How to maintain a steady stream of customers –
A 6-part series: PART 3

This is article #3 of a series of 6 that provides you tools on how to define, attract and keep customers to build the business of your dreams.

In Part 3 we look at employing the principle of surprise and delight to get your customers recommending your business products and services. It is one very simple way in how to grow your business.[/mk_fancy_title]

It is undeniable that our customers make up the very core of our business. They are agents for business growth, sustainability and our overall business life. In this 6 part series so far we have looked at defining your customer so you can appeal to them through your marketing, and can more easily find them. Part 2 highlighted how important it is to create offerings that you love to deliver as well as meet the needs of your customer profile.
In Part 3 we are looking at how to grow your business through the principle of surprise and delight.

After we have passed through the stages of building a strong base of customers, we then must maintain the stability of our tribe and the perfect way to achieve this is through maintaining your tribe’s happiness. Treat your unique customers to surprise and delight techniques that will ultimately exceed their expectations and ensure that their happiness is consistently maintained. Make your customers feel valued by appreciating them in an unexpected and fulfilling way.

Here are some examples:
Samantha Wills’ signature ring is a prime example of a surprise and delight technique, with a collectable ring provided to customers in a hand-crafted wooden box in order to enhance their experience and to make it a special, unique and memorable one. Another prime example of a surprise and delight technique is that used by ‘Shoes of Prey’ upon delivering shoes to their consumers.
‘Shoes of Prey’ tackles the packaging and delivery component of their product by receiving a beautifully filled shoe box with tissue paper and a personal note wax sealed. Consumers love this process so much that they go out of their way to Instagram the delivery, and here you have a business that has generated a unique delivery process and a lasting memory for the consumer.

The most important benefit of killing your cusotmers with happiness is the fact that it makes their experience inevitably memorable. Make your customers feel valued in a unique way and they will remember it well. Additionally, this remembrance is the key to opening up maximum potential for business growth via personal referrals. Making your customer’s experience not only happy, but memorable, is the key to attaining referrals as it distils in them a sense of gratitude and pride in your product and a fundamental need to tell people about your services.

Nielsen, a marketing survey company, further supports the importance of personal references through research that indicates that the ‘voices of fellow consumers’ tends to be one of the ‘most trusted forms of advertising.’

So. Now that we have established the necessity of enhancing our customer’s happiness and the importance of doing so to attain personal references, how do we now engage in this process for ourselves in our own businesses? Here are a few basic tips you can employ order to maintain a stead stream of happy and loyal customers:

• Always be remarkable through innovation and uniqueness.
• Capitalise on your personality and use this to weave it into the service experience
• Focus on an aspect of your business that has not traditionally been tackled before.
• Tackle it with innovation and, that will exceed the expectations of your consumers.
• Tackle it with innovation that will make it memorable.

Through innovation, surprise and delight techniques, valuing your customers and through creating for them a unique and unforgettable experience, you will undoubtedly maintain a steady stream of customers, which will further maximise your potential for maximum business growth.