Sharing Knowledge Helps Grow Business

In today’s world, you aren’t just a feed dealer, mineral supplier or farm and home store. You are more than a business. You and your sales staff become industry experts. Experts that your customers rely on for their nutritional advice as it relates to their herd, flock, show stock, horses and dogs. That’s why it is more important than ever before to have knowledge available and ready to share.

According to Shep Hyken, New York Times and Wall Street Journal best selling author and customer engagement expert, 96% of customers will leave a business because of one bad experience. These experiences could range from poor customer interaction, untimely responses, lack of response, rude personnel, consistently being out of stock on a product or never showing appreciation.

In a recent presentation, Hyken offered several tips to help create customer amazement. The central idea to creating customer amazement is to be better than average. When it comes to customer service, no one wants just “fine” service, they want excellent service. Hyken said fine is an acronym that stands for: Fake smile, Insincere feedback, Never coming back, Emotionless (business is dead to the customer). Let’s explore the five ways he recommends providing customer amazement.

  1. Create moments of magic. Make sure that you provide the information and education that the customer is looking for. If they ask a specific question, answer that question directly, not five other questions and don’t beat around the bush. Share another customer testimonial or if you have used the product, share about that positive experience too. Customers want to hear about why something will work for them and their program.
  2. Embrace feedback. Both negative and positive feedback can be good things to help your business grow and share information with others. For example, BioZyme® heard your feedback about the paper mineral bags. A positive change was made due to that feedback. If you hear positive feedback about a product, you can use that to your advantage when talking to others about that specific product.
  3. Communication is key. When providing your customers with valuable information, remember communication is a two-way process. Provide information. Ask the extra questions. Listen for their concerns or challenges. Address their specific needs. Don’t talk circles around them, and don’t do all the talking, but always make sure to be sincere and listen to what they need.
  4. Offer convenient solutions. Perhaps you have all your product information on your website, but not all your customers have internet access. One of the best ways to lay out the information is in a FAQ document. What frequent questions do your customers have? Create the answers for those and answer them in one document and have them readily available to distribute when talking about a product or time in the production cycle.
  5. Show appreciation. You rely on your customers for your success just as much as they rely on you. Be sure to thank them for their patronage and for believing in you and your products.

Providing information is an ongoing process, and mastering the process is ongoing as well. Be sure you and your employees understand the above steps and the importance of providing education and information. Customer amazement is an important step to customer retention. Continue to educate your customers and watch your business grow!

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