The Missing Outlet
It’s been a few years since you moved into your new house. At first, it didn’t bother you, that area with no outlet to plug the vacuum in. It’s a stretch to reach, but if you navigate the floor attachment just right, it can reach, even if the whole thing unplugs every three times you use it. But enough is enough; you need power! You call up the electrician your brother uses, and they come out. With only a few hundred dollars, you no longer have to dance on the razor’s edge of long-distance vacuuming!
The electrician arrives on time and completes the work in just a few hours. Great! But wait, you inspect the job, and the outlet looks excellent, but there is a pretty sizeable hole in your wall. You ask, “will you fix that?” “Oh, no, we don’t do drywall and painting, you will have to hire someone else for that repair.” 🤬
The Replacement Vehicle Control Arm
Maybe you need to get a pretty integral piece of your car’s wheel/suspension system replaced. You head over and get the work done, but when the shop completes the job, they hand you the keys and say, “you’re really gonna want to get an alignment, the work we did tends to mess it up and we don’t do them here.” 😖
The business provides only part of the service in these and countless other cases, which can be super frustrating. Whenever you are looking to pay for a service, at its core, you have a problem you need to solve. When the solution leaves new issues to address, it is difficult for the customer and a missed opportunity for the business.
Make a Huge Impact and Lasting Impression
If you own a service business, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. The average company will say, “the customer can solve this problem, I don’t need to, it’s not what I do!” But you don’t want to have an average business, do you? You want the kind of business that leaves your customer delighted and ready to share with others.
For the electrician in my concocted story, they could train their employees in drywalling basics and do the patches right on-site, saving customers time and money.
The auto mechanic without the alignment machine could partner with a shop that does alignments and negotiate a slight discount to pass on to their customers with a coupon card. Or they could go further and drive the car over for the work, bring it back, and include it in the pricing.
In both cases, going the extra mile and thinking of everything will win lifetime customers and many referrals. Your competitive advantage doesn’t have to be groundbreaking; it just needs to look at the whole picture. It anticipates and meets needs unforeseen by the customer. Most of all, it makes the entire process feel as effortless as possible. Why? Because that is what you are selling. Not just car repairs or new outlets but peace of mind and expertise.
So the question is, how can you take care of your customers in an uncommon way?
Takeaway:
Work on providing complete solutions for your customers and increase your revenue and referrals!
