Over promising is a problem only when you under deliver. There are a
number of ways that you can overdeliver to your customers or prospects,
and as a result create a win-win situation for you both. They will be
provided with some additional value, while you will be upgrading your
learning around a particular issue, adding another product or service
to your business, or even increasing the mastery level of your craft.
For example, let's say you are a communications coach. You might
consider offering a complimentary group call for your current clients.
The discussion during this call will not only increase your
understanding of some aspect of your business, but it might provide the
raw material for crafting a top 10 article, an e-book or an e-course -
more things which might be passed along to your clients as a value add.
Of course, your clients will love the opportunity to have more time to
benefit from what you have to say - and at no cost to them!
What can you do today to provide more value to your prospective and current clients?
1. Underpromise and overdeliver. Before you even think of providing
more value, you must set the stage from which you will operate. Always
deliver what you promise to deliver by way of your products or services
within the time frame specified. Never leave any loose ends. But, when
you do deliver to your clients, always provide them with more than they
expect. Not only will this come as a welcomed surprise, they will
consider you as someone who is generous and who really cares about
them. It can be as simple as providing a handwritten note or any of a
number of other possibilities which will be discussed shortly. A human
being's highest need is to be acknowledged. Think about the different
ways you can acknowledge others when doing business.
2. Provide complimentary support. One of the easiest ways to provide
additional value is to provide complimentary support for your products
or services. You can provide phone or email support, or even an FAQ
document that can be posted on your website. This gives the customer
confidence that they will have a way to follow up with any questions or
concerns that they might have. The beauty of this is that very few
people will ever take advantage of it, yet by providing it, you can
create a tremendous amount of customer goodwill.
3. Provide information and lots of it. We all crave knowledge and
information. Provide as much information as you can around your
products and services. You can provide articles, special reports, and
links to other resources on your website. You can write the articles
yourself, or use those of others with their permission. In less than a
half day, you could find a dozen articles and as many links to other
informational sites to support what you do. If you have your own
articles to post, that's an added bonus. With your own articles, you
can feature them in your email signature, along with an autoresponder
(a type of email system that delivers the article automatically and
immediately) so that folks can receive a copy right away. A small
investment of your time can provide valuable content for your website
and a valued resource to prospects and current clientele.
4. Create a free eCourse. It's so easy to create an eCourse. An eCourse
is merely a series of short emails delivered via an autoresponder
designed to teach a concept or series of concepts in an
easy-to-understand manner. You can easily take a top ten article or
other information that you have and “chunk” it into a series of 5, 7 or
10 lessons, which can be delivered over as many days or weeks. Each
lesson is a short description of the topic along with an example and
perhaps questions or resource links for future follow-up. An eCourse is
set up in a mechanism called an autoresponder, an automated email
system that delivers lessons at the interval you specify. An e-course
is the perfect “product” to advertise in your email signature and can
be triggered by the recipient merely sending an email to a specified
address. From that point forward, the lessons are automatically issued
without any further intervention on your part. E-courses are a great
way to showcase an upcoming product or program offering, a way to get
people interested in what you have to offer. They are a great way to
offer a lot of value with less than a day of effort to write a simple
course, set it up for distribution and let it work for you.
5. The benefits of an R & D team. Offering prospects and current
clients the opportunity to join and participate on your research and
development team is another way to offer value. Your R & D team can
be used to test product or program ideas that you might have. By
seeking feedback now, you can gather new ideas and you can which ones
are worthwhile and of value to others. The benefit to the recipients is
that they can play a role in influencing the types of products that
they like most. Many folks who have R & D teams also enjoy offering
participants special incentives like coupons, discounts, or even a free
sample of the product or program before it is issued to the general
public.
6. Offer free teleclasses. Offering free teleclasses to prospects and
current customers is a great way to generate goodwill while providing
valuable content. Free teleclasses are a wonderful way for newcomers to
experience who you are and how you operate. For folks who already do
business with you, they look at this as a wonderful bonus to experience
more of the quality service they have come to expect from you.
Teleclasses are a cost and time efficient value add and an easy way to
reach others on a global basis. You may want to consider recording
these classes and making the audio available from your web site.
7. Offer free assessments. Another way to provide more value is to
offer assessments. Assessments are wonderful because they provide the
prospect or client with additional information. Provide useful
information, links to other sites (or yours), references to helpful
organizations or even titles of books to read. Gear the assessment
outcomes to focus on various products or services that you have
developed so you can drive people to consider your various offerings.
People like assessments because they can do them on their own and get
immediate feedback. You may also consider bundling an assessment with a
15-minute complimentary consult allowing you to develop a stronger
relationship with this prospect.
8. Celebrate special days in special ways. There are hundreds of
different holidays celebrated throughout the year. Find a way to couple
something you're doing with an upcoming holiday and share that with
your customers. For example, if you're a relationship coach, you might
want to send out a special report on celebrating Valentine's Day the
week before. For folks who might be spending that day alone, you might
provide a complimentary teleclass for everyone to get together to talk.
If you're an event planner, you might wish to send out a special
collection of easy-to-prepare recipes for the Fourth of July or the
Super Bowl. These are simple things to do, but can mean a lot to your
clientele.
9. Reward your long-time customers. It has been said that it costs up
to six times as much to get a new customer than it does to maintain the
ones you have. One of the best ways to maintain a good relationship
with your current clients is by rewarding them for their long-term
patronage. At least once each year, offer them discount coupons for
themselves or to give to a friend, free product samples, or other
promotions to thank them for doing business with you. This type of
relationship building will go a long way in creating customer good will
and it will probably result in many more referrals. Low cost offerings
like this generate additional revenue for you, and can expand your
client base with very little effort on your part.
10. Share the wealth. If you create new products or services based on
customer requests, figure out some way to reward the person or persons
who came up with the idea. You might compensate them by giving them
complimentary access to your product or service. You can formally
acknowledge them as an inspiration on your website, or you can send
them a monetary or other gift as a “thank you”.
© Copyright 2004 by Alicia Smith
