Your Customers Have Questions…

Strategy 13: Your Customers Have Questions… Do You Answer Them In The Way They Want Them Answered?

Your customers have questions. A certain percentage of your customers don't like to ask you questions. They prefer to answer their own questions. You can take advantage of this with a better understanding co-production.

Guide customers to areas where they can have their questions answered. Co-production is getting customers to provide part of the workload. So whenever you can have them answer their own questions you save man-hours and can help more customers at any given time while letting some of your customers help themselves just like they want to.

Many catalogers do this with callouts throughout their catalog. You can apply this to cover a broad area of topics. Refer to articles, recommend books, maps, links to areas on and off your site or in and out of your town. The goal is to provide relevant materials to your customer base that helps them buy and use your products and services.

Examples of Have a Question
Amazon.com does a good job of recommending relevant materials. To do this in your shop create posters that say, “Visit our ‘how-to’ section at the end of the aisle.” or on your website, “Visit our recommended resources section—click here.” You can also use this information as an approach when a sales rep approaches a customer. “If you have any questions, my name is Dana, feel free to ask me or you can use our reference center found at the end of each aisle.”

For one client we created documents that answer the questions they are asked over and over again. The document is available to all customers. Many read it and find the answers they are looking for before they make a purchase.

For another client, we are making in-store materials that explain all of the services they offer. The plan is to have 6-8 different brochures that customers can read at their leisure to better educate themselves of the services our client offers. This is an inexpensive way to inform your customer, plant seeds, and strengthen relationships with them.

From the book Benchmarked: What the best of the best do to keep customers coming. Find out more about The Image Foundry at IFmarketing.com