It’s fair to say that almost all businesses, whatever size, are aware they need to make an effort to attract new customers.
Budgets and resources vary but with the variety of modern marketing methods available, it’s never been easier to promote yourself as the right choice for new business.
But what if your marketing goes too far? What if your offer doesn’t match up to reality?
Cast your mind back to how Heathrow’s Terminal 5 performed when it first opened. It promised to be the jewel in the British travel industry’s crown, however everyone is more likely to remember the huge issues with parking, security procedures delaying passengers, and a broken baggage handling system that led to a backlog of 15,000 bags, and dozens of flights cancelled.
Regardless of the reasons why these things went wrong, the promise of a better travel experience by Heathrow was simply not delivered. The initial excitement of those travellers using a brand new terminal quickly turned to disappointment, then to anger.
While your services may not be on the same scale as Heathrow, the impact of overpromising and under-delivering can be the same.
If you say you’re a great business, customers will come to you expecting that. If they receive anything but that, they’ll most likely never use you again and tell all their friends and colleagues why.
So what can be done to ensure you’re able to provide what you say you can?
- Speak to current customers. What things are important to them? What things have you done well, what things could have been done better? Use this information to start analysing where you need to improve.
- Look at your internal resources objectively. If you promise something like answering all telephone calls or replying to emails within a set time, is this achievable?
- Work with your entire business to understand what they can do and how their current processes may be amended to make way for better services.
- Consider asking an external business consultant to come in and look at how your processes are managed. Not only will this help refine your customers’ experiences, it may find further ways to maximise efficiency and service.
- Once you’re confident that the promise of excellent service can be made, all your employees must be aware of their role in that service. Help them understand what you’re telling new customers and how important a part they play in delivering that.
Of course it’s perhaps easier to simply just go out and say you’ll give a standard service with no thrills, you get what you pay for. Using the airline example again, you’ll know of some people who have made a lot of money out of that.
But then they’re still following the same process detailed above in giving their customers exactly what they expect.
Many businesses though will no doubt want to shun the ‘budget’ image, shine above your competitors, and have strong repeat business retention and word of mouth recommendations.
The best way to start achieving that is to simply be realistic and do everything you said you would.
If you need some guidance on how your marketing matches your service, and how best to avoid letting customers down, get in touch with Hutch PR who will help you create a service that is exactly what your customers expect and deserve.
