The Customer Alignment Lifecycle™

With a dynamic, customer-perception approach to innovation

When it comes to building market leadership, pasting together an unorganized collection of incompatible practices just doesn’t work. That’s why market-strategy pioneer Warren Schirtzinger has spent the last 30 years creating the customer alignment lifecycle (CAL), a dynamic, customer-centric framework that transforms technology adoption theory into practice.

CAL is effective because it starts with a deep understanding of customer characteristics and motivations, including the criteria customers use to evaluate competing products and services. These criteria — based on an overriding need to reduce risk — form the basis of new-product acceptance. By knowing how customers perceive and avoid risk, companies are able to align the actions of marketing, sales, communications, and product management with these requirements and systematically create customer value.

Leveraging technology adoption theory, we’ve created a system that guides the continual redirection and renewal of your business, and ensures strategic adaptation to your environment. Market leaders know the environment is in constant flux and business transformation must continue without end. Discover the six-step customer alignment process described below, and experience the ultimate upgrade in new-product success.

By defining your markets correctly

Defining a market from a product perspective doesn’t work because products come and go. A winning market strategy begins with defining your category, and then placing your company and its category on the technology adoption life cycle. We help you develop a concise description of your “solution-type,” which describes the intersection between your product offering, target customer, price range and geographic boundaries. With category definition, you can discover underserved customer segments and paths to growth that traditional methods would never reveal. (read more)

By understanding customer motivation

People buy products and services to accomplish specific goals. And the old, worn out saying is “people don’t want a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole.” But did anyone ever think to ask WHY people want a hole in the first place? The answer is at the core of technology adoption theory

Customers buy for their reasons, not yours. Using our customer-alignment process, we help you create breakthrough products and services by helping your customers achieve their specific goals. We start by getting to know the people involved in the buying process, and understanding their true motivations. (read more)

By understanding your customer’s point-of-view

Successful companies are those that come the closest to seeing the world as their customers do. We define products the way your customers do: in terms of perceived risk and goal achievement. With three decades of experience, we are the best in the world at defining mandatory product attributes at each stage of your category lifecycle.

This is what differentiates High Tech Strategies. We understand the product challenges you face, and with our focus on the customer alignment lifecycle, we are sure to get it right. Your success depends on it. (read more)

By using familiar channels

The root cause of lackluster sales growth is often misalignment between your sales strategy and your target market. Therefore the selling techniques you use must help your customer achieve their specific goals. The vast majority of all customers want to minimize, or even eliminate, the perceived risk of adopting your product. This is why we use our trademarked customer alignment lifecycle process to configure your sales strategy so that purchasing feels familiar to your customer, which in turn helps them achieve their goals. Using CAL, you can identify the sales channels that make selling faster and easier. (read more)

By understanding what they already believe

As your product moves through the technology adoption lifecycle, the area of greatest value to the customer changes. And those involved in product management must learn the unique marketing “language” of each adopter category sequentially. Using the customer alignment lifecycle, you can describe or promote your product in a way that is consistent with what people already believe to be true. Start creating messages that increase product understanding and amplify perceived value. (read more)

By confirming customer pain vs gain

How do you know if your product provides the right amount of value? By confirming that it aligns with your customer’s view of pain vs. gain. Using CAL, we make the perfect assessment of your value proposition because it uses the same cost-benefit ratio customers use to assess value. We validate that the gain of using your product is commensurate with the pain the customer is willing to endure. This ensures your product’s success and your company’s growth. (read more)

Know what to look for

Having the right seats filled with the right people is a fundamental part of the customer alignment lifecycle and a pre-requisite for business success and growth. Yet most entrepreneurial organizations are lacking the strategic talent they need. This is mostly due to not knowing what to look for. If you want to improve your business performance, you need to identify the skillsets that are needed for your specific stage of market development. Align the skillsets of your team to the customer-type you are serving, and ensure that your talent is a key part of your market strategy.