Customer issues are the best opportunity.
A lot of clients ask me what is the best thing they can do on their side in order to sell more products or services. The answer is simple: think about their needs and interests, if something goes wrong take responsibility. This will really make them remember you and more often than not will recommend you to their friends.
When things go wrong, instead of allowing negative emotions to engulf you, say: “Yeah, problems, life is giving me an opportunity to show how much we care about our customers and shine”. You won’t believe how many business owners prefer to whine and stress over small issues with their clients. Other issues give you a similar chance to grow and show ultimate self control on a daily basis but when a customer of yours is involved you are lucky.
When you do things right with a customer you are engaging in the best, the only form of marketing you ever truly want. When a person recommends something to another the conversion rate is >10x that from organic search, social media or paid advertising. Keep in mind that next time you say to some customer that their wish won’t be fulfilled if they have that right.
Prevention is what you should focus on: build the backend
Turning a problem with a customer to a happy customer who refers to you on every corner is one thing, keeping 99%+ of your customers happy with quality, price, delivery, customer service and the overall experience is your number one job. Do that and your job is done except for the rare cases when something completely new comes up. Think about why people buy from Amazon or Tesla: Amazon sells products which for most of the time are 3-rd party, they offer the fulfillment at world class level, they give you the best choice from 1000’s of different sellers and similar products and they have a whole ecosystem which keeps the Attention people ready to buy stuff ( we live in an Attention economy ). Tesla sells a product which is so much better that the EV’s from the old car companies, with so many over the air software updates for free, full of technology and gimmicks which are absent in other cars that when a person looks for a new car their first idea in many cases is “The best value for money is a Tesla car, if I have the charging network around me I am getting one instead of xyz”. When any of those companies design a new car, process, network etc. they are ready to rethink the whole thing from the ground up to achieve a real innovation with value for people.
This is the backend of your business. Regardless of how many years of “experience” other competitors have, these two companies clearly have redesigned and changed the whole playing field in their industries. You should be obsessed with customer satisfaction ( the network, the backend ) and price to value ratio of your products and services.
Price to value ratio
Famously Warren Buffet likes to say that most people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. This becomes more true in my opinion year over year. Although they don’t know the real value, a good % of them will jump out of their chair when they see a good value: don’t conflate this with low price. Offering great value will come with a price, but the value should be there.
My generation of millennials grew up in a world where the things with good value are priced in a ridiculous way, those with average or bad value are still expensive and the cases when value and price are balanced feel like Christmas to us. You will make more money with a Higher volume of Sales when you adopt that approach to business. People would actually care, You will have their Attention and they will share with their friends what great value they have found. I can advise you on one single marketing strategy it goes like this: Care about the People you sell your stuff and Offer great Price to Value ratio.
The middle way
Again, this doesn’t mean offering stuff for cheap. Find balance which works for both sides, find the middle way.
Now go away and Find the Middle Way in your business.
