Is It Easy For Customers To Patronize You?

“One afternoon at a shopping mall during the busy Christmas season, a consultant ventured into an athletic shoe store to buy some new running shoes. This particular consultant actually specialized in retail. He consulted both for retailers trying to improve their operations, as well as for manufacturers trying to sell their wares in to retailers and retail chains. So whenever he went out on his own to buy anything he was always an observant shopper.

On that day the shoe store seemed to be especially busy so he took a place in queue behind two other folks being helped by one of the sales reps. And as he waited, he saw that the salesman offered the same off-brand (lesser known brand) to each of the customers – customers who looked like they would have been willing to pay full price for a better name.

The first customer, he said, had been interested in a pair of Nike basketball shoes, but the salesman first brought out this off-brand, at about half the price of the Nike, and the customer ended up buying them.

The same sales process, with the same result, ensued with the next customer, a woman who originally had said she was interested in the Reebok cross-trainers. But the salesman again talked the customer into trying out the cross-trainers from this off-brand first, and she bought them.

After watching two sales snatched from the jaws of well-known national brands, the consultant’s curiosity was aroused. So when it was his turn to buy, he first asked the salesman why he had switched the two previous customers to this particular off-brand – a brand he’d never even heard of. After all, the consultant said, these customers seemed to have been willing to pay higher prices for the well-known brands.

 Oh, the salesman replied, it had nothing to do with margin or pricing, nothing at all. But he seemed a bit nervous at having been found out, and so my friend persisted. Was this off-brand paying some kind of bonus commission, then? Or was there some kind of contest or promotion going on? No, the salesman said. No, that wasn’t it.

Then the clerk gestured toward all the people crowded into the store on this very busy afternoon. Look around, he said. See how busy it is in here? I don’t even have time to slip away for a coffee or a bathroom break on a day like this, that’s how crowded it is!.

But this particular off-brand? Whenever they ship their shoes to the store, the laces are already in them, so it saves the clerk a lot of time, not to have to lace up one of the other brands”

Easy for customers

– Author unknown

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The story illustrates the importance of making it easy for your customers to patronize your business and use services on offer. In this story the Shoe store is the customer to the ‘off-brand’ shoe manufacturer, and by simply taking the extra time to lace their shoes before distributing to stores, they made it easier for this Shoe store to sell their product – The shoe store reps are happy, their customers are happy and the shoe manufacturer is happy!

According to an independent survey by customer service expert Ian Golding, ease of doing business was one of the 5 most important things to customers. I agree, i don’t see reasons why I would want to patronize a business whose processes or products are complicated.

Ease of doing business is an important driver of customer loyalty, here are 3 quick steps to achieve this –

#1. Make Customer Service A Culture In Your Organization

Develop a customer service vision for your organization and get EVERY employee (no matter their level or function) to key into this vision & live it, especially those in leadership roles. Everyone should be made to see how their job roles impact (directly or indirectly) on the customer. Read this article on Developing a Customer Service Vision to learn more on how to achieve this.

#2. Eliminate Unnecessary/Redundant Processes

eliminate complex - easy for customers
Image: infinitiplc.com

Overtime as business & technology evolves, certain process become irrelevant and become obstacles to a smooth customer experience. One way to identify such process is to encourage feedback from customer facing staff (and customers too!). Ask them to identify such processes/policies that hinder great service. Then review, modify or eliminate as need be.

See also  5 Tips For Delivering Unparalleled Customer Experience

#3. Simplify Your Processes

If a process is difficult for your granny to follow, then it needs further simplification. Simplify processes that –

  • Involve too many people
  • Has too many steps
  • Takes too much time and contains too many technical/complex words

Use automation where possible to streamline your processes, and improve ease of service.

When you make it easy for customers to use your products or services, then you have an edge over competition 

Kelechi Okeke
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