Business owners, if your product offering is different in a valuable way to your potential customers, you will get more business, correct?
Maybe so, however, you may be surprised at some of the ways you could accomplish this – often it is just a “little thing”.
Take for example a “little thing” in the change room at a women’s clothing store: The clerk went into the change room and announced her presence and offered to exchange any outfits just tried on for a different size so the customer didn’t have to leave the change room. The clerk would announce, “Just throw them over the door and I will go get you the new size you want.”
The customer loved this convenient extra service – a “little thing”. Notice this service, the “little thing” that gives great value to the customer, has nothing to do with the actual product – the clothing.
When I had my accounting firm, my clients also liked “little things”. They wanted a parking spot right outside the office and something good in the candy dish in the reception area. You might laugh at this, but it makes a difference, even when the actual product offering was “a tax return or financial statement”. Even if it was the very best, top-quality financial statement they ever got, how would they know? They assume I got that part right, but if I had Snickers bars in the candy dish, they became happier customers!
We like to say “it’s better to be different than it is to be better”.
The main point of the two examples is that “little things” can make a big difference, and these differentiators are rarely related to your actual product or service offering.
When you think about it, your customers trust you to get the technical and quality component of your product right because they likely don’t know enough about your business to determine that for themselves. However, everyone knows the difference between being on time or being late – a “little thing”.
Why not have some fun and experiment by adding some “little things” to your product or service offering?
We would love to hear how it goes.
