Last time we explained that it was important to give your customers value but that the customer’s perception of value is key to making them feel good about the purchase. Today we are discussing the influencing perceived value of your customers.
This leads to the rather paradoxical conclusion that your customers can feel really happy about an inferior product and really unhappy about a superior one.
Thankfully it is not totally hit and miss and you can really go a long way to influencing this perception of value.
The trick is to understand that your customer will have some expected value for the performance they want your products or services to live up to.
If, when they examine and use the goods they have paid for, the performance is better than their expectations then they will be satisfied and the perceived value will be high.
If, on the other hand, the product falls short of their expectations for it, then the perceived value will be low and they are unlikely to buy from you again.
This is why you will see that a lot of companies put huge emphasis on the notion of exceeding customer expectation because this is the performance standard which will almost guarantee happy, loyal and repeat custom.
Think of it like this, there are three things you can do in this regard:
- fail to meet expectation – the customer will be unhappy, disappointed, maybe even angry with you and will not want to buy again. They may even demand a refund and fire off an angry email or letter to you.
- meet expectation – you have delivered exactly what the customer wanted. They expected “x” and they got exactly that. You have not really triggered any deep emotions here and so you have not won any really loyal fans. Your product will be easily forgotten.
- exceed expectations – You have gone over and above what the customer thought they would get. If they thought they were already getting something of good value, now they think they have got something of extra-ordinary value. You have won raving fans who are likely to encourage their friends and family to buy from you too.
Try and look at the goods and services you offer from the point of view of your customers. Do you think you meet, fail to meet or exceed their expectations and could you do anything differently to do even better.
One thing you could do is use your RocketResponder broadcast message function to ask your customers to tell you how you are doing…the feedback could prove invaluable.