A customer-first strategy is just what it sounds like. This means working consistently and proactively to deliver a positive experience for every purchaser by establishing operations and practices with the customer in mind. In the end, you want someone who will be loyal to you and your business for a long time to come. Plus, customer loyalty and happiness have a tendency to spread. When people find businesses they like and trust, they want to tell their friends about it too.
Regardless of what industry you’re in, your customers are the most important part of your business. Without them, you have no sales.
Getting to know your customers and their needs and wants, will help you do a better job of putting them first and creating a great experience for them. Not doing so can cause situations where your customers don’t return.
Recently, I went to dinner with a few friends to a new restaurant. The server was pleasant, took our drink orders and returned quickly to serve us. I ordered a popular seltzer drink and she had asked me what flavor I wanted. When she returned, she told me that I was not allowed to pick my flavor and hoped that the one she brought would be okay. I asked her to repeat what she said because I was in disbelief… As it turns out, the flavor she brought was not one I liked so she returned to the bar. When she returned again, she had a different flavor that was acceptable to me and explained that they were saving certain flavors because they were popular.
As a paying customer it certainly didn’t make me feel good to hear that. I’m not sure who else they would be saving those flavors for? This situation could have been delt with very differently by utilizing a customer-first mindset. For example, she could simply have said, “These are the flavors we have available for you.” I could have picked from the choices without being told they were being saved for some other future paying customer. This is a training issue and certainly not the servers’ fault, but it definitely left a negative impression with myself and my friends.
Making efforts to understand the customers, their circumstances, their preferences, and their expectations of service by collecting feedback will enable you to design services and products around their needs thus implementing a customer first strategy. No one is perfect and there are always some bumps along the way, but remember complaints provide an opportunity to correct and improve the services you offer enabling you to continue to put the customer first.
Consider these Customer Acceleration tips that will help you make more money from your customers and make them happier in the process!
And if you’d like some help with it, please reach out at (216-876-1165) I’m happy to help you get started.
