How To Grow Your Business WITHOUT a Lot of $$$?
If there’s one thing that you can do to grow your physical business with zero (or not much) financial investment, what would it be?
Let’s find out.
In my years of experience observing the dynamics of customer experience at all the places I’ve been to across countries, I find it easy to say that:
Most businesses treat serving their customers as performing their tasks.
Like at a restaurant, take an order, serve the order, bill the customer, say thank you, and your tasks are done.
They lack personalization.
They lack making that little effort to add something ‘extra’ to their customer’s experience.
They lack the drive to delight them!
And that makes a product or a service just like any other.
It merely becomes, you get what you pay for.
However, the goal is to not only make you feel worth more than what you paid for but also make your day by surpassing your expectations and making your experience a memorable one.
We’re not talking about saying a mere thank you with a smile or giving gifts (although those add to the overall positive experience).
We’re talking about treating your customer as if it’s your first date with a person you’re incredibly attracted to. And it’s your only chance to blow their mind with the effort you put into impressing them!
Now, this is all when your customer is not asking for anything.
But what if they do express a need, problem, or a request?
“What! An expression from a customer!” If I were you, I’d hope for this to happen with every customer.
Because this gives a free chance on adding another star to your customer’s experience.
If you’re doing everything you can to make your customer’s experience an incredible one, this gives an extra opportunity to delight them.
For example: If you run a spa business and your customer mentions that they’re feeling cold.. the temperature isn’t quite right.
Then apart from regulating the room and/or water temperature, you can offer them a complimentary hot tea or coffee.
That’d be an unexpected thing for them and this sweet gesture of yours is sure to make them feel cared for.
The key lies in listening to them.
There’s always a reason behind, which they might either serve you upfront, or you just need to ask them. And once you identify the reason, fulfilling that need directly, or going above and beyond makes for a true champion, and a “power customer” or “raving fan”.
But how does this grow my business?
When you deliver a memorable experience, it causes a ripple effect on your revenues.
It not only earns the customers loyalty — making them your customer for life. It also transforms a mere customer into a free marketing opportunity.
And each of these marketing opportunities can potentially bring in more customers, and when they are satisfied, they can bring in even more customers!
Such experiences, when delivered, consistently shifts the paradigm of the customer’s expectations.
And that does a few things to your business:
- It eliminates the competition by creating a whole new playing field with no significant financial investment.
- It delivers one of the highest financial returns.
- Makes your business growth journey fulfilling and exciting.
Transforming every customer into a POWER CUSTOMER
In the tech world, we call the early adopters of a new product “Power Users”.
They are so excited about a product that they’ll use it like a child a plays with their favorite new toy.
More importantly, they’d go all bonkers to talk about it in their network and become an excellent source for word-of-mouth marketing.
This provides all the initial traction that a new product needs to take off.
Now, for the physical service businesses, there’s an excellent opportunity to turn every customer into what I call a “Power Customer”.
Because there’s so much more room to make an unforgettable impression.
This is due to the tangible nature of the business and the face-to-face human interactions involved.
If such businesses can manage to delight their customers and leave them more than satisfied by over-delivering, and going beyond their expectations, then each such customer can become a Power Customer or evangelist.
A Power Customer has the power to bring in so many more customers by sharing what a phenomenal experience they had with a product/service. And they’re bound to do that because of natural human behavior, we share anything that’s not normal with other human beings in one form or another
Ok! Enough of the high-level, blah-blah-blah, let me share a practical example
Let’s take the restaurant again.
When a customer is done with their meal, the restaurant can have their chef visit the customer’s table — with a little complimentary chocolate (which some already place in their check/bill tray) to personally check with them on how was their food?
Which dish did they like the most and if there’s anything that can be improved?
This would show that the restaurant actually cares!
And since this humble unexpected gesture comes right before leaving the restaurant, it’d make it memorable.
Interestingly there’s also a collateral effect of delivering a phenomenal customer experience, and that is the feeling of fulfillment!
If you recall ‘making someone’s day’, you’d know what I’m talking about :)
Glad that you made it till the end!
Thank you for reading :)
And if there’s anything that you’d like to share on improving customer experience, do drop a comment.
Would be happy to hear any thoughts!
Also if you’d like to craft out an exclusive experience for your business and make your services exceptional in the ever expanding congested, noisy, competitive environment, reach out to me at deepak.choudhary.cx@gmail.com
