How make customers feel important

Have you ever wondered why some people buy from a particular vendor instead of another even if they offer the same products and price? For some clients, they will continue to bring their business to a particular vendor.

For most businesses they put more stress on a thinking about how they work and changing the way they do it in order to attract the attention of customers. But only a few entrepreneurs have successfully understood how clients make their purchasing decisions.

Most owners talk about how price competitiveness is essential in driving sales – that if they lower prices then the product or service becomes more attractive, which drives sales up.

This type of strategy could be successfully applied to some products and not everything because current trends in distribution channels have changed the way people look at the retail industry. But the reasons and psychology behind consumer behaviour has remained consistent.

Based on studies, the five leading factors that affect what shoppers buy are: Convenience; relationship with the seller; price/product/time; indifference, and; others.

These factors have been the source of debate of many business owners when it comes to its effects on consumer behaviour but the one factor that has consistently been underplayed is indifference. Based on surveys, it was shown that customers put a lot of weight on perceived indifference than they do on price. In fact, up to 70 per cent of the purchasing decision is based on this factor.

Indifference can either be real or perceived. This happens when the client feels that they are not being valued by the seller. Sellers who complain of indifference feel that:

Their business is not wanted
The seller does not care about them and their needs
The seller is ill-prepared to fight for his business
The seller does not want rise above the competition
But despite these studies entrepreneurs and businessmen still focus on prices. Although lowering prices can have short-term benefits and gives business owners an opportunity to clear out their old stock, this move does not develop long-term relationships. Only by paying attention to customers’ feelings can a business have a better chance of growing and developing further.

Some ways to remove that feeling of indifference when customers contact your business are:

• answer your telephones promptly
• use an on-hold message when you have to make your customers wait on the phone
• Return phone calls on the same day that you receive the message
• Always thank customers for their calls, for visiting your establishment and for buying any of your products or service
• Always be on time for meetings and appointments
• Deliver your products or service at the agreed upon time
• Inform your clients if there is a problem and tell them about the solution being done
• Tell your team to take responsibility in helping customers with their problems and refrain from passing the customer off from department to department
• Keep in touch with your customers regularly
• Keep customers up to date about what’s happening in your business

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