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Customers Want your Help. Customers are not randomly looking for things to buy from you. Customers want you to help them with a need. Whether your product or service makes a task easier or more manageable for them or allows them to focus energies on another aspect of their life--your company must help customers do something that they either do not want to do or cannot do for themselves. You are not just providing a product or service--you are helping a customer in some way. Assisting a customer is much more personal than merely selling him a gift basket or designing his website.
Customers Expect Professionalism--Even from a Home Based Business. Your customer doesn't care if you operate a one-person business or employ thousands. That customer entrusts you to provide a good or service effectively, efficiently and professionally. Ideally, your customer should never know if you are a home-based business or a large corporation. While you may do business on a smaller scale; your level of professionalism should always be on par with your competitors.
Customers Expect your Respect. No matter the size of your company, you should expect to make customer service a priority. Treating customers with respect and courtesy is not only the right thing to do from a moral, human standpoint--but, it is also useful for business. Protecting private customer information, ensuring that you provide quality products and services and providing a positive customer experience shows that you respect your customer and value their business in today's transaction and look forward to their return business in the future.
Customers Want you to Remember Them. While you may not be operating a small, brick and mortar shop with regular clients and customers drifting in and out throughout the day--you should still put forth some effort to "remember" details about your customers. Maybe you employ a master data management strategy to help you store and sort birthdays or anniversaries or special purchases. Maybe you make special notes about each interaction so that you can "reminisce" a bit during future calls or orders. Asking about a child's recent birthday party or remembering a graduation makes your customers feel less like a number and more valued. They will never know that you used a notes app or a data management service to "remember" them!
Customers Want to Remember You and Your Business. More than likely, there are 100's or 1000's of businesses providing your product or service (or something very similar) either physically within an easy drive of your neighborhood or city or online. What makes you different than your competitors? Customers like being return customers--they often like familiarity and the more intimate interactions of dealing with a small business. Customers are also bombarded with ads and distractions and other companies vying for their attention (and their money). Customers do want to remember you and your business--you need to make sure that you make their experiences with your company positive ones and keep your company's name present in follow-up activities over the months or years following your initial service.
We know that you know that customers want your product or service--we don't want you to forget that your customers want a lot more from you and your home based small business as well! Owning your own business allows you to make business dealings more personal and memorable. Customers need a reason to return to your business--make sure that you give them what they really want from your company in addition to the primary product or service you offer.
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