Getting new customers and retaining current customers is a major challenge for most businesses–especially in today’s day and age. There’s so much competition. How can you stand out and get customers to choose you instead of a competitor? One way is by demonstrating your value to your customers.
Demonstrating your value to customers can help boost customer retention. Why? Because it gives customers the peace of mind of knowing that they are getting the best service possible, which eliminates the need to look elsewhere for other businesses to meet their needs.
However, a lot of businesses fail to do this effectively. That’s because they think showing value to customers is a matter of listing off product features. But the most successful businesses are those that understand that it goes way beyond that.
You need to let customers know what’s in it for them if you want them to truly understand your value.
Here, we’ll walk through seven ways to demonstrate value to your customers:
- Share customer testimonials
- Leverage competitor comparisons
- Collect and apply feedback
- Provide outstanding customer service
- Gather and share social proof
- Create content just for your customers
- Build a customer community
Let’s take a look at each strategy in detail.
1. Demonstrate value through the power of customer testimonials
Research shows that 88% of people trust customer reviews as much as word-of-mouth referrals from family and friends.
You can use this to your advantage by gathering testimonials and case studies on your website and social media platforms. (Check out some examples of customer testimonials for inspiration.)
In addition to helping to boost your authority and assuage the doubts of potential customers, testimonials can also help you stand out from your competitors in a powerful way. They show customers that you have an established track record for success, which demonstrates your value in a clear way.
Unfortunately, a lot of businesses struggle when it comes to getting testimonials.
If that’s you, here are a few tips to help:
- Simply ask for testimonials: Follow up with recent customers and simply ask them about their experience while your product or service is still fresh in their minds.
- Follow up: For those customers who don’t respond to your first email, follow up again later. They may be more receptive to your request for a testimonial after they’ve had a chance to form a solid opinion about your business.
- Approach your best customers individually: They are likely to give you a great testimonial, and that simple act of reaching out personally will help strengthen your relationship with them, and theirs with your brand.
This plumbing website has examples of testimonials that demonstrate value to current and potential customers.
When you do ask for a customer testimonial, make sure to be specific–it will help both your business and your customer by making it easy for them to provide the type of information you’re looking for.
For instance, you might ask:
- “What’s your favorite thing about our product/service?”
- “How have our employees helped you?”
- “What are the biggest benefits you have seen as a result of using this product or service?”
2. Leverage competitor comparisons
By observing your competition, you can learn more about what works and what doesn’t in your niche. This will help you better inform your own strategy for showing value to your customers.
It will also allow you to find ways to differentiate yourself–even when you and your competitors offer the exact same product or service.
So take the time to do some a competitive analysis on each of your rivals so you can figure out what your advantage is and put it to use. You can use these differentiators in your marketing materials, on your website, and as part of your brand story.
You might consider a SWOT analysis as you analyze your competitors.
Ask yourself these questions about your competitors:
- What are they offering?
- What are the features and benefits of their products?
- What sets them apart from the rest?
These days, almost all customers perform some kind of comparison research before making a purchasing decision. So if you can offer any benefits that your competitors don’t offer, it makes your job of convincing and converting your customers a lot easier–and makes it much easier to demonstrate value because you know what customers need and want in your space.
3. Collect and apply feedback (and let customers know you care)
Whether your customers are satisfied or not, many will want to leave reviews and feedback. You must collect and apply this information as a way to help you improve your business.
For example, you might receive a complaint in one of your reviews about a customer service issue. Keep all that information in a database so that you can continually reference it and improve your business over time.
From there, you can then use this information to train your team based on feedback from your reviews to take care of all the issues you’ve uncovered. Then, you can demonstrate your value to customers by letting them know you take their feedback seriously and have made meaningful changes as a result. This can be done in review responses, as social post updates, or in an email to customers.
This review response shows that the business has taken the complaint seriously and is using it to train its team. This demonstrates value by showing that this business cares about its customers and is always trying to improve the customer experience.
In this way, customers see that you’re not just out to take their money, but your aim is to provide real value, create relationships with them, and deliver the best customer experience.
Also, this helps you to stay ahead of the competition and eliminates the customer’s need to find new ways to satisfy their requirements.
4. Provide outstanding customer service
Providing ongoing support and customer service is a great way to demonstrate your value to clients. 80% of customers state that a positive customer experience is just as important as a company’s products or services.
Whether you’re selling products or services, your customers want to feel valued at each stage of the customer journey.
This means you must offer outstanding customer service and address all their customer pain points to ensure they have a positive experience with your business.
One way you can do this is by staying in touch with your customers after they’ve made a purchase. This demonstrates your value to customers by showing them that you want to build a relationship.
One of the best ways to stay in touch with your customers is by sending regular email newsletters with information about upcoming promotions, FAQs, or educational pieces you or your team have created.
5. Gather and share social proof
Yet another great way to show your value to customers is through the use of social proof. Customers always have a need to justify their decision to purchase your product. One way they do this is by gathering social proof.
So, you can use this to your advantage by providing tons of social proof on your website, any landing pages you build, social media (including Facebook Ads), emails, and any other marketing channels you use.
There are many different ways to provide social proof, such as:
- Sharing product updates on social media
- Sharing noteworthy news on your blog
- Writing interesting guest posts on other blogs in your niche
You can also take plenty of photos and videos of people using and enjoying your products and post them on your website and social media pages. As video marketing statistics show videos can be an effective method for boosting customer engagement and can positively affect their purchase decision.
You can share videos of happy customers at your location, a short message from a customer about their experience, or a video of your employees enjoying their shifts.
6. Create content just for your customers
When you can provide your customers with relevant and useful content created just for them, it demonstrates your value in a powerful way.
A great way to do this is by creating content that supports them in every stage during the use of your product or service. If you can help them make the most of your product, it will increase customer satisfaction and boost customer retention.
This dentist has a blog with content geared toward their patients.
So, create different types of content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, webinars, etc. that will help your customers use your product in better and more effective ways or see you as an expert.
This is undoubtedly one of the best ways to prove your value while providing a great service for your customers.
7. Build a customer community
Creating an online community for your customers lets them know that you are committed to providing them with value in the long term. It’s the perfect way to anchor them to your brand.
You can create a group, forum, or any other type of online community that will give your customers a place where they can come to exchange information and get their questions answered.
For example, you can create a Facebook group where customers can share their product use practices, successes, failures, and any other relevant information pertaining to your product (which, by the way, many of your other customers will find useful).
Alternatively, you can create a membership platform or forum on your own website to give your customers that “VIP” feeling.
Regardless of what you decide to do, make sure that you constantly monitor that channel so that your customers are always engaged.
An online community not only provides value for your customers, but it gives you a way of demonstrating value to prospective customers through your existing customer base.
Pro tip: You can share your own success stories (or even everyday stories) on your chosen platform. This is a great way to humanize your brand and create positive brand awareness while promoting your products or services.
Demonstrate your value to customers today
Customers want to know that when they spend their time and money on your brand, they are receiving full value in return. Use these seven tips now to demonstrate value to your customers and enjoy the many benefits that come with them.
About the author
Ron Stefanski is an internet entrepreneur and marketing professor at National Louis University who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business. You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com. You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin.
