Customers aren't supposed to adapt to us!

Customers aren’t going to adapt to us! 

I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of frustration from companies that stems from how they want to do business, but their customers want it done differently. When we’re the customer, the companies have to do business the way we want, or we’ll find someone else who will. It’s too easy these days to find another alternative. Are you doing things a certain way because it’s easier for you? Is it also easier for your customers? Or, are you adding friction that chases them away. 

Listen to this new 6-minute episode for for ideas and perspective so you can take a step back, and see if you’re making it harder for your customers.  

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

• Apple Podcast: http://bit.ly/weddingbusinesssolutions
• YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
• Stitcher: http://bit.ly/wbsstitcher
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• iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
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©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Transcript

Customers aren't supposed to adapt to us. Listen to this episode. See where I'm going with this one. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I've been seeing a lot of posts lately about people frustrated that they can't get their customers to use the communication methods that they want. Or maybe they're getting ghosted and they're not sure why. A lot of this has to do with the way you want to do business and the way they want to do business. 

And sometimes the customers adapt to us. We don't always have that pleasure. We don't always have that power to get customers to adapt to us. Most of the time, we have to adapt to them. So using the communication methods that they want is one way to adapt to them. Trying to change that communication method too early is a good reason to get ghosted. I've written about this in my book. Why are they ghosting me? I've spoken about this consult with people. 

Just this week, I've had three conversations with three different customers, people just like you, frustrated by getting ghosting. And one of the biggest reasons is you're immediately asking to change from the digital method the way they inquired to the phone call. But it's also adapting to other things. I've gone to using e signatures for my speaking agreements and consulting agreements because I know that you don't have printers necessarily, and to print it out and to sign it and to scan it and fax it back or to email it back is a bunch of steps, and that's a lot of friction. So what do we do? We adapt to the technology. We adapt to the consumers. Looking at the way your customer is seeing your business is another way of adapting to them. I was doing a consultation this week with someone and I said, how much of your web traffic is mobile? And it was like 70%. 

Well, in looking at that, we weren't really even looking at their website on desktop. We started to look at it on mobile, and that's the way I did the website review, was looking at it on mobile because that's what the customers are seeing. In one case, I had someone that spent a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of effort to make a great video that played on the desktop version of their website, but it didn't play on mobile. So all this effort went to 20% to 30% of their customers who are going to see it, versus the 70% to 80% that won't. So this is another way of adapting and saying, okay, let's sit and see our business the way that they do. I have a new presentation I've been doing called where's the friction in your sales process? And these are some of those things that add friction. How many times do they have to click to get to what they want to see and want to find on your website, by the way? What they want to see, what they want to find, which is not necessarily what's there right now. And then how many clicks is it to get them to do what you want them to do, which is to reach out to you? How many fields is it on your contact form? Again, other ways of friction. 

So adapting to the customer is understanding that just like when you're the customer and a business makes it hard for you, or adds these roadblocks for you, or adds some friction for you, you go someplace else and your customers do too. The thing is that sometimes we can't even see it. We can't see that they left our website without contacting us. We can just see that we didn't get a contact right. You can certainly see how many visitors you get to your website, how many inquiries you get. But that's an imperfect science there. You'd have to know a lot more about that and the actions they took, if it's the same people that are coming back and more things like that. So really what I wanted to get to with this is we have to adapt to the way the customer wants to do business. 

A lot of my clients are doing texting these days. People are still doing Zoom appointments and Zoom tours and Zoom sales calls and making sales that way. I'm making sales through text messaging. If you go to my website, there's a widget there to text us through, connect Kenect. And it pops up and asks you what you want to contact me about. And I'm doing business with people that way, not trying to change it to a phone call because the conversation is going well. And if the conversation is going well, don't change the communication method. There has to be a really good reason why you'd want to do that. 

 Can you get them to the next step, which in your case might be a phone call, might be a meeting, or it might just be the sale. If you're having the great conversation, it might just be the sale. So don't try to change that communication method too soon. Don't try to force the customer to do things the way that you want to. If, when you think about it and you say this would be easier for me or it's easier for me. If you have to then finish that and say, but is it easier for them? Because if it's not, you're adding this friction. You're not doing business the way they want to do business and you're actually losing business. And sometimes you can't see it. 

 See, I wish you could. Because if we could all see the business that we lost because somebody didn't get to the point of making that inquiry because of something that we did or didn't respond to us, because it's not the way that they want to communicate. If we could see the business we lost, we'd all act faster to fix that. But a lot of it is invisible to you. So just think about if you're doing something and you say, it's easier for me if. Is it also easier for your customer? And if it's not, you might need to make it a little bit more difficult for you to make it easier for them because then you get the profits. Hope it gives you something to think about. Thanks. 

 Bye. 

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks. 

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site: 

• Apple Podcast: http://bit.ly/weddingbusinesssolutions 
• YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8 
• Stitcher:  http://bit.ly/wbsstitcher 
• Google Podcast: http://bit.ly/wbsgoogle 
• iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic 
• Pandora: http://bit.ly/wbspandora 

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com