5 Easy Ways to Make Yourself a Pleasure to Do Business With

Your startup is up and running. You have a growing and devoutly loyal customer base. Your nascent enterprise is making a big impression on the local business landscape.

This is all wonderful news. But watch your back! Your competitors are hot on your heels and they’re probably not crazy about the new kid on the block poaching their customers. In fact, it’s fair to say that every business in every industry is that little bit more aware of the competition these days.

We live in the digitally enlightened era, after all. Customers have become much more autonomous since they have access to all the information they need to make informed consumer choices from the comfort of their smartphones. In an era where customers can afford to be more fickle than ever, it behoves businesses of all shapes and sizes to bring value to their customers and make themselves a pleasure to do business with. Here are some ways in which you can do exactly that.

Adapt to their needs

It’s great that your business is neatly structured and tightly organized. Just be wary of letting rigidity impinge on your customers’ experience. To quote Jeet Kune Do founder Bruce Lee… “Be like water, my friend!”. Water’s adaptability allows it to be gentle yet powerful. It can fit into any container and be frozen to make any shape. Sometimes, a little fluidity goes a long way when it comes to your customers’ experience. If your coffee shop stops serving breakfast at 11 but a customer wants to order from the breakfast menu at 11:30, it pays to adapt to their needs. Your customer wants to order something “off menu”, why alienate them? Your loyal customer has gone vegan this year? Make sure that you have plenty of plant based options to offer them. Okay, so these are all service industry related examples, but it bears considering how you can adapt your operations to better accommodate the customer’s needs.

Make life easy for the customer

Convenience was once considered a luxury. Today it’s a necessity. Today’s fickle customers expect the brands they do business with to do the work so that they don’t have to. As such, they expect you to go the extra mile to make yourself more available to them.

The good news is that there are many different ways in which you can do this. You can use a service like Stripe or Payanywhere to allow them to make easy and secure credit card payments. You can accept payments via Android or Apple pay. You can even accept payment via Bitcoin if you really want to go the extra mile.  

Leverage your CRM to show customers you care

Customers want to feel valued. They want you to see them as a person outside of your transaction with them. If you can demonstrate that you care about them and value them this can go a long way towards ensuring their loyalty. Here’s where your CRM becomes your best friend and your most powerful tool. Not only can it give you information pertaining to previous transactions and customer preferences, they also tend to have notes sections in which you can jot down potentially important data which will help you to build value into future transactions. If they should happen to mention that they’re getting married, try and make a note of the date so that you can ask them about the service when you next see them. If they mention that they’ve recently promoted, make a note so that you can find a way to say congratulations. And, needless to say, you should make note of your birthday so that you can…

Pleasantly surprise them

If there’s one thing that builds value and pleasure into your interactions with your customers, it’s GLUE. That’s Giving Little Unexpected Extras. Expected extras are great, and your rewards scheme should be built around giving customers more of what they want… But when extras are unexpected and given without the appearance of agenda they are that much more meaningful to the customer. They give them a pleasant surprise (and who doesn’t love those) but perhaps more importantly they show that you care. Which brings us to…

Put your ethics front and center

Finally, it’s no longer enough for businesses to turn a profit today. In an ethically and ecologically aware age, they have to be able to demonstrate that they can make an honest buck ethically and sustainably. Thus, you should wear your ethical and green credentials on your sleeve. Show your customers how you’re always finding fairer and more ecologically responsible ways of operating. This is a big deal for many consumers, especially millennial consumers and studies show that they are prepared to pay more to do business with brands that put ethics first.

This is a contributed post.