have defined.
