What's your competitive edge? Why should customers choose you over your competitors? Pricing, unique product, convenience, service? The problem with pricing is that there is only one way to go - and in a pricing battle its very hard to get those rates back up again. A unique product will buy you time, but its only a matter of time until others see the commercial opportunity and start copying you(!) - or consumer tastes may change. Convenience - well, you are only convenient....until you're not...
For me, all of the above can be great differentiators, but to really set you apart - the
big one is Service. Why? Here as some compelling commercial facts:-
it can cost up to 5X more to attract a new customer, as it does to retain one - think about the financial cost of advertising, the time investment of building a social media presence, doing leaflet drops, networking etc. And how much of that investment falls into a black hole producing nothing.....
A happy customer will refer you - becoming your unpaid and most enthusiastic sales team member! Think about when you last experienced great service - possibly visiting a different restaurant who's team made you feel special or a car sales advisor who took the time to really ask what was important to you before making recommendations - did you tell anyone, and recommend them? A happy customer can produce up to 9 warm recommendations - and that's before we start talking about the happy customer returning to purchase again!
By contrast - unhappy customers love to share their stories far and wide - and the internet makes it far easier for them to do so with a few clicks (thank you trip advisor/ google reviews/ trust pilot etc!) Those negative reviews linger in the memories of purchasers and make just take your potential future client straight to your competitors door!
A business that invests in creating a positive environment in the workplace, ensuring colleagues treat each other as valued customers too - will enjoy better retention rates. Colleague engagement will improve,, resulting in more discretionary effort from team members - and that effort will translate into improvements in your business.
Great service will improve your brand - 7 out of 10 people search online or seek opinions from others before making a purchase (I know I can spend more time researching a hotel break than I actually spend in the hotel, so who knows what the other 3 are doing?!) - what do you want your customers and colleagues to say about you?
Convinced great service is worth the effort? So how do you make this a reality? Here are some tips below:-
Make providing great service a priority for everyone, every time. Set a goal, and track it, by measuring what matters. What data do you have available to give you a baseline starting point - customer reviews/ surveys/ personal observations/ mystery shoppers/ complaint numbers - can all provide insight. Where do you want to be in 90 days? So - now you have a goal to reach for.
Take time to consider what world standard service would look like and feel like - if your business was the service leader, what would be different? Outstanding courtesy as standard, interested employees keen to understand your needs and provide trustworthy solutions, individuals who welcomed complaints when things go wrong and went the extra mile in rectifying it. What's to stop you bringing this to life?
Take a customer journey - mystery shop your competitors and experience the choices through your customers eyes - then be your own customer, walking in your customers shoes! What was the experience like? Was it easy to purchase your goods, was your website simple to navigate, were you welcomed on-site? What new ideas did you uncover that you could implement?
Engage your team in identifying opportunities and solutions to improving customer service - the people closest to the work will have the best answers - empower people to contribute and take action.
Seek customer feedback! The biggest source of data is what your customers can tell you - make sure you have a way of proactively capturing customer feedback, then use it to implement continual improvement in your processes.
Excited to get started?! To really bring this to life, I have a 6 month programme now available, supporting you to implement World Standard Service - I'll spend 2 hours with your team each month,, focussing on one aspect of service at a time, and through this help them to come up with practical and implementable ideas.
For fuller details of the programme contact me at lizgilchristcoaching@outlook.com or via the website www.lizgilchristcoaching.co.uk
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