HouseOfHoy.com
You sell a product or service. Whatever it is. There are two reasons a customer typically buys: 1) You are the cheapest and comparable, 2) You are the best. It initially takes a lot of work to be the best. Your product may take longer in research and development. You may have to work harder to get information about your customer. You may have to bend over backwards for your customer. If you work hard enough at the beginning though, it quickly becomes much easier.
The question is: Are you willing to be the best? Are you willing to put in the extra work and go the extra mile? It can be extremely hard on you personally and hard on your family to be outstanding. You need to let everyone know that if you are going to do your business venture, you are going to have to put your whole heart into it. It may be your life for the next year or two, or decade. This is going to have to be a full commitment.
To let you know, customers seek out outstanding businesses. They are willing to spend more for great service. They will beat a path to your door if you have the best mousetrap. If you have everything they want, you will have a problem with exponential growth not lack of business. And honestly, I don’t care if the economy is great or in the dumps, outstanding companies sell. And outstanding companies work hard to constantly improve.
Do you wonder if you can afford quality? For instance, if you offer a full money-back guarantee for product returns, will you go broke? I had read that Nordstroms will accept returns of any item, even if it was not purchased at Nordstroms. I don’t think you need to go to this extreme, but making product returns a hassle for your customer will not earn you a gold star.
I can tell you some of the things we do in our products business to be outstanding: We have been known to overnight an item at no extra cost when our customer really needs it quickly. We offer a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee and even refund return shipping. We have reshipped a whole order to a customer because of a damaged shipment, even when part of the shipment was recoverable (i.e. two were ordered, shipment damaged, one recoverable, reshipped two). We continuously improve our shipping processes to avoid mistakes and we check and recheck product listings for errors. I am also always on our web site looking for problems.
So what’s it going to be? Are you going to be the best or just “me too”?