Various surveys have indicated that price is not the most important factor when customers are deciding whether to deal with a particular business.
The influence of price is normally rated around 7 in most surveys. The only time that price is important is when all other factors are equal. Some of the factors, which are considered important by the customers, are:
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Make me feel welcome.
Receptionists and retail shop staff should be trained to greet visitors as soon as they arrive at the business premises. Greet them in a manner that encourages conversation. Don’t give the telephone preference over the person standing in front of the receptionist or sales person.
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Be interested in them.
Do not copy what your competitors do! To be successful in business, you need to be different. One of the ways that you can convey that you are interested in customers is to have alerted reception staff of visitors to the office that day, so that they can be appropriately greeted by name when they arrive. The receptionist should know whom the visitor has to see. The greeter should have a system, which outlines the various stages of the greeting that they utilise with the visitor.
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Solve my problems.
That is why the customer has come to your business. S/he believes that you can solve his/her problem. If you can do that, the customer will be pleased and pay your price and will also recommend other people to go and see you.
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Do not suffer from the curse of assumption.
Do not assume that everyone in the market place knows all about your business, or in deed do not assume that all of your customers know about your business.
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What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)
Ultimately, the customer is really interested in “what’s in it for me”… how are you going to answer that question?
As a consumer, what is most important to you?
Article by Christie Lewis
Christie is Practice Manager at Alan Lewis Accountants . Besides accounting, her passion is for all things small business (and blogging, of course). You can contact Christie directly at christie@lewistaxation.com.au.
Christie has written 811 awesome articles for us at Alan Lewis Accountants – BLOG
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