What’s Your Customers’ Take on Your Company’s Value?
What’s the value of your company? If you’re a business owner, you’ll look through the lens of financial details – say, sales minus expenses equals profits (or that other dreadful scenario, losses). Plus, some things CPAs know how to add in for an overall picture of “value.”
But what is the value of your company to your customers? That’s a different picture because it’s often about intangibles that aren’t actually measured but are “sensed” or “felt” and for which there are absolutely no checkboxes on any IRS forms.
Another issue: customers can’t always tell you what they value. Sure, they like companies that “do good,” but is that who they’re going to call if they perceive the “do-gooders” charge more? Hard to say. So, you want to learn more of what they’re thinking through surveys, focus groups, plus customer service and sales reps interactions. Then test what you learn to see whether it’s accurate.
Let’s say you learn everybody is totally for clean air, green-friendly home comfort, safe electricity and no-problem plumbing. You can’t find a soul against any of it. Great. So, see what customers do when these “values” are presented with certain offers. They “act on” the value they hold for your company when they see what’s in it for them. Make this the key value you present, with facts to reassure. Remember, people decide based on emotion, but use logic for peace about their decision.