If you want to succeed in your business, you’ve got to pay these things: money, time, attention, effort, and respect. Among them, paying respect to people, especially to customers, is the rarest thing you will ever heard from business owners. Since businesses are traditionally made for financial profit, several business owners don’t give much care on paying respect to their customers. Now, if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or business owner, and you want to make a difference, you should learn how to show respect to the people who are consuming your products and giving you the reason to generate sales or revenues. So how do we show it? Here are some tips to showing your genuine respect to customers.
Give them the value they’ve paid for
Customers are paying you money. And aside from that, they are also paying you their time, effort and attention. Therefore, don’t waste them. Give them the value of what they are paying for. Provide them the quality products and services they are expecting from you. If you want to show respect to your clients or customers, respect the equivalent exchange.
Give them extra value
Aside from being just to your customers, be generous and be gracious. Give them more than what they are expecting. Wow them! This is not only to show your respect of the equivalent exchange, but also to show your respect to their comfort and well-being. Remember that your customers aren’t to be treated as strangers, but they should be treated specially.
Take care of your relationship with them
Sellers and buyers depend on each other. They create long and lasting relationship. They build trust and confidence with each other. Therefore, if you do business, you should take good care of that relationship. Taking care means doing business with prudence. Your business should not be profit-oriented, but should be relationship-oriented. So to respect your customers, always respect that relationship.
Deliver what you promise
Respect your own words and your promises. It doesn’t only show respect to yourself, but it also show respect to people whom you made those promises. If you want to respect your consumers, then respect honesty. You cannot respect anyone without respecting the truth. Also, lying will only result to hurting the trust and confidence they have for your business. Thus, be true to your words.
Don’t take away their freedom
Humans, such as your customers, love their own freedom. Thus, don’t try to burden their freedom of choice. One of the things that customers hate is forcing them to buy products they don’t like. Hence, give them enough space to make their choice. If you want to show respect to your customers, respect their freedom to choose.
Listen to what they say
It would be disrespectful when customers are talking to you, but you don’t listen, especially when they talk with sense. Hence, train yourself and your staff to learn how to receive and respond messages from customers, either orally or electronically. If you need to respect your words, you also need to respect their words.
Listen to what they say
Some customers, though will experience inconvenience in doing business with you, will prefer to not talk. But this doesn’t mean you’re already relieved from your obligation. You should not just respect the words or the things that your customers are saying, but you should also respect their hidden feelings, which may actually be obvious to your knowledge and senses. Thus, invest a little more effort to listen not only using your ears, but also using your brain and heart.
Provide solutions
Finally, if you want to show respect to your customers, show them real answers and solutions to their problems. Don’t just do business just to have a mere business and make a living. If you want to show real respect to customers, then respect the true essence of doing business, that is, to make change and make people lives better.
Have a respectful and successful business!
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
Super duper agree, Idol Vic.