Monday, October 20, 2008

You Either Lose Customers, Or Your Customer Levels Plateau Out

Business.

Business growth because it's easy - business growth is dependent on many things, but all agree that the main source are your customers. A close look at many of the best and biggest companies reveal that there' s one strong reason why they do far better than their competitors: they serve the customer the best.


So one thing that can help you grow your bottom line is to make it easy for your customers to buy and deal with your business. - you don' t have to look very far to find examples - fedex, home depot, google, paypal, amazon. com to name a few. There is a key descriptive word which can unlock the secrets of these companies. How do they get the direction and focus to know what it takes to serve their customers the best? The word is. "easy" . "Easy" describes almost every aspect of the marketing, and customer relations, sales of successful corporations. Huge amounts of money are invested in technology, operating systems, personnel, back - up and refund allowances in order to achieve a total customer satisfaction by creating an ease throughout all aspects of dealing with them. They have carefully thought everything out for the benefit of the customer.


Here' s a quick list to give you an idea: Easy to understand( what they are and what they do) Easy to find. - easy to pay for it. Easy to get to( location, etc, website. ) Easy to get or buy. Easy to complain. Easy to buy again or more. Easy to return products. This describes what we would call" user - friendly" or" customer - friendly" .


Unfortunately so many companies balk at investing money, time and effort to make things easy for customers. - and in the end, it pays off. So what happens? Here are some great ideas for you: An example from real estate: => Offer mortgage financing at better - than - norm rates for the new home buyers. => set up deals with contractors and trade people to follow up on the customers so that if anything goes wrong in the house, the customer doesn' t have to struggle to get someone to fix the problem. => Offer painting services at a discount at 5 to 7 year cycles. You either lose customers, or your customer levels plateau out. Same can go for other things that can break down over time, like air duct cleaning, and roofing, furnaces.


The customer has to run out of the vitamins and nutrients before they come to buy from you. => Give them lists and charts to make it easy for them to keep track of their supplies This can even be in the form of software. => Set up a system where a bulk package( prepaid of course) of the vitamins and nutrients gets sent at regular intervals, so the customer never runs out. => Call before the next shipment to find out if the customer wants to make any changes on the next order. - an example from the food industry: let' s say you have a company that sells vitamins and nutrients. Example from dentistry: => Make waiting rooms more pleasant( find a way to get rid of that smell that dentists' offices often have, perhaps with a aerator) => Have little tv monitors on ceilings to distract people from the dental work. => A lot of dentists I know don' t have e - mail. IF you open your eyes and think about it, there are THOUSANDS of ways to make things easier for your customers, suppliers, clients, partners, etc, employees. dealing with every aspect of business. This can help with communication, etc, information. => Dentists can pool their resources and make websites to educate customers about their services. If you want your company to rise above the ranks of your competitors, then do the following: 1) Analyze your business and break the functional components into a list like the" easy" list above. 2) Find creative ways to to make it easy for your customers or clients to go through the entire process from first meeting you to long after they have purchased from you. 3) Make these changes one by one, testing them to see if they work or are worth the money or effort. 4) With the ones that work, keep them and work on the next change.


You' ll probably see beneficial results on your bottom line before long!

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