Customer Value Strategies

Customers are gold to business success, and they are both looking for value and to be valued. Strategies that focus on customer value can help you better understand what makes your business different from the competition, how to better serve your customers and even how to improve your employee relations.

The attraction for businesses to define a hard number for the lifetime value of a customer is one way to cope with the difficulty of how to measure customer relationships. As a strategy, though, do not get hung up on creating some super formula that assigns a number value to a person. The point is to recognize that you will spend money to attract and retain customers.

In order to attract customers, you want them to see that you can save them money now or over a period of time. By offering deals, you are really building a perception that what you have to offer – product or service – is at the best price. The danger of a deals-only strategy is that a competitive business may try to do the same by undercutting your prices.

Real value is based on a different perception than cost alone. Going beyond deals allows you to differentiate your business and build a value perception based on the quality of your product or service. It is also the opportunity to listen to what customers really want beyond what they say they need. Think of ways to stand out to your customers so that price is not the only perception.

Once you get a customer, do what it takes to keep each one. Customer loyalty is a strategy that focuses on retention. If you listen to your customers, continue to do so. If you provide value beyond price, understand its importance to your existing customers. Continue to work at keeping your customers and, better yet, enlisting them to recommend your business to others.

Your employees who answer the phones, run the registers and greet customers at the door are your most valuable players. It is important to recognize these employees and their role. Empower them to be a part of the business success by focusing on how they greet and treat your customers. Your employees’ job satisfaction impacts customer satisfaction directly. Listen to your employees, too, and enlist ideas from them. Training, even briefly, makes a difference.