This guide outlines 7 ways to make your brand more customer oriented for better attraction, retention and sales.
What can you do to ensure that your customers are being heard and catered to by your company? How do you turn your brand from an internally focused one to an outwardly focused one?
7 customer oriented strategies
We have 7 customer oriented methods to share with you that you can implement to create a customer focus with your brand.
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Listen to What They Have to Say
This may seem obvious to most business owners, and yet many businesses just don’t know how to go about listening to their customers. They aren’t sure how to collect feedback and then what they should do with that feedback.
While there are a number of customer oriented ways you can do this, here are a few suggestions:
- Collect customer surveys
- Ask for feedback on your posts
- Provide a comment section on your website
- Request customer input for new products or services
Once you have collected some feedback from your customers, then you need to decide what to do with it. One of the best ways to handle the feedback is put it together and then discuss it among your employees or business leadership staff.
Hold meetings to decide what ideas should be implemented and how they should be implemented. Keep in mind that you don’t need to do exactly what your customers tell you to, but you should consider their feedback and determine an appropriate response.
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Be Open and Honest
Your customers will appreciate if you are transparent with them. You don’t have to share all of the intimate details with your customers about how your business operates and what its earnings are, but you should let them in on some of the processes that are happening in the business and what your plans are.
If you make mistakes, be sure to talk candidly about them and then publicize your plan for correcting those mistakes to ensure they don’t happen again.
Honesty builds trust, and this is true of any customer oriented business. If you have professional cleaning services like Imagine Maids working in your offices, you want them to be honest with you about how quickly they can do the cleaning for you and how much it will cost.
If they are not willing to reveal the total cost upfront, or if they change the pricing on you without warning, you may not trust them. Your customers expect honesty from you, and if they don’t feel that they can trust you, then they may take their business somewhere else.
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Give Customers Something Worthwhile
Are you providing value to your customers or are you just looking out for your own needs? A customer oriented business operates in a two-way relationship. You give the customers what they need (your goods or services), and they give you what you need (money).
If you fail to provide value to the customer, then they may not continue to shop with you. They will see through you and your products and notice the shoddiness of what you are providing.
They will spread the word about your failure to provide value, and that hurts businesses now more than ever before thanks to the speed at which information spreads on social media.
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Think about How Customers Will Be Impacted
In everything customer oriented you do as a business, consider the impact it will have on your customers. Are they going to feel hurt or left out if you drop a product or service from your lineup? Are you taking their feelings into account and considering the impact your decisions will have on their lives?
Are you making business decisions based solely on what is good for you or do you consider what is good for your customers as well? Keep their needs, wants, and feelings in mind whenever you prepare to do something as a business.
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Know Your Customers
How well do you know your customers? You may not get to know many of them personally, though you should try to if your business is truly customer oriented. However, you should know about your target audience in general and what kind of interests they have, what they want from a product like yours and what appeals to them.
If you can do that, you will be better able to serve them and will be able to cater your products to their needs and desires. Ultimately, that leads to more sales and better customer loyalty.
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Don’t Abandon New ideas Too Quickly
Customers may need some time to warm up to a new product or idea, no matter how customer oriented you are. Don’t start to offer something and then quickly drop it. You may not give your customers enough time to understand what you are offering or appreciate it.
Give your products time to grow and to develop an audience. If it is really not working, or it is a problem, then you may need to drop it quickly, but in most cases, you need to give new products some time.
Your customers will appreciate that you commit to something and keep your commitment for a while. Consider the customer base for each product and whether those customers will feel abandoned by you dropping that product too soon.
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Value Customer Loyalty
Some of your customers will be very loyal, sticking up for our brand, showing their appreciation, and staying with you no matter what. You want to recognize and reward these customers, as one of the key customer oriented strategies.
Make sure you value customers, because they are the core of your public support, and they will proselytize for you and help your company to grow in areas you cannot make it grow yourself.
Happy customers will do natural advertising for you and will show support even when you make mistakes. Do not forget to keep them in mind and show your appreciation for them when you can.
Conclusion
In these customer oriented ways, you can grow your customer base and make your current customers stronger and more loyal to you. Being customer oriented takes effort, time, and money, but there is a great payoff eventually. Your customers are worth the investment, and they will notice when you pay more attention to them.
