Your Customers Need To Buy From Someone. Will It Be You??

     The fact is, in today's economy, the consumer often has the upper hand in what they buy and where they buy it. But the one thing that has remained constant is that customer still HAVE to purchase certain items. The key is whether they make those purchases from your business or from your competition. Today, customers have more choices than ever before. They can pick and choose to see which business can provide them with the best overall value. Usually customers will buy from the merchant that provides the best overall customer experience.

     It used to be that the merchant with the best price or the best selection got the most business. Sadly, that is no longer the case today. Our customers, with more options available to them now than ever before, are far more demanding. Price and selection are only two of the factors that lead to closing a sale. today our customers expect more. Much, much more.

     Our customers today can access hundreds of potential sources for their product and compare prices and selection without leaving their homes. With the advent of the Internet, price and selection became secondary in importance. Other factors such as before and after sales service and support, knowledgeable sales people, friendly atmosphere, ease of purchase, financial options all became more important aspects of the customer experience.

     One very important thing to remember is that when you customer does not buy from you, they do not simply do without their product. The simply go somewhere else. If you sell cars and your customer does not like something about the experience they received from your dealership, they will not walk to work, they will just go to anther dealership and purchase their new car there.

Customers Will Make their Purchase somewhere. They Will Not Do without What they Need or Want!

     So, if you believe this is true, every sales that you do not close, every customer that does not buy from you has to go somewhere. That somewhere is your competition! Your goal, your single, solitary goal, is to strive to make as certain as possible that every customer that walks through your door will not be given even a single reason to go anywhere else!

    That is a huge concept but a very critical one for every business to understand. Any time you give a customer a reason, any reason, to look anywhere else, you run the risk of losing that customer. After all, the customer came to you for a reason and that reason likely cost you money. Perhaps they responded to a print ad, perhaps they purchased from you before or maybe they came from a recommendation. Whatever the reason, the customer is giving you a chance to claim their current and future business and you need to act on that chance.

    The problem is that most people are not training on how to take care of the customer. customer Service is more than a smile or saying thank you when they leave. It is about communication, interaction, exchanging information, and having processes and policies in place that help create as perfect a customer experience as possible. The purpose of all of this is to eliminate any excuse for the customer to go elsewhere.

     Customer Service Training is important because it teaches us how to determine what is important to the customer and how to get information from our customers. We use that information to make changes in our customer experience so people find doing business with us happier, more fun, and more satisfying. Basically, we become more customer friendly. Information, though, is the King of the process.

     Why?

     Most customers who leave and go elsewhere will do so without ever telling you why they are leaving. Telling you in person is confrontational in nature and most people will do their best to avoid confrontation. Writing a note or sending an e-mail is too much work for some people. so, the result is that people left for some reason and you will never know why. So that reason will still exist for the next customer and the one after that and the one after that. Finding out why our customers stay with us or leave is critical to our long term success.

     Customer Service training teaches us three basic things. It teaches us how to be responsive to our customers needs and it teaches us how to interact with other and obtain much needed information. The third thing Customer Service training teaches us is how to become aware of how every aspect of our business relates to our customers. After all, you cannot become "Customer friendly" if we are not aware of what our customers want and how our business relates to those needs.

     I urge each an every one reading this, whether you won a business or whether you work with customers, to ask yourself if you have the skills to provide the very best customer experience to your customers. I urge you to ask yourself what you can do to improve your skills and your ability to provide the very best service and experience to the next customer that crosses your path.

     Your customers will buy from someone. It is your duty to take the steps necessary to make sure someone is YOU!