Yesterday, I talked about being genuine. The overall ‘tone’ of the post was to help people to understand why referrals sometimes don’t work.
Today, I want to talk about how referrals fit into the Four Ways To Create Value. This all forms part of your business strategy.
When you begin to think of your business in a strategic rather than tactical sense, you start to focus on the longer term goals and what it is that you want to do. No surprises there.
But did you know that at a business level(as opposed to a corporate level – more on that in later posts) that there are four main ways to create value for your customer?
Broadly, in no particular order, they are:
- Innovation
- Efficiency
- Quality
- Customer Responsiveness
The one I want to focus on today is Customer Responsiveness.
Usually when people think of customer responsiveness, the first thing that they associate is customer service. Whilst customer service is important, it is not all of the issue.
Customer service is about when the customer actually transacts with your business – either to purchase, complain, make enquiries, return items, pre-order – whatever. There is no doubt that you have to be good at this.
Customer responsiveness is about satisfying needs, reacting to wants, anticipating requirements – all this might have to occur before the customer ever gets in contact with your firm.
So, how do you do it? Well, that depends.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Define who your customers are. Don’t say “It’s everyone”; it clearly isn’t. You can’t seriously tell me that the housewife in Moony Ponds has the same needs/wants/desires as the 17 yo school leaver from New York…
- Once you have defined who your customer is – plug into their world. Online is a great way to do this. Monitor the chat rooms; read the kind of magazines that they read; use the same technology that they do; go and do what they do…
- Look to see if there is a need that is being unfulfilled. If your customers are dog walkers, how can you satisfy their needs in a way no one else has? Here is a great example of what I am talking about – at this cafe they satisfy the need for humans and dogs to socialise. It’s getting plenty of press coverage including TV. The next step for these guys? – might I suggest “Doggy Dating”? How many dog owners are single? Wouldn’t a range of ‘romantic picnic hampers for two’ be good? The next step after that? Franchising the idea?
By satisfying customer needs first you get a huge advantage – often it’s called the first mover advantage. You can begin to build your brand, making it harder for other competitors to copy you. One thing that we know abut people (customers) is that they are often creatures of habit. If you can continue to satisfy their needs (in a genuine way), they will often keep coming back. They might even start giving you referrals.
You just have to focus on their needs – and respond.
Of course, you also need to know when you are losing customers – and why they are drifting away. Have you not clearly identified what they need? How will you know?
Customer responsiveness requires ongoing work – you need to monitor what’s going on and always be one step ahead. It’s not just about having one idea and then trading on it and hoping that it ‘has legs’. We all know that customers can get bored and will look for alternatives that better satisfy their needs if you aren’t doing it.
Focusing on customer responsiveness is a powerful way to connect with your customers and to generate loyalty, and build your business – and that is what you want.
