Growing Your Business: The Power of Selling an Experience
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When you think about an amazing experience you’ve had with a business, what’s the first company that comes to mind?
Is it Disney? Maybe it’s Chick-fil-A, or Southwest Airlines, or Zappos. Whatever company popped into your head, chances are they came to mind first because they provided you with an amazing, unique experience. One that you never forgot.
Once you’ve had an experience like that, you come to expect it and more importantly, you go back for it. So the question then becomes: why aren’t you doing that for your customers? Or more importantly: why didn’t your business come to mind first?
As the owner of an HVAC company, growing your business is always top of mind. Making the phone ring is often the first thing you consider when targeting growth, but if you’re not making the most out of every customer interaction you already have over the phone, you could be missing a valuable opportunity to grow your business beyond anything you could have ever imagined – without spending an extra dime in advertising or marketing.
A Shift in Customer Expectation
Customers expect more from your business today than just the systems, parts or services you sell. With the recession still fresh on everyone’s mind, your customers either have less money or are less willing to part with their money. They’re becoming more educated about how they spend, and they nearly always turn to the internet first for information.
This means your customers are just a click away from learning how much a part or install really costs. They can access websites like HomeAdvisor to compare how much the average service call is. When they Google your name, other customer reviews are instantly available for them to see – good, bad, or otherwise.
This industry transparency means you must offer your customers more than expected to grow your business – and it all starts with giving them an experience they can’t get anywhere else.
What are You Really Selling?
The first step to offering a unique experience is to find your purpose. Your purpose doesn’t have to be what you sell, and more often than not, your purpose is something greater than what you sell.
What’s Zappos’ purpose? Not “We sell shoes,” but “We create happiness.” Southwest Airlines’ isn’t “We fly you places,” but instead “To connect people to what’s important in their lives though friendly, reliable, and low-cost air travel.”
What drives you? What makes you get up in the morning and go to work instead of being with your friends and family? You do what you do not for the money, and not for the recognition, but because it solves a problem and makes people’s lives easier. That’s your purpose.
Spend a few minutes brainstorming your company purpose. It should include what is unique about your business and how the customer benefits from your uniqueness in a short, easy-to-remember phrase.
A few great examples: “Keep calm and we’ll keep you comfortable” and “Relax and let us do the dirty work.”
Think about what will drive you, your employees and your customers to get excited about what you do as well as how you go about doing it.
Putting Your Purpose Into the Customer’s Experience
Now that you have your purpose, in what ways can you infuse it into every customer interaction and create an amazing experience that will motivate them to come back for more?
Every customer touchpoint is an opportunity to create a unique experience that will set you apart from your competition as well as reinforce your purpose. Teaching your employees to believe in and present the company purpose in creative ways during their interaction with customers reminds your team why they are going above and beyond to create the experience. You can include your company purpose during the customer conversation and sales process, and again when you book an appointment or close the sale. You can even use it in your greeting.
Which sounds better: “Thanks for calling XYZ Repair, this is Mike,” or “Keep calm and we’ll keep you comfortable, this is Mike, how many I help you?”
See how by simply changing your greeting you’ve already improved your customer’s experience and reinforced your company brand? You’ve immediately given a reason why customers should choose you and set an expectation that this is going to be different than any other interaction they’ve had before.
Layering your purpose throughout your entire organization will not only improve your customer’s experience, it will create the most loyal customers you’ve ever had. You will get customer reviews online that speak to how great you are. Your customers will stop caring about how much something costs because the positive experience is so different, so unique that it’s the real reason they’re buying.
Customers know when they experience something great. A personal connection, going the extra mile, and being the solution all help create a unique experience customers will remember, and it all revolves around your purpose. Discover your purpose, and you will find it becomes a whole lot more fun and exciting to sell for you and your employees. Most importantly, you provide a unique experience that will leave your customers saying, “Wow, I want more!”
- Growing Your Business: The Power of Selling an Experience - March 18, 2016
Posted In: Sales & Marketing
