eBusiness Weekly
Research suggests that for all kinds of companies, emotionally engaged customers deliver a 23 percent premium over the average customer in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth. Actively disengaged customers represent a 13 percent discount on the same measures.
Within a given company, business units whose levels of customer engagement are in the top 25 percent tend to outperform all other units on measures of profit contribution, sales growth and by a factor of 2:1 . . . where are you, do you see your brand or organisation anywhere near, if not no need to worry that’s the part we need to solve in this article for you to realign and better engage with the customer and deliver an improved bottom line results.
An engaged customer is an extremely satisfied customer (people who return provide the highest rating of overall satisfaction with a company’s products and services) fall into two distinct groups, those who have a strong emotional connection and those who do not.
It’s without a doubt that emotionally satisfied customers contribute far more to the bottom line than rationally satisfied customers do, even though they both rate the company equally.
In fact, the behaviour of rationally satisfied customers looks no different from that of dissatisfied customers. So the question to address is how do we get the customers to by more and buy more often and remain engaged with the brand, thereby by increasing the average transaction value.
First and foremost, use up-sell and cross-sell as a tool for customer engagement to drive sales. We do not have time to define this but in short, You up-sell when you graduate your customer or client to a larger or superior alternative product or service that you know will give them greater performance and a better result.
They don’t have to buy it, but you have an obligation to demonstrate to them the difference in performance and the outcome they can expect to receive and to make them an offer that gives them an incentive to consider upgrading.
The new flagship 2019 model cars are tweaked with new additions that you alone will want to upgrade, the same thing. A cross-sell on the other hand is introducing to the customer or client an additional product or service that will add to the result they get from your basic product or service.
Your customers will appreciate you for making them aware of this additional value. Just the other day Bently rolled out their new GT Coupe, guess what they cross-selling a quarter of a million dollar power drive machine with, a 25k price tag timepiece, not a watch . . . you get the meaning, right!
The use of point-of-sale promotions. Please note, this is not a swipe machine, rather usually displays that grab your customers attention right at the point of sale.
Once they have decided to buy any product or service, they have already started envisioning themselves owning, possessing, using or benefiting from that product or service. It is very easy at that point to assist them in getting even greater value or enrichment from the transaction by offering them other items at an advantageous price that will complement their original purchase.
Point of sale promotions are usually targeted for retail stores and can be used for online purchases as a last checkout item to advise the customer on what they are missing.
Packaging complimentary products and services together is another method to follow. This differs from the concept of cross-selling as mentioned earlier though.
It explicitly refers to combining products or services together and offering them as the initial sale rather than waiting for a customer to buy one thing adding another after the fact as you do in cross-selling.
Instead, you’re bringing two, three, or maybe four different products or services together and making this package your initial offer to the customer.
Increase your pricing, yes increase the price because it will drive your margins too. It’s important to recognise that how your service or product is perceived is largely determined by the value you charge for that offering.
If you don’t hold yourself to a high standard — if you don’t revere the value and performance of your product and service and charge accordingly — it shouldn’t surprise you when the market doesn’t either.
Also, if you keep your prices too low, you don’t allow yourself enough margin to deliver all of the services and all of the value your product or your service has the capacity to offer. So you could actually be doing your customers or clients a disservice by charging too little.
Change the profile of your products or services to be more upmarket. Nothing is as disheartening to see the profile of a company that wants you to spend more with them and remain a loyal customer yet their profile doesn’t even speak volumes of such.
Upgrading it means, positioning your company or your professional practice at a higher level of distinction and quality than the competition does.
It means holding yourself to a higher standard of performance, holding yourself and your customer or client in higher esteem, adding more dimension to your business or practice, and doing so in a compelling way.
Lastly do offer larger units of purchase. If most people buy a one week’s supply of your product, offer them a month, a three month, six month or a year’s supply at an attractive price.
If people normally buy one ticket, offer them a special deal if they buy enough tickets for their whole office or their whole family.
If people come by themselves to purchase your services, offer them ab inducement for coming with a friend, colleague or a family member…why not.
Robert Gonye is a Business Growth Expert and Influencer. He writes in his personal capacity. Comments and views: [email protected]. Twitter @robert.gonye The views given herein are solely for information purposes; they are guidelines and suggestions and are not guaranteed to work in any particular way.
