{"id":5395,"date":"2023-09-28T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2023-09-28T08:19:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T15:19:06","slug":"are-you-meeting-your-customers-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=5395","title":{"rendered":"Are you meeting your customer\u2019s expectations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First customers are critical. Greatly exceed expectations at all costs.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is so much history behind this insight, and so many stories that illustrate this point.\u00a0 Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important group of allies that your marketing and salespeople rely upon when attempting to create buzz and make a mass market for a new product.<\/p>\n

Panic! A new product launch\u2026\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve been involved in the launch stage of any product in the past, you should recognize the overwhelming feeling of panic when initial customers make first contact with complaints about quality, functionality, speed of service or other critical part of the new release.<\/p>\n

Be ready to over-allocate resources to a launch. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The best advice I can give is to allocate all your resources to supporting the roll-out of a new product, at least for a short period.\u00a0 Respond immediately to every question and complaint.\u00a0 Capture every compliment and ask if you can use it for marketing purposes.\u00a0 If the product or service is especially complex or expensive, send someone from sales or marketing or even R&D to the customer location at the moment of first use.<\/p>\n

What if my resources are limited?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]\u00a0<\/em><\/span> \u00a0Of course, most of us have limited resources for such overwhelming support of a new offering. So, make the first release a limited one, sized so you can support it with existing resources, even if that means releasing it to only three carefully chosen customers at first.<\/p>\n

And I am serious about the \u201c\u2026at all costs\u201d admonition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"If you must provide a free backup unit, personal on-site service for a month, your personal cell phone number for the customer CEO, or any number of unexpected offers of superior service and accountability to those first customers, do just that.\u00a0 Make your customer a partner in the process.\u00a0\u00a0 Send flowers to the staff in the department using the product for the first time if appropriate.\u00a0 Call the customer CEO and thank him for helping launch a product so very important to your success.<\/p>\n

The result of your efforts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The result of doing this right will be to blunt criticism, reinforce compliments and provide a solid user base to build upon.\u00a0 And the alternative is a lost opportunity to shine, perhaps a first wave of negative public reviews that post and report across the Internet, and a loss of reputation and goodwill that will take years to overcome.<\/p>\n

So, empower your staff.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but I would much prefer to spend dollars reinforcing a great first customer\u2019s experience than fighting fires in the marketplace after seeing negative reviews.\u00a0 Make sure your entire staff buys into this mantra. \u201cThese first customers are critical.\u00a0 You are personally empowered to do everything possible to exceed their expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First customers are critical. Greatly exceed expectations at all costs. There is so much history behind this insight, and so many stories that illustrate this point.\u00a0 Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finding-your-ideal-niche","category-the-fight-for-quality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}