If you want to make customers come back to your business to buy more, you need to make them happy. Businesses are always talking about customer satisfaction, but how can you achieve it?
Customer Preferences
Although the rule of thumb in achieving customer satisfaction is to say what customers want to hear, business owners often talk about what they think is important. In trying to sell products, they play up the features they like, without considering whether these are the features that customers are looking for. Instead of doing this, find out what your customers want and talk about that. This applies not only to face-to-face sales pitches, but also to the design of websites and advertisements. Above all, be sensitive to what customers want.
Customer Wishes
In saying what customers want to hear, you don't always have to be accurate. Imagine you are running a fun site for a sports team that is in a slump, having lost a lot of games, and has little hope of winning a title. You might be tempted to criticize things like the coaches or players, but even if your criticism is accurate and all of the fans agree with it, it won't help increase traffic to your site if it makes people feel bad. Instead, why not write about the totally unrealistic possibility of winning the series title, even if it would mean winning every game for the rest of the season and the other teams losing 10 in a row? A crazy, hopeful story like this could keep fans interested in your site, just because it's what they want to hear.
Customer Feelings
Of course, satisfaction with your products or services is important, but it's not the only thing that will satisfy customers and make them come back for more. The feeling of your website, how you reply to email, and every other little thing you do will be taken into account. In one case, a woman I know decided to frequent a store based on the fact that one of their clerks had said that he liked her hairstyle. Even though this had nothing to do with the products at the store, she decided to keep coming back. If you tell customers want to hear, they will keep being loyal customers.
© September, 2010