Beyond Price - What Customers Want

By Walt Zeglinski, President and CEO, MAP

Are you keeping your customers loyal? If you think the price of your products or services is the reason you are attracting or not attracting and maintaining customers, think again. Today's customers are savvy and want much more from their relationship with your company than just a low cost.

Customers are looking for relationships that deliver unique value. Yes, they want the products to solve their problems, but they also seek a level of satisfaction that goes beyond the intrinsic value of what they paid for. By learning to tap into this deeper emotional satisfaction, your business with current customers will increase and you will uncover a steady stream of new customers.

You may have asked your customers if they were satisfied with their purchase. But the true measure is whether your customers are coming back. In a customer poll, you may find that 8 out of 10 customers are satisfied. That sounds great. But only 4 or 5 purchase from you again. Why? Because rational satisfaction (they were not displeased, the product worked) is only part of the equation. Customers who purchase again are emotionally satisfied. Moreover, emotionally satisfied customers will also recommend your product or service to others.

Here's the bottom line on measuring loyalty: 1) How many of your customers intend to purchase again, and 2) how many of them would endorse your company to others.

Creating Exceptional Value

Exceptional value is created when your customer perceives your product or service to be worth more to them than the price they pay. I see two elements for creating exceptional value:

The first is how well you communicate the unique value of your products and services as compared to alternative solutions. This is important and is likely to result in a high rational satisfaction. However it takes emotional satisfaction to develop a loyal customer.

The second factor - building deeper, trust-based relationships - is the key to emotionally satisfied customers. This happens when your employees show your organization understands a customer's needs, delivers more than is expected, and helps them achieve their goals.

Exceptional value stems from exceptional employees. Your people are the secret sauce in your ability to deliver on the value promise. You have to hire and retain the right people to make it work. These employees are those who do not need management mandates to engage customers and adhere to company values. They are your customer's problem solvers. They provide the discretionary effort and intellectual capital that can take your customers from satisfied to loyal. And, an increase of only 5 percent in customer loyalty can add from 25 to 100 percent to your bottom line!

Developing emotionally satisfied customers who enjoy extrinsic value (beyond functional benefits) is an achievable ideal. It is the connection you should seek to develop with your customers. You want to deliver more value than the functional benefits inherent in your product or service. You want your customers to experience the extrinsic value you bring to the relationship by being emotionally engaged throughout the buying process.

By optimizing the key performance drivers of value creation, you can tap the emotional bonds of your customer relationships. This takes the right people, the right process, the right leadership, and the right commitment. The investment you make in enabling your team to develop loyal customers will enrich your core business and enable you to gain market share.