Is the Customer Always Right?

/in , /by


Consumers and company owners alike are familiar with one of the most well-known sayings in business: the customer is always right. This saying has been used for years on end. It is most often attributed to the Marshall Field’s Department Store (which later became Macy’s), and Harry Gordon Selfridge who worked for Field at the turn of the 20th century and later founded Selfridges, a high-end department store. These two individuals clearly experienced profound business success, which goes to suggest that perhaps there might be some truth or worth in the old saying as a rule to go by. But what does this phrase actually mean and does it ring true in the modern day commercial field? Here’s everything you need to know.

What Does “The Customer is Always Right” Actually Mean?

“The customer is always right” generally suggests that whatever the customer says goes. After all, they’re the one who has final control over the completion of a sale and the turnover of a business’ profit. It’s fairly clever. Think about it. If a business declares that the customer is always, consumers are more likely to believe that they will receive high-end, high-quality service when shopping with said company. It also encourages staff members to offer the best customer service possible, doing everything in their power to meet customer needs. The success off this can be found in any feedback left on your customer focused ecommerce platform.

oes This Ring True?

Now, there are varied opinions on whether this is the best approach to take towards running a business. After all, nobody is ever truly “always right”. Here are the main arguments for and against implementing this ideology to your own company and the way that it is managed and run.

The Customer Is Always Right

You can learn a whole lot from your customers. After all, they are the individuals purchasing what you’re putting out there on the market. One area where customers are almost always right is demand. You need to take a look at what your customers want and cater to their wishes. This is why market research and customer feedback are so important! These are two methods of directly interacting with your potential customers and existing customers alike. By understanding what they’re looking for in products and services, you can tick all of their boxes, which means that they will be much more likely to invest in what you have to offer. Feedback following their purchase and experience with your company also allows you to make changes to your current practice, constantly improving your brand and what it is putting out there into the consumer market! Never underestimate the value of your customers’ opinions and suggestions.

The Customer Isn’t Always Right

Nowadays, customers tend to be a bit more savvy with the business process. You no longer need to be a business owner to know the tricks of the trade. Think about it: anyone can read up on business practice and process, learning what extremes companies will go to in order to maintain a contented and loyal customer base. More abrasive customers will actively use this to their advantage, purposefully complaining and feigning dissatisfaction as they know that by doing so they can get something for nothing. This isn’t all too surprising. After all, if someone knows that they can make use of a service and then receive it for free at a discounted rate simply by uttering a complaint, then a whole lot of people will give it a go. Sure, this isn’t exactly moral. But there are plenty of people out there who want something for nothing and will take advantage. If your company’s policies are too lax or lenient, they will be abused. Sometimes it may actually prove more beneficial for you to put your foot down and lose a customer who isn’t actually bringing much profit to you than to pander to their demands and hand over your wares for free. Certain people cannot be pleased, no matter how much time or effort you put into making things good for them. That or they will be pleased but won’t express their contentment for their own benefit. You should also prioritise good staff members. Demanding or abrasive customers may talk down to your staff or act in an aggressive or inappropriate manner. To suggest that the customer is always right would be to condone this kind of behaviour and marginalise your staff members who work hard to keep your company and brand afloat. Instead, weigh up each situation individually and determine the best outcome on the facts at hand. It is always best to be fair.

As you can see, there isn’t a clear “yes” or “no” answer to the customer always being right debate. The key to success is to take each case individually, assessing it and making an informed decision each time.

Ever Wonder What Your Customers Wish You Knew?

/in , /by


It’d be great if we could read minds but, unfortunately, that just isn’t possible. But whose mind would you read first if you had the chance? Hopefully, you’d jump at the chance to be able to read your customers’ minds. After all, if you are able to offer them everything that they want, then you can guarantee their loyal custom for years to come.

Reading your customers’ minds is impossible, but if you’ve ever wondered what your customers wish you knew, you should keep reading. We’ve done some research and have uncovered some wishes from the general public.

Quality Is More Important Than Speed

When it comes to the products that they buy, the majority of consumers agree that the quality is a lot more important than speed. Sure, it’s nice to get a product delivered to your door the day after you order it, but if it isn’t up to scratch then there is a high chance that it will be sent back. So, to make sure you don’t have to give out too many refunds, you should always prioritize quality over speed. Slightly increase your delivery times if it means you can improve the quality of your products.

They Have A Short Attention Span

Your customers might not want to admit it, but they don’t have particularly long attention spans. Not when it comes to deciding which company to do business with anyway. So, you shouldn’t overload your website with too much content. Otherwise, you might end up compromising on the overall user experience of your website. Keep content slick and concise so that you get all the information you need in it, and so it doesn’t overwhelm your customers when they visit your site.

Customers Love Things That Are Personalized

Did you know that customers absolutely love personalized products and services? It’s true! In fact, a few different research groups and studies have shown that most customers are will to pay as much as 25% more for products and services that are personalized. So, it really is worth trying to see if there are any ways you can personalize your products. This doesn’t mean writing names on all the things you sell – if your customer service team use a customer’s first name when addressing them, then you should find that this personal service goes down very well.

They Want To Hear Stories

Customers are very bored of traditional marketing strategies and advertising campaigns. I’m sure you are as well! However, there is a current trend for telling stories through advertising. That means setting up a large-scale advertising campaign in which each individual advert makes up a larger story. A story can hold the public’s attention much better, and they will feel a lot more involved with the campaign in general.

So, as you can see, there is plenty that your customers wish you knew. Hopefully, if you take advantage of the above points, your business will reach more of the public and can vastly increase your client and customer base.

The Only Guide You Need For Creating Strong Customer Relationships

/in , /by

Creating strong customer relationships is positively key if you’re going to keep them for the long run. If you don’t mind whether they run off to your competitors, go ahead and leave this article. If you want to make sure that your customers love you and stay with you for the foreseeable future, then you need to know how to create a strong customer relationship. Read on to figure out how you can go about this!

StrategyDriven Cusstomer Relationship Management Article
Photo courtesy of Pexels

Be Honest About What You Can Do

If you’re not honest with your customers about what you can do, you’ll likely tarnish your reputation in the process. You might really want to do what they’ve asked of you, but if you know that you can’t or it won’t be very good, just be honest about it. They’ll respect you far more and you may even be able to come up with a solution. Always be as honest and authentic as possible.

Go Above And Beyond Expectations

Make sure that in every customer interaction you have, you go above and beyond their expectations. Doing more than they expect will make them remember you and come back to you again and again. Look at what your competitors do and figure out what you can do that will set you apart. Always aim to offer incredible value for money, unrivalled customer support, speedy delivery, and other things that will make you stand out.

Keep Things Lighthearted

Keep things lighthearted with your customers and they’ll feel more ready to open up to you about what they need. If they feel you are rude, indifferent, or unhelpful, they’re going to go somewhere else and ask questions. Be as helpful and happy as you can.

Learn As Much About Them As Possible

Learning as much about your customers as possible is important. After all; each one is individual – they are far more than just a number. You can learn about them in various ways, and there’s even software you can get that tracks the visitors who come to your site and gives you information about them so you can start building a strong relationship right away. One option is visual visitor. But is visual visitor worth signing up for? You do your research and decide!

Email Marketing

If you’ve met a few potential clients recently, perhaps at a conference or expo, you need to make sure they remember you. Often, no matter how friendly you are, they won’t remember you or what you do right from the get-go. Make sure you follow up after a meeting immediately, so that you stick in their minds. Personalize your emails to them if possible. Remember though; people are rarely ready for what you have to offer when you first meet them. This is why getting their emails and giving free insight is a great way to stick around in their brains for when the right time comes.

Remember that happy, loyal, engaged customers will be the best free marketing you will get. They will become like sales people for you, raving about your business and making sure everybody knows what they think. Make sure you use these tips to build strong customer relationships and you’ll create exactly this for your business!

Why Your Clients Won’t Pay Up On Time, And What To Do About It

/in /by

One of the most frustrating things in business are clients who won’t pay on time. Your accounts receivable might be making your balance sheet look healthy, but if the money doesn’t actually arrive in your account, it’s no use to you whatsoever.

How Slow And Non Paying Clients Put Your Business At Risk

Slow paying clients aren’t just a nuisance. They can cause your business serious financial harm. First, customers who pay late can cause serious cash flow problems. You may have made decisions in advance, such as taking on a new employee or signing a new contract, banking on the fact that you would get paid by a specified date. But when clients don’t pay up, you can experience a cash flow shortfall, even if your underlying business is healthy. Not having cash on hand in the present can lead to serious relationship problems with your staff and suppliers, especially when they go unpaid.

The second issue is the extra administrative burden non-paying clients place on your business. Not only do you not have the money you’re owed in your account, but you also have to pay out extra administrative costs to chase people up. What’s more, the repercussions of non-payment can affect people at the senior level – the very people who should be focusing on moving the business forward. Wondering whether you might get paid takes your mind off other tasks, reducing your creativity and causing additional stress.

If you find that late invoice payments are a perennial problem for your business, then it might be time to revamp your payment collection process. The good news is that there is a lot you can do to remedy the problem of late-paying clients. Here’s what to do.

Make Invoicing More Convenient

One of the reasons why your clients might not be paying you on time is that your invoicing process is complicated or antiquated. In a world of instant gratification like ours, people don’t want to have to jump through hurdles to do something as simple as making a payment. What they want is to be able to quickly and easily pay you the money you’re owed and move on. Thus, friction in the payment process can be a real problem.

The good news is that technology has made it easier than ever to pay. Paying for your business services needn’t be any more difficult than ordering a new pair of shoes online. So long as your business has a merchant account, many accounting software packages now come with the option of sending a card payment option along with digital invoices, meaning that your customers don’t even have to do a bank transfer. If you use a cloud solution, you can make the process even easier by allowing people to pay using mobile devices.

StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article
 
Use Spot Factoring

Small and medium-sized businesses regularly find themselves in the following situation. They’ve just completed a large order and used a significant amount of their capital in the process. They get another large order in from a different client, but they’re unable to fulfill it because they still haven’t been paid for the first. In short, they have nothing in the bank to pay their suppliers and vendors.

In situations like this, companies need advice on slow paying clients. One of the best pieces of advice out there is to use spot factoring, a process where a third party company buys up the invoice and immediately pays out a cash value for it. This process provides your company with immediate funding and passes on the hassle of chasing up late payments from a client onto somebody else.

Create A Better Relationship With Your Client

Another reason why clients don’t pay up on time could be to do with your relationship with them. They might not be conscious of your existence, or worse, they might not like you. Customers will find all sorts of reasons not to pay on time, or at all, including what they think about you personally.

To really get clients on your side, you need to create personal relationships with them. Ideally, you’d generate a creating great business partnerships tips, empathy, and understanding which would make it uncomfortable for the client to make a late payment. Having a close relationship with a client also makes it easier to broach the issue, should they fail to pay on time. Being able to call them up and discuss it over is often a lot more productive than simply sending them a threatening letter in the post.

Ask For Money Up Front

In some industries, the sellers of a new product or service have the luxury of asking for payment up front. But even if that isn’t how your industry typically operates, there are still options open to you.

One idea is to break up a project into chunks. Get clients to pay for small chunks of the project as you go along. This way, you have the security of getting regularly paid before spending resources to carry out work, and your client can test the waters, rather than paying for everything up front before knowing whether you’re going to do a good job or not.

Some clients might actually prefer to pay up front. By paying up front, they know that they’re not going to get smacked with a big bill later on.

Settle Payments Terms In Writing Before Carrying Out Work

Late payments or non-payments can sometimes arise out of confusion. Often, clients simply don’t know when they’re supposed to pay, and so they wait and wait until something happens. If your company is relying on good cash flow to pay staff and suppliers, then you want to avoid this situation at all costs.

When you get down to the matter of payment, establish a payment timetable with your client in writing. Although formal relationships like this might seem a little extreme, they can actually be very effective at building trust. Your customers will take the arrangement more seriously if it is in writing and will get the impression that you’re not messing around. You run a tight ship, and you expect them to pay on time.

Six Ways To Boost Revenue By Building Client Trust

/in /by

StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

What’s the one way to guarantee repeat custom from a new client? Trust. All successful relationships, whether personal or business, have to be built on it. If a customer doesn’t trust that you’re genuine or that you have their best interests at heart, they won’t be back for a second round, and they certainly won’t recommend you to colleagues and friends. Building that relationship of trust between seller and buyer is essential for keeping a contract strong, and here are just a few ways you can guarantee it.

1. Listen, don’t talk

It’s impossible to offer the appropriate products to a customer if you think you know better than they do about their needs. Listening to them talk about their wants and their concerns can better help you to understand exactly what it is they require, so when you come to talk, you’re offering the perfect solution. A client wants to know they’re being heard, so practice your listening skills and prove to them that they’re important.

2. Be realistic

Promising the Earth might make you look good at the point of sale, but when you can’t actually pull it off, you’re going to look like a fool whose mouth is too big. If you promise a specific product within a specific timeframe, just to secure a deal when they are stalling, knowing deep down that it’s impossible, you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. They are being honest with you about their expectations, and unfortunately, it is your place to explain to them if their expectations are unreasonable. Sooner that than having to let them down in the future.

3. Be identifiable

Customers like knowing who they are dealing with, whether over the phone or face to face. On telephone calls, always introduce yourself at the start and end of the call – you put a name and a responsibility to the transaction so they feel they can call back and speak directly to a recognisable person. In face to face communications, always wear identification like a name badge or ID on a lanyard such as those in this catalogue. This allows customers to take note of your name, but it also reassures them that you’re a professional, and you are officially associated with the company.

4. Don’t make excuses

Sometimes things go wrong, through no fault of your own, and your customer has to to find out. In these situations, don’t make excuses. Simply explain what has happened, offer your apologies, and move on to explaining your proposed solutions. Excuses sound like you’re trying to wriggle your way out of responsibility, and your customer just won’t appreciate that.

5. Don’t bad-mouth the competition

If you ever have to talk about your direct competition, keep it civil and cordial. Even if you think they’re dreadful as an organisation, your customer doesn’t need to know that – it just comes across as petty and insincere.

6. Keep your promises

Finally, never ever renege on a promise unless you absolutely have to. If you’re building trust with a client, you want them to know that you’ll always keep your word. Once you break that, it’s almost irreparable, but if you put your neck on the line and make promises, only to keep them, you’ll be placing yourself far beyond the competition.