Strategy: 9 Your Helpfulness

Post and show how willing you are to help your customers. Many successful companies show their customers how easy it is to do business with them. They invite customers to make purchases via their store, online at their website, by phone, and even by fax. Yet others keep extended shopping hours to meet the needs of their customers.

Inform your customers that your staff is highly skilled and well trained. Hang posters and post banners encouraging customers to seek help from your staff. Train staff to cheerfully engage customers at every contact point. For example, I’ve created a job aid the help employees ask engaging question of customers. Download it at: www.IFmarketing.com/EngagingQsWorksheet.pdf

Guide your customers to areas where they can have their questions answered. “If you have any questions ask a salesperson or visit the counter.”

And get your customers to shoulder part of the workload whenever possible by encouraging them to answer their own questions, thereby freeing you up to help other customers. To do this, post FAQs and special reports that help answer questions your customers have.

You can apply similar approaches to a variety of situations. Refer your customers to articles; recommend books, maps, and links to areas on and off your store-site or in and out of town. The goal is to add extra value by providing materials designed to help them to find, buy and use your products and services.

Examples of Your Helpfulness
Online retailers—you can put your 800 number on your website to encourage your customers to contact you. Most do, but how much more effective will it be if next to your 800 number you say “Call us, we’re here to help you.” Or “We’re waiting and willing to answer you questions, call us now?” Better yet, add “live help” communication to your site for those who’d like their questions answered without having to call you.

Retailers—Wal-Mart workers wear jacks that say, “How can I help you?” This fosters interaction between customers and staff. Post FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for customers with the answers and solutions—let them know how willing you are to help them. Post and advertise comments from customers praising the helpfulness of your staff.

Check out the very helpful and effective approach used online by Amazon.com. When you are a member of Amazon.com they make suggestions that are relevant to the purchases you make. When you buy a certain book they take you to a page that says “People who have bought (your book) have also bought the following books” and give a list of recommendations. Teach your staff to use similar techniques or post such suggestions by the products you sell.

Post visual cues such as “Visit our “How-to” section at the end of the aisle.” or “Visit our recommended resources section—click here.” A sales representative can also use a similar verbal approach as an ice breaker when approaching a customer: “If you have any questions, my name is Jackson, please feel free to ask me at any time or you can use our handy reference center found at the end of each aisle, right over here.”

As you can see, there are many additional ways to engage your customer. Work with your staff to better satisfy your customers and stand out in the busy crowd and you will be able to bring more customers to your business.

For more free tips and articles visit: http://www.ifmarketing.com/resources/

This strategies has been taken from a forthcoming book called Benchmarked.

Stragety 6 - Evaluating Products

Evaluating Products
A good way to help your customers make decisions is to help them categorize you product. Some ways to segment products are: categorizing products, Good/Better/Best categories, and Step-By-Step / How-to / Don’t Forget instructions. Whenever you can simplify the buying decision you are helping your customers take on more of a co-productions position, which is when the customer provides at least part of his/her own service. You give them the power to make faster and more educated decisions. Usually resulting it purchasing higher priced products.

Examples of Evaluating Products

Example of Categorizing
Camp Chef, makers of Outdoor cookers categorizes its product line into distinct product lines. Their high-end catering style stoves are in the 1. Professional Series, their rugged camping style stoves are in the 2. Outdoorsman Series, their portable/car camping stoves are in the 3. Sport Utility Series, and their grilling/tailgating stoves are in the 4. Sport Grill Series. You can easily identify what type of stove to start investigating by your intended activity or usage.

How can you apply this to your business?
Categorize products for your customer. Make posters or brochures. Help your customers easily make choices about your product line. Say there are eight different sleeping bags to choose from. Divide the bags into logical categories that make it easier for your customer to choose a bag. Consider categories such as, If you camp in –20’ - -5’ temperatures consider these bags. If you camp in 0’ – 40’ temperatures consider these bags. If you camp 40’+ temperatures consider these bags. —or— If you car camp consider these bags… If you backpack consider these bags… If you camp in your yard consider these bags…

Example of Good/Better/Best Comparison













Look for ways to compare the products you sell. You will quickly begin to sell more of the better products because your customers will be able to see they difference.

Strategy 5 - Testimonials - Use Them In All Your Promotions

Testimonials
Sharing a testimonial is the most powerful advertising you can ever do. Many customers don’t readily believe advertising anymore, they think it is false, overstating, exaggerated and discount it. Ask your customers for testimonials.

If you have gone out of your way to satisfy your customer they will happily give you one. Post them everywhere a customer goes so your prospective customers can see how you will treat them when they become customers.

CustomInk.com has amassed 10,000+ testimonials. When they can get a customer to visit their testimonial webpage they have a five times higher chance in making a sale! Does any of your current marketing have a response rate this high? I’d suggest that you visit their testimonial page and learn from them.

Gather and post as many testimonials as you can. It will have a significant impact on your customers buying decisions!

Tip: To be more creditable use as much info about your customer as you can. Full name, city and state, photo, and even a signature.

Examples of Testimonials
“These guys are great! It is a pleasure to do business with them, every time. I wish every e-store was this easy to work with.”
—David Rasmussen

“Brian went out of his way to give me excellent customer service and very sincerely addressed any concerns I had.”
—A. Hymans

“This shopping experience is everything a person could ask for.”
—Jaime Stanczyk

This one, and many other great testimonials, can be found on Filson.com
“I was attacked by an enraged bull. I was hit hard and thrown up about 15 feet, tumbling head over heels. I landed in front of the bull who then butted me, rolling me to my back and running over me, planting his left foot squarely on my upper chest. When he stomped on my chest I was certain that he would crush it and my heart and lungs. Amazingly, my only injuries were a broken sternum and some subluxed ribs and clavicle joints. Quite sore but alive! Next day I cleaned the muddy hoof print off the left upper chest surface of the coat I had been wearing...my FILSON TIN CLOTH PACKER COAT. I feel that the almost armor-like quality of the caped part of that coat probably saved my life.”
—Bruce Ashley West Union, OH

WOW! It is because of testimonials like this that I own a Filson product! How about you and your products… Are you using testimonials to help you sell? Testimonials are a competitive edge you can use!




This strategy was taken from my book Benchmarket: How the Best of the Best Keep Customers Running.

Your Guarantee

Strategy 4: Your Guarantee
Your guarantee is a strong selling tool. It shows your customers how much you trust your product offering. Do you have a great product or service? Use a strong guarantee to tell your customers how much you believe in the products and or services you sell. Conversely, a poor or unpopular policy will chase customers away or at least offend them so that they will never shop with you again.

Examples of Great Guarantees

Neiman Marcus’s Guarantee If you are not completely satisfied with your Neiman Marcus purchase, please return it for exchange, credit, or refund.

Williams-Sonoma Guarantee We want you to be perfectly satisfied with your purchase. If for any reason a selection does not meet your expectations, please return it to us for and exchange or refund.

L. L. Bean’s Guarantee Our products are guaranteed to give 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased from us at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L. L. Bean that is not completely satisfactory. What a great lifetime warranty!

Filson Clothing’s Guarantee Our guarantee for over 100 years has never changed: "We guarantee every item purchased from us. No more, no less. Your satisfaction is the sole purpose of our transaction." —Clinton C. Filson, 1897

eBags.com Guarantee eBags.com 110% Price Guarantee appears on every page. Customers feel comfortable when buying from eBags.com, so much so that they have bought 6,322,834 Bags Since 1999.

Examples of Unpopular Guarantees
A popular online (overstock.com) retailer charges a 20% restocking fee.
An auto manufacturer charged a 25% restocking fee.
An in-home party company only gives credit for returns.

These examples produce customers that may never shop with them again because of their policies. Is it worth it to alienate customer from a lifetime of purchases? It might be, but weigh the impact carefully. If you choose to implement a guarantee such as these let your customer know up front so there is no surprise. This way your customers will be able to make an educated decision when they decide to purchase from you.

Tout Exclusive Items

Strategy 3: Tout Exclusive Items
Do you carry any items that no one else has? Many smaller retail shops do. Maybe you have items that you have exclusive rights in a given territory, that’s good enough? Let people know that you are the source for these items. Tell them why you carry such items. What are the advantages of buying these “Great” items from you? Talk to your customers. What features does your product have that others don’t?

If you don’t have exclusive items tout your exclusive internal benefits… It may be your warranty or your return policy. Tell your customers how they will benefit from these exclusive benefits &/or products? Show your customers how you have helped them make an educated decision. If you can, seek out exclusive products from your manufacturers so you can set yourself apart from your competition.

If you are a manufacture investigate this matrix. If you sell products into a number of stores in an area, what would the effect be if you gave each store one exclusive item to sell? What an advantage it would be to each shop to have exclusive items. They can tout that they are the only shop in town with the model.

If you provided an exclusive item from each class or category you offer each business could add that to their benefits list? There is no greater selling point when a shop can say, “No one else in town has this great product!”

Examples of Touting Exclusive Items
The cataloger Filson thinks this is so important that they dedicate an entire spread, two pages of their catalog, valuable selling space, on their exclusive fabrics.

The spread features four fabrics: Filson’s 100% Virgin Mackinaw Wool, Filson’s Tin Cloth, Filson’s Shelter Cloth, and Filson’s Cover Cloth covering 2/3 of the page.

The remaining 1/3 highlights 6 additional exclusive products: Filson’s Feather Cloth, Filson’s Sarari Cloth, Filson’s Brushed Twill, Folson’s Moleskin, Filson’s Rugged Twill, and Filson’s Bridle Leather. No selling only touting their exclusive products.

This strategy can be used to give more meaning to your advertising and give another reason for customers to come in and visit. Tell them what they are missing by not stopping by!



This strategy was taken from my forthcoming book called "Benchmarked: What The Best Of The Best Do To Keep Customers Coming."

Providing More Content On The Web

Have you looked at websites that want to sell products and noticed that they don't give any information for you, the customer, to make an educated buying decision?

There are many lessons to learn from these sites that do a poor job of promoting their products. And many lessons to learn from those who do a good job of using the web for what it is used for.

Here is a good example. Here you can see the additional information provided to help the customer make an educated buying decision.

Here is a typical example. Here is what most customers see. A few bullet points. A photo and a buy now button. Who can make an educated buying decision with this type of content? No one.

You decide. The web is used by most people for research! Are you providing them with quality information that they can use to make an educated buying decision? They want it and more and more people are providing it.

Ask yourself, "Does the info on our website lead our customer to buying our product?"

See some examples of ways to lower your customers buying risk here.

Another Strategy To Get More Customers

Additional Strategies to Build Customer Loyalty

Strategy 2: Comparison Charts
Do you have a great product? Should customers be busting down you door to get it? And you don’t know why they aren’t? If so, you can benefit greatly from this strategy. Make posters, banners, and tables that compare the features of your product to that of its competitor: us vs. them, this vs. that, etc. Explain to your customers how these additional features will benefit them. When your customers can plainly see why your product is superior to others, they will do most of the selling for you. Your job is to give them the facts that they can use to make an educated purchase choice. Use call-outs, such as “3 easy steps for choosing the right paper for your printer” that note benefits which both set you apart and highlight the extra services you offer—value added services. Selling is a battle of perception. What are you doing to win this perception?


Examples of Comparison Charts
Filson’s catalog does an excellent job of this. Get a copy and see (filson.com). They have a picture of one of their duffel bags with a Volkswagen Engine in it hanging from a peg followed by this copy—“Our duffel bag will carry a Volkswagen engine. Will yours?” Not that’s a comparison you can see.

On Kimberly Clark’s website www.block-it.com you will find charts that compare each car cover fabric to a number of possible damaging items to your car and it’s finish.

The goal of these strategies is to give your customers more information so they can make educated buying decisions. If you can successfully engage your customers spend time with you and your products you increase your chances that the purchase is made through you not your competitors.