Over-delivering offers your company a massive advantage over competitors, especially if you don’t already have an established reputation. It’s something anyone can do with little effort that produces incredible results.
This is how it works:
Make a promise. This is what you will do for your customer (your product or service). Then, when you deliver as you said you would, you go further and give them a little something more. This exceeds their expectations, blows them away, and creates a “wow” experience.
Average businesses produce average results. Good businesses offer good results. But a business that over-delivers creates a unique and memorable experience. It’s a great opening move for a long-lasting, win-win relationship with your audience.
Here are some ways you can over-deliver.
Under-Promise and Over-Deliver
One method is to work backwards. What service can you offer your customers? Maybe you can set the goal post back so that you under-promise.
For example, let’s say that you’re a website designer and a client approaches you about a job. You can finish the job in three days, but you tell them you can have it done in five. Then, when you send the work through in three days, the client’s expectations are exceeded.
Save Time or Money
The best wow experiences for a customer save them time or money. In the case above, delivering work early saves the client time. Now that they have the content, they can go ahead and move forward. If you offer a discount on a purchase, this saves the person money.
The key is to surprise the customer with it. It shouldn’t be a regular part of your operations, like a point card. With a point card, the customer knows that every 10th purchase gets the next one free. The key to wowing your customer is to offer something that saves them money or time out of the blue and with no strings attached.
Consistent Wowing
You should create consistent “wow” experiences for your customer. In order to do this, you need to identify ways to exceed customer expectations that you can do on a continual basis. It can’t be something terribly expensive or draining of your resources.
Start by asking yourself what you can do. For example, you can personally reach out to each client with a “thank you” email after each job. This is a good way to follow up and get feedback, as well as keep you on their radar. With this “thank you” email, you could offer a discount on the next purchase or some other goodie that doesn’t cost you anything.
Over-Deliver with Apologies
A great time to over-deliver is when you’ve made a mistake or fallen short of expectations. Take the example of when a customer returns a faulty product. This is an excellent opportunity for you to wow them with service that goes above and beyond. Rather than trying to simply satisfy the customer, give them a gift or something else that shows them how much you appreciate their patronage.
Over-delivering can be done in such a way that it doesn’t cost you anything extra. But even a small thing can go a long way in building a great relationship with your customers.
This and much more will be part of our training on how to consistently wow your customers, business partners and employees. Go – your success is pre-programmed as you always deliver above and beyond expectations.
Want to know more about our Above and Beyond Training? Contact Us!
