Make It Easy For Customers To Do Business With You

As we all know from our own experience, people do business with companies that make the encounter an easy and pleasurable one.  It just makes sense.

Naturally then, simplifying the customer interaction to make it as pleasant and effortless as possible is worth the undertaking.

Transaction Process: First, take some time to review your company’s transaction process from your customers’ perspective.   Whether you sell products, or offer more consultative types of services, every sales cycle has identifiable stages and desired customer outcomes.  Review this cycle.  Maybe even draw it out in a chart or diagram so you fully understand how people do business with you.

Now look for gaps in the process where customers lose interest, get frustrated, or truncate the transaction.  Each individual step is an opportunity to improve or streamline how you and your customers interact.  When you review each step look for ways to make it easier for customers to get what they want.  The more simple the steps, the easier it is to make the sale.

Access to Information: Is it difficult to find information about your company and your products and/or services?  Maybe you need to update a product data sheet, make your data sheets available on your website, or implement an online shopping cart system to facilitate sales.  Perhaps a case study would best describe your service expertise that would otherwise be difficult to articulate.  Could an online video demonstration of your product in-use illustrate its value over similar competitive products?

Eliminate Frustrations: Look for ways to remove any obstacles that might be getting in the way of customers making the final decision to purchase and complete the transaction.  For instance, is it easy for customers to get pricing or do they even understand what information they need to provide in order for you to accurately provide an estimate?

Is it possible to cut down on customer frustration and inbound customer service calls by packaging a user’s guide along with the product?  Do you send online order confirmations via email that include a shipping link so customers can track their packages?  If a customer does have a problem, is there a means of conflict resolution that is easily accessible to customers and that has a high degree of reliability?

Ask for Feedback: You may even find it useful to talk directly to some of your long-term customers and ask their opinion on how you can improve the relationship.  You may be surprised to find that they appreciate your interest in them and that you value their opinion.  The result is that in addition to gaining some constructive customer perspective, you build some serious street cred with customers that you want to continue to impress.

Ultimately, you’ll want to find ways of communicating with customers that show them that you value their business.  After all, customers have the choice of whether or not to do business with us.  Simplifying the interaction smooths the way for them to continue to choose us over our competitors.

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1. A Case of the Cobblers Kids Shoes (but only with Marketing Blog Posts Instead) | DianeVautier.com — May 7, 2010 @ 10:41 pm

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