The market is full of businesses trying to win customers. As the market becomes more saturated, standing out and separating yourself from the competition is even more important. There are several ways to differentiate your business from the rest of the market.
Several strategies are commonly used by businesses to set themselves apart. Developing a strong brand is always a good place to start. In this article, however, we are going to focus more on the simple tactics you can use to make your business stand out more in the eyes of customers.
Add Personal Touches
Personalizing a business and the customer experience it delivers is an effective and proven way to make your business stand out more. This is a tactic used by many brick-and-mortar establishments. Instead of using generic dinnerware, coffee shops, bakeries, and bars are taking advantage of customized stoneware coffee mugs to further strengthen their brands.
The same personal touches can be added to other parts of the customer experience too. Instead of using a template, a custom website and online branding elements are definitely worth investing in. Adding a personalized message in every email sent to customers is a great strategy to incorporate too.
The goal here is to create a personalized customer experience that customers will associate with your brand. These seemingly small and unimportant personal touches help shape the way customers remember your business.
Stellar Customer Service
The best products will market themselves. This is mostly true, except stellar customer service is even more effective in winning the hearts of customers. In a recent study, it was discovered that good customer service isn’t just great for maintaining high customer satisfaction; it also helps to improve customer loyalty. In fact, small businesses have been benefiting from higher customer lifetime value thanks to their personalized customer service.
Improving customer service is relatively simple. You can easily list all of the things customers don’t like when seeking support from your business, including long waiting times and a poor response from the support officers. You can then take active steps towards improving the overall customer support experience and eliminating these potential issues.
Stick with the Truth
Honesty is always the best policy; this applies to the products and services you offer to customers as well. When shaping the customer experience, always be truthful with your customers. Lying to customers is the start of many future problems in most cases; it gets even worse if the customer catches you lying.
Be truthful about realistic delivery dates, what customers can expect from the products and services, and even about the mistakes you make when trying to provide the best customer experience. Be the first to apologize when a member of your team messes up a customer’s order.
Staying truthful is how you gain your customers’ trust. It is how you separate your business from the competition. This, along with the previous strategies we covered in this article, is also how you get remembered – in a positive way – by customers.
