Adding customer value is critical to driving the growth of your business because without customers that are willing to buy and continue buying your product or service, you will not be in business for very long! Here are five ways you can begin adding value to your customers and your overall business.
1. Hurry up and deliver
Increase the speed you deliver the kind of value people are willing to pay for. We are on the cusp of 2018 and we live in an impatient, technologically advanced society that is accustomed to instant gratification. If you are offering an in demand product or service, people wanted it yesterday! Customers see a direct correlation between your speed of delivery and the value of the product/service you are offering. Increase your speed and see an increase in your bottom line.
2. Know your customers and understand what drives value
Talk to them, survey them, and watch their actions and reactions. In short, capture data to understand what is important to your customers and what opportunities you have to help them. Click here for an example of methods that can be used to capture critical customer data.
3. Know your competition and be determined to be THE BEST
Total quality management can best be defined as: “Finding out what your customer wants and giving it to him or her faster than your competitors.”
To be the best you have to offer better quality than your competition. Click to tweet.
Note: this requires patience and research! Identify the customers and segments where you can create more value relative to competitors.
Be detailed and specific when doing your research because different customers will have varying perceptions of your value relative to your competitors, based on geographic proximity, for example, or a product attribute that one segment may find particularly attractive.
And remember, your customer’s define ‘quality”. You don’t. It is the customer’s specific need, or the benefit that the customer seeks, that defines quality in his or her mind.
4. Increase Convenience
Increase the convenience of contacting your business and purchasing your product or service. Can customers engage with you via phone, email, and in-person meetings? Does your website allow customers to check out quickly and efficiently?
Kissmetrics offers relevant suggestions on how to improve your customer’s online experience. Click here to learn more.
People are willing to pay for convenience-they will pay more online or at a nearby store just because they are unwilling to drive across town to a major shopping center or department store.
5. Grow your business by focusing on your best customers.
Here is where it comes in handy to have a well-defined target market and a strong understanding of the clients that purchase your products and/or services. Allocate your sales efforts, marketing dollars, and research & development investments toward the customers and segments that you can best serve (to whom you can add the most value) and who will provide the greatest value in return (repeat sales). Click here for an example of ways you can define your target market.
Also, allocate your financial resources toward new products and solutions that serve your best customers or can attract more customers that are similar to your best customers.
Once you have focused the majority of your attention on your best customers: offer planned discounting. This involves finding ways to sell higher and higher volumes of products and services to more and more people at lower and lower prices. How can you squeeze out the costs of getting that product or service to the customer and pass the savings onto him or her?
These 5 methods aren’t simple and won’t be easy to implement but if you have taken the time to gather accurate customer data and your focus remains on driving growth and adding genuine value, your patience and diligence will yield stronger customer loyalty and a larger bottom-line.
Adding customer value is critical to driving the growth of your business because without customers that are willing to buy and continue buying your product or service, you will not be in business for very long! Here are five ways you can begin adding value to your customers and your overall business.
1. Hurry up and deliver
Increase the speed you deliver the kind of value people are willing to pay for. We are on the cusp of 2018 and we live in an impatient, technologically advanced society that is accustomed to instant gratification. If you are offering an in demand product or service, people wanted it yesterday! Customers see a direct correlation between your speed of delivery and the value of the product/service you are offering. Increase your speed and see an increase in your bottom line.
2. Know your customers and understand what drives value
Talk to them, survey them, and watch their actions and reactions. In short, capture data to understand what is important to your customers and what opportunities you have to help them. Click here for an example of methods that can be used to capture critical customer data.
3. Know your competition and be determined to be THE BEST
Total quality management can best be defined as: “Finding out what your customer wants and giving it to him or her faster than your competitors.”
To be the best you have to offer better quality than your competition. Click to tweet.
Note: this requires patience and research! Identify the customers and segments where you can create more value relative to competitors.
Be detailed and specific when doing your research because different customers will have varying perceptions of your value relative to your competitors, based on geographic proximity, for example, or a product attribute that one segment may find particularly attractive.
And remember, your customer’s define ‘quality”. You don’t. It is the customer’s specific need, or the benefit that the customer seeks, that defines quality in his or her mind.
4. Increase Convenience
Increase the convenience of contacting your business and purchasing your product or service. Can customers engage with you via phone, email, and in-person meetings? Does your website allow customers to check out quickly and efficiently?
Kissmetrics offers relevant suggestions on how to improve your customer’s online experience. Click here to learn more.
People are willing to pay for convenience-they will pay more online or at a nearby store just because they are unwilling to drive across town to a major shopping center or department store.
5. Grow your business by focusing on your best customers.
Here is where it comes in handy to have a well-defined target market and a strong understanding of the clients that purchase your products and/or services. Allocate your sales efforts, marketing dollars, and research & development investments toward the customers and segments that you can best serve (to whom you can add the most value) and who will provide the greatest value in return (repeat sales). Click here for an example of ways you can define your target market.
Also, allocate your financial resources toward new products and solutions that serve your best customers or can attract more customers that are similar to your best customers.
Once you have focused the majority of your attention on your best customers: offer planned discounting. This involves finding ways to sell higher and higher volumes of products and services to more and more people at lower and lower prices. How can you squeeze out the costs of getting that product or service to the customer and pass the savings onto him or her?
These 5 methods aren’t simple and won’t be easy to implement but if you have taken the time to gather accurate customer data and your focus remains on driving growth and adding genuine value, your patience and diligence will yield stronger customer loyalty and a larger bottom-line.
RSS Feed
