How to Please Your Customer Better Than Your Competition

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of business is keeping your customer happy. Whether you’re in a retail environment where you meet and greet your customers on a day to day basis, or you’re in an office where your interaction with a single customer means the difference between receiving or not receiving your bonus, knowing how to keep your customer happy is essential.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, you might have seen Sainsbury’s recent marketing slip-up where it presented to shoppers a company-internal poster about how to squeeze an extra 50p out of each customer.

This obviously backfired, showing that doing anything to displease a customer can be extremely disadvantageous to a business’s brand. So with that in mind, here are three ways to please your customers better than your competition are.

A First Impression That Lasts

First things first, a good first impression is difficult to get right, but if you do, you’ll leave your customer with a positive lasting impression. If you’re an online business, a good first impression means creating a perfectly functioning, responsive site with great usability and memorable branding.

If you’re a retail business, a good first impression constitutes the way your store appears, how your team are presented, and how team members greet the customer, delivering on their needs.

Going the Extra Mile

Following on from the last point, if you want to keep your customers happy, you should always go the extra mile for them. Although this sounds straightforward in theory, in reality, it can be more difficult to implement than you’d expect.

Ultimately, this philosophy means looking beyond immediate goals to long-term objectives. It might even mean going directly against your immediate goals.

For example, if your customer requires a product that’s not in stock on a busy day, your immediate goal should be to tell the customer you don’t have the product and invest time into securing easy business. However, if you ignore that short-termism, helping to source a product from a nearby store, the customer will be extremely happy and will be likely to tell everybody how great your service was.

Delivering (Literally) on Your Promise

Finally, if your business requires a delivery mechanism, ensure that you’re using only the finest courier system like TNT. Customers might have had a great in-store, online or over-the-phone experience, but if their delivery is late, or – even worse – doesn’t turn up, it can be the end of your business relationship.

With a well-respected delivery service, your customer is also likely to feel more confident in the purchase, too, so if they were undecided as to whether to purchase, hearing that you use a highly regarded courier could be enough to persuade them.

Ultimately, pleasing your customer is a vital part of any business strategy, so follow the above tips to ensure your customers are always happy with their interactions with your business.