It’s Simple: Recognize That Customers Are People

How to keep your customers coming back

Published: Thursday, August 11, 2022 - 12:03

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. Without them, there would be no profits to distribute, no people to serve, and no reason to continue operating. To keep your business running on a path to growing success, you need to offer a customer experience that will make customers choose your brand every time.

The importance of customer experience

When a customer interacts with your brand, whether they’re simply browsing through your website, buying a product, or creating a review of your service, this is already part of the customer experience. What they feel, do, and think at that moment affects their whole perception of your brand. Their impression of it, whether positive or negative, can make or break your business.

Customer experience is also a way for businesses to communicate with their customers on a deeper level. What you do matters more than what you say. Giving a great customer experience demonstrates that you prioritize customers’ needs and wants, which leads them to prefer your brand over others.

Over time, a good customer experience can translate into increased sales, productivity, and customers who voluntarily advocate for your business. It also creates an open line of communication with your customers on how to improve products and services. By investing in your customer experience, you can arm your businesses with a powerful engine for growth.

Customers are people

If you want to give a customer an experience that keeps them coming back, the first thing you have to do is recognize that customers are people. They’re humans with their own feelings, stories, and needs. They’re not targets you can just tick off after a sale and forget.

Once you have this mindset, you’ll be more attentive to how your customers think before, during, and after they experience your product or service. You’ll also listen more intently to what they have to say about your business. When you know these things, you can easily develop more customer-centric strategies.

Solve their problem, keep their trust

Customers will keep coming back to a product or service as long as all their needs are still being satisfied. When they see your business as the perfect solution to their problems, they have no reason to switch to a different one. So it’s good to understand what your customers like about your product and what they think it’s lacking.

Keeping their trust is also important. If you want them to prefer your brand over others, you have to make sure your brand is worthy of their loyalty. You can do this by maintaining the quality of your products and services, as well as staying updated on trends and underlying problems that need solving before customers voice them.

Doing proper market research for market growth is a good practice. Aside from studying your current customers, you’re also understanding the market as a whole. You’ll be able to prepare your business to serve more customers, while ensuring that you won’t neglect your current customer base as you grow.

Involve your customers

Being involved in creating or improving something can make it more meaningful. The same goes when customers get involved with your business. For instance, you can give them a say in how you should package items, new products or services you could release, or locations where you should be available.

How do you do this? Be direct. Conduct surveys in your physical or online stores, and allow customers to leave reviews after using your products or services. Create campaigns that engage your customers so that they’re motivated to post, comment, or share their thoughts about your brand.

While doing this, don’t forget to interact with them. Let them know that you hear them. Internally, consider their suggestions and recommendations to see if they fit your business strategy and goals.

The benefits of a community

The world is much more connected these days, especially in the digital space. One person can talk about something, and those interested in the same topic can join in until the conversation exponentially grows. This instantly creates communities, which are powerful groups of people who pool together for a common interest or goal.

For business owners, engaging in communities related to your brand can build positive conversations that boost your reputation. You can create more buzz for your business, and more people will be aware of your products and services. Communities will also enable you to reach and connect with your target market easily.

For customers, being part of a community gives them a feeling of belonging. When they attach this feeling to your brand, you’ll gain trust and loyalty. Customers will feel more open to expressing their opinions, which are valuable insights for your business.

Delivering a great customer experience

Improving customer experience is complex. It should always be something you think about when you’re performing strategic growth planning, executing marketing and advertising campaigns, and even training employees. Because of this, it’s something you should work on constantly.

The tips provided in this article are good to begin with, but forming specific strategies and tactics means getting to know your own business model, industry, and customers.

If you need expert advice on analyzing your customers and seeing how you can give them the best experience possible, try getting a marketing director on your team.

What does a marketing director do? A marketing director knows how markets work and has experience in growing businesses through marketing and communications. You can seek a part-time marketing director from Boardroom Advisors to conduct a thorough review of your business and market before taking strategic action.

About The Author

John Courtney

John Courtney is founder and chief executive of BoardroomAdvisors.co, which provides part-time executive directors (commercial/operations/managing directors), non-executive directors, and paid mentors to SMEs without either a recruitment fee or a long-term contract. John is a serial entrepreneur, having founded seven different businesses over a 40-year period, including a digital marketing agency, corporate finance, and management consultancy. He has trained and worked as a strategy consultant, raised funding through angels, VCs, and crowd funding, and exited businesses via MBO, MBI, and trade sale.