{"id":147,"date":"2022-10-03T09:58:04","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T09:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2022-10-03T09:58:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T09:58:04","slug":"your-customers-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/your-customers-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Customer\u2019s Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Have you noticed that there seems to be something different about your customers of late?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In fact, have you noticed that <em>everything<\/em> is different about your customers lately? Current concepts of your business\u2019 relationships with its customers can be thrown out the window, with \u2018old\u2019 relationship values supplanting them. There is a new (or should we say a return to the old) reality you must face or risk losing customer relationships if you do not.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some things you should know about the \u2018new\u2019 customer reality:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Their minimum expectations are higher than before.<\/strong> Today\u2019s incredible innovations are tomorrow\u2019s minimum expectations. With each innovation, each enhanced service delivery, each product improvement the bar is raised another notch. The \u2018crazy\u2019 ideas that broke the rules yesterday are expected standards of performance today<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The new reality is that we live in the information age &#8211; an age where you find yourself living in the fishbowl. Your offerings are competing with virtual competitors and your customers can tap into them, interrogate them, and draw comparisons with you at the touch of a button \u2013 <em>from anywhere in the world<\/em>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Quality is an entry-level factor.<\/strong> Product quality is no longer a competitive factor. It is now just a single factor in the whole concept of value. It is expected! Everyone brings a quality product or service to the marketplace.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customers look for the total experience.<\/strong> People don\u2019t just buy products anymore. They buy an experience. The whole experience of doing business with a company is much more than simply the product anyone buys \u2013 it\u2019s about the experience the buyer has as the owner of the product or service. You must change the weight you give to the importance of the customer\u2019s total experience with your business. Service and experience are the primary competitive factors you must address.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Customers make the decisions.<\/strong> You need to make the conscious decision to let your customers make up the rules \u2013 they already do anyway! If you aren\u2019t willing to play by those rules, you just won\u2019t be able to play at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do you know what your customer\u2019s expectations are?<\/strong> It\u2019s hard to know what their expectations are unless you have a close relationship with them. You often hear companies claim that they strive to \u201cexceed their customer\u2019s expectations\u201d. Do you have an idea how incredibly high your customer\u2019s expectation are? Exceeding customer\u2019s expectations is a very powerful goal \u2013 if you remember that <strong>you<\/strong> do not decide if you\u2019ve exceeded their expectations \u2013 <em>they do that<\/em>!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your customers are not yours for life. <\/strong>No business today automatically has \u201ccustomers for life\u201d, which is a big change from the way things used to be 40 years ago. Some businesses, almost by nature, seemed to be able to hold onto their customers without even really trying. Today, customers feel they can find whatever you\u2019re selling somewhere else, for the same price or better \u2013 <em>they are right<\/em>!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your customers compare you to everything.<\/strong> Every company benchmarks, but most only benchmark themselves against others in their market or competitive environment. Customers don\u2019t think that way \u2013 they compare you to everyone they do business with. You need to \u2018deliver on time\u2019 all the time! If someone out there provides the level of service they want, they\u2019ll want you to give them that same level, regardless of whether your business supplies different products or services to the \u2018other\u2019 business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Here comes the acid test. If you want to gain some insight into how your customers have changed and toughened over time, think of yourself and what you want as a customer, and then answer these 10 questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are you a tougher customer than you were five years ago?<\/li>\n<li>Are you a more informed and more educated buyer than you were five years ago?<\/li>\n<li>Are you more likely to complain on the spot if you experience a problem?<\/li>\n<li>Do you demand better service than you used to?<\/li>\n<li>If you do not receive the service you want, are you more likely to \u2018fire\u2019 that business and never come back?<\/li>\n<li>Are you more likely today to act such as writing or calling a company\u2019s management with a complaint?<\/li>\n<li>Do you tell more people today about companies that you have experienced problems with?<\/li>\n<li>Do you take \u201cno\u201d for an answer or are you more likely to go up the chain of command until you get satisfaction?<\/li>\n<li>Do you demand more value for the money you spend than ever before?<\/li>\n<li>Do you feel like you have choices as to who you do business with, and that you will exercise those choices if you don\u2019t get the service you want?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You\u2019re tough yourself, aren\u2019t you? Your customers are at least as tough as you are!<\/p>\n<p>Success in business is all about getting the business fundamentals right \u2026 and the actions you take!<\/p>\n<p><strong>QUOTATION:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>All salesmen will do well to remember that no one wants anything that someone else is trying to \u201cget rid of\u201d. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>ALL CONTENTS OF THIS POST ARE COPYRIGHTED BY THE NOMA ASIL SA TRUST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION OF ANY PART OF THIS DOCUMENT IS PROHIBITED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE NOMA ASIL SA TRUST.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing in this post should be considered personalised investment, legal, professional, or medical advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under any laws to address your situation in any of these areas. No communication by our employees should be deemed as personalised investment, professional, legal, or medical advice.<\/p>\n<p>Advice and information provided in this post is not intended as, nor should it be considered as substitute for, legal, accounting, or other similar professional advice or services. Should such advice or services be appropriate, readers are advised to seek such advice or service from the appropriate professional. Further, The Noma Asil SA Trust does not accept any responsibility or liability for individual reader\u2019s particular interpretations, uses or applications of information provided, and readers of this post automatically indemnify The Noma Asil SA Trust from any such liability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you noticed that there seems to be something different about your customers of late? In fact, have you noticed that everything is different about your customers lately? Current concepts of your business\u2019 relationships with its customers can be thrown out the window, with \u2018old\u2019 relationship values supplanting them. There is a new (or should &#8230;.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a class=\" default\" href=\"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/your-customers-reality\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-operations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dlga.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}