Todd Sumamno
Your clients’ experiences with you and your business have a direct impact on your brand image. How people perceive you will shape the success of your business, so it’s crucial to develop a positive, likable brand image if you want to be successful.
Perception is everything
Where businesses are concerned, perception is everything. You want people to hold a positive perception of your brand because that’s going to be the driving factor behind additional purchase decisions and how they tell others about your company.
Customers who have a good experience with you will generally carry a positive perception of your brand, and when they talk about you to others, those conversations will be positive. It doesn’t matter if you’ve only interacted with them online.
Negative experiences have the opposite effect. No matter how amazing your products or services are, if people say negative things about your business, other people will start to perceive your brand in a negative light.
Perception trumps reality
If you can provide your clients or customers with a wonderful experience, it won’t necessarily matter what you’re selling. Often, people buy experiences over features. For instance, many people buy luxury cars because they’re a status symbol. Manufacturers like Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Rolls Royce all carry a brand image of luxury that many people are willing to pay good money for, even when there are other options with more power.
If you’re a business owner who entertains clients periodically, you can create a positive perception of your brand by providing them with an amazing experience. For instance, if you host clients at your house, having a nice outdoor kitchen, perhaps with a bar, is a great way to impress. Your clients will feel taken care of and even pampered. If you’re into multi-level marketing (MLM) businesses, this is a great takeaway for hosting in-home meetings that differ from the usual format.
Marketing is the best example of how the perception of quality trumps actual quality. There are businesses with mediocre and even poor quality products that have built up massively positive reputations based on nothing more than appearances.
Pleasing aesthetics generate sales and that’s why visual content is said to be the most effective form of advertising around. Visuals dominate all other senses to the point where you can change what a person sees and it will alter what they believe they’re hearing. The easiest way to see this in effect is through The McGurk Effect.
On the other hand, there are plenty of companies with outstanding products who haven’t built any kind of brand image and remain relatively unknown in their industry. Until and unless they throw themselves into the spotlight by creating a likable image, they will remain invisible.
Clients talk
Whether you work one-on-one in person or keep your business all online, your clients are going to talk about your business. Their experiences and opinions will end up shaping the opinions of people they engage in conversation. It’s important to do what you can to keep your customers happy so they don’t post angry reviews about you online. Negative reviews will impact your business by deterring a number of purchases.
You can shape a positive customer experience in the following ways:
· Go above and beyond. This doesn’t mean giving people free stuff they never asked for. Going above and beyond means doing whatever it takes to make your customers happy within reason. If someone is 10 days past their return date, give them a refund or replacement anyway. Give your employees the discretion to bend the rules for good customers.
· Solve problems fast. Never leave customers or clients hanging. Solve their issues as fast as possible. If you see a recurring problem, address it at the root and make an announcement about the fix to your community.
· Be respectful and understanding. The customer isn’t always right, but they should always be treated with respect and empathy. When encountering customers who don’t qualify for warranty claims, returns, or exchanges, or customers with issues you can’t or are not obligated to solve, be respectful. Have empathy for their situation and explain the reason you can’t help in simple terms they can understand.
Make an impact with what you can control
You can’t control every aspect of how customers and clients perceive your business, but you do have a degree of control in certain areas. Focus on improving what you can control, like your customer service, online interactions, and in-person experiences. Sometimes all it takes to develop a positive brand image is to have a great offering and a good attitude toward your customers.
Brittany
