“That’s the name of the game… pleasing the customer. If we ever lose sight of that fact, we’ve lost the ball game.”- Ray Kroc
Customers are the very reason any business exists, and the better they are treated, the more profitable they become. Over time, customers also serve as brand ambassadors, which becomes the reason a business grows more with lesser effort and resources. Small businesses make the mistake of assuming that they would fail at impressing customers because they cannot invest and commit to as many resources and put in as much effort as the ‘big boys’. This in turn leads to them not even trying as much as they could – however, with a little effort even small businesses can show customers care and treat them as special. The fact is that 80% of any company’s business comes from 20% of customers, which means that even if a business is small it would need to focus its energies on this 20% and gain the maximum profits by impressing customers with top class service. The better a business is able to care for this ‘profitable percentage’, the more it would grow by making these customers brand ambassadors, and providing large repeat business.
What do you believe your small business can do for impressing customers such that they become and remain hugely profitable, and put in extra effort to make your business big? It would be prudent to remember the 80-20 percentage formula, and place all your efforts in caring for the profitable few. This would mean that you take away some effort from the unprofitable / not so profitable larger percentage of customers – and that would be good for your business. To do this a business must remember that customers expect a two-way communication – they expect collaboration. No customer today would accept a business talking at customers, without customers having an opportunity to respond, interact, and provide feedback. There is a reason it is now referred to as customer-company ‘relationship’ – it is not a relationship if it is one-sided. Customers love companies that ask for their feedback, implement what is feasible, and then let customers know of the actions the company may have taken based on their feedback. This is a great way of impressing customers, which over time would build a level of comfort and trust.
Impressing customers is all about showing them that your business has something more and unique to offer. Adequately displaying your small business’ unique selling proposition (USP) would get the attention of a wide audience, and would further impress the existing customer base. It is essential for any business to re-evaluate its USP regularly – customers are easily distracted and bored, and the only way to keep their attention is to offer them consistently, something new and different. The idea is to ensure that the uniqueness of your business remains aligned with the current objectives and goals of the customers. It should serve to alleviate their pain areas, decrease effort, and gain success for their business. Do all this, and impressing customers would not be that hard even if you are ‘small’.
For the success of any initiative and endeavour, planning is an essential part. It is imperative to show your customers what your business goals are, and how the business expects to achieve them with the help of customers. The more a business can involve its customers in solution making, the more interested and engaged customers feel and would be willing to contribute to the success of the company’s growth objectives. In all of this, no business, especially a small one, can afford to forget that the customers must see short and long-term benefits for their business too. Continually emphasizing the benefits of the association, would ensure that customers are suitably impressed, and remain with the company for a long time, and even get more people to become customers.
It is understandable that a small business would not have the resources to set up a full-fledged customer service centre. To offset that, what it can do towards impressing customers is to ensure that the employees responsible for interacting with customers are polite, knowledgeable, skilled, and have as many of the top skills required by customer service staff. They must know ‘how’ to listen actively, which would enable them to engage customers at the very first contact / conversation. This would show customers that you value them as individuals and that your small business is committed to ensuring the human touch, which would be better than, what some of the bigger companies, are able to achieve. Responsiveness, speed, politeness, and empathy are all paths that would help your small business to impress its customers. In fact, a small business with a smaller customer base should be better equipped at personalization since it would be easier to remember the names of customers, recall their history with the company better, and the most provide solutions and products for their needs.
We have learned that one of pet peeves of customers is waiting. They hate it – and show their annoyance for it openly. Ensuring speedy responses and high efficiency should be possible for any business, and would lead to impressing customers consistently. Customers fail to understand why one business can respond almost instantly, while another would need a whole day or many days to respond to a simple query. In addition, customers expect that the information they need about a company and its offerings should be available to them whenever they want and from any location. A company must set clear expectations at the start of an association and then deliver without fail on the promises it makes. This is one of the most crucial aspects of top class customer service, and is a highly effective method of impressing customers, however small a business may be.
Companies and businesses often make the mistake of trying to become ‘perfect’ at everything they do. This is an impossibility, and it would behove businesses to excel at the things that customers attach most importance to, and makes them happy. These ‘small things’ should become part of the company’s values and culture, such that each person in the company knows and practices them, ensuring that customers receive exactly what they hope for. All the other smaller bits usually fall into place when customers are happy and provide repeat business. They would also be more willing to divulge details about themselves, and candidly tell the business what they need and what more the company can do for them. This type of open communication ensures that customers provide several opportunities to a business to improve, rather than defecting at the slightest hint of a problem.
We are probably mentioning a cliché – but the fact is impressing customers even if you are small does not always require effort or money, if you give them service with a genuine smile. No one likes to interact with unpleasant people, and it would be in the best interest of a business to instruct all its employees to smile pleasantly, greet and treat all customers with respect, and on no occasion let any customer feel unimportant and ignored.
With the unabated rise in competition, even the largest companies are being challenged daily and struggling to make a decent profit. The top way to make a consistent profit is by engaging and impressing customers, which in turn would ensure that they remain with the business, and over time become profitable, loyal, and raving fans.
