What will it take to get to Amazing?
Many promotional products professionals are really getting beat up on price and see the industry’s products as becoming commodities. Many people tell me that their customers are demanding them to match or beat impossibly low prices. What is happening out there?
The answers lie in the fact that if you are not growing, you’re dying. It’s brutal, but true. Buyers assume that you will give them quality, service and a low price. The assumption is that you will deliver goods as pictured or promised on time done right. This is the first level of a transaction based sale between a buyer and a seller.
When you raise your performance and give more, you gain a happy customer who expects that you will perform and provide them with peace of mind. Your customer expects and trusts you to make them look good.
What if you can get your client to be impressed? What would you have to do to impress them? Perhaps you’ve anticipated their need. You may have researched their market position and brand and created some really custom, personalized and “wow-worthy” design. Your client is impressed. They will tell others.
But if you want to move to the fourth level of customer experience? What will it take to amaze your client and seal your partnership? If you want to be an integral part of your client’s business, to be the go-to resource and problem solver — you need to be nothing short of amazing. Amazing is hard work. Not everyone can be amazing. Can you?
These are the four levels of customer service.
- Your buyers assume that you will deliver.
- Your customers develop expectations of how you will deliver.
- Your clients are impressed with your professional service.
- Your loyal clients are amazed by what you do, how you do it and just how good you are.
Here’s the thing. What customers are amazed by today will just impress them tomorrow and by next week they’ll expect it and by next month, it will be assumed.
Creating value and being the best is a journey. You need to get up every morning and ask yourself. “How Can I Be Amazing?”
Paul Kiewiet MAS+ is an industry speaker, writer, consultant and coach. He serves as the executive director of MiPPA. Kiewiet was inducted into the PPAI Hall of Fame and the MiPPA Hall of Fame. He served as Chairman of PPAI in 2007. A former distributor, he founded Promotion Concepts, Inc in 1982 and worked with some of America’s most valuable brands including Coca-Cola, Kelloggs, and Whirlpool.