Your customers are everything, no matter what fancy object you’re selling. After all, if you have no shoppers, you have no sale, no profit margin and no viable business. But as RepricerExpress will show you, there’s most definitely a difference between being average and exceeding customer expectations, and you should always be shooting for the latter.
Why Bother in the First Place?
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve experienced awesome customer service at least once in your lifetime. We’re talking about the kind of experience where you rave about it to your friends and family and tell them all about how you were absolutely dazzled, whether it was with a small or grand gesture.
Now, imagine you can do that for your shoppers. Apart from instilling a fuzzy-feely in their hearts, you’re also practising good business scruples because every time you impress a consumer, you’re also indirectly passing on your name to their acquaintances. And because we’re in the age where buzz marketing rules, exceeding customer expectations should be one of your top priorities.
But it’s also important to know HOW to do so.
Really, it’s not very difficult to do, although a surprisingly large amount of merchants overlook the simplicity of such an action. Let’s use music and concerts as an example. Most shows are mediocre and if you see enough, then they all sort of bleed together after a while. But every now and then, you catch a concert that makes your jaw drop, the likes of which include Woodstock, The Beatles at Shea Stadium, Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival and Queen at Wembley Stadium. These are shows that will live on for the ages, and all because the respective performers kicked things up several notches to deliver an unforgettable experience.
Luckily, for you, as the Amazon merchant, you don’t have to bust out a guitar and send an arena crowd into a frothing frenzy; it’s a lot easier than that and we’ll show you how.
Set Realistic Expectations
You don’t have to suffer sleepless nights figuring out how to wow your buyers, just learn what they want — and then go at least one level higher. Richard Branson, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the modern age, says, ‘(t)he key is to set realistic customer expectations, and then not just to meet them, but to exceed them — preferably in unexpected and helpful ways’.
He also adds this: ‘Doing things better doesn’t have to cost more — all it takes is a little creativity and attention…’
So, What do Customers Actually Want?
Buyers aren’t a complicated lot, and we can distill their basic expectations into just three categories.
- Communication: Shoppers, understandably, want to get in the mail the product they were looking at online, especially if they queried you about its specs, details and costs.
- Timeliness: One of the biggest perks about shopping online is you don’t have to leave your home to do so, only check your mailbox for your package. But if said item is going to take a month to arrive (hello, Amazon Prime!), then the concept is kind of lost.
- Honesty/Transparency: It’s inevitable that some shopping experience is just not going to go as planned and the item will be returned. If/when that happens, buyers want to be able to return the product as painlessly as possible, so having a clear and reasonable return policy will win you huge bonus points.
Okay, Now How to Go Above and Beyond
Now that you understand what consumers expect, you can go on to exceeding them. There are a ton of ways of doing so, but we’ve narrowed it down to the following:
- Making yourself easily available for questions, concerns and comments
- Offering help in whatever languages are used in the countries you’re selling in
- Keeping in touch via social media or email marketing campaigns
- Having a solid return policy in place
- Investing in time-saving techniques, like Fulfillment by Amazon
- Sending a follow-up email to solicit positive feedback reviews
- Staying on top of complaints and your Amazon metrics
- Avoiding mediocrity, laziness and ennui
