How Do You Get The "Overlooking Advantage"?
Have you ever had a super close friend who lied to you all the time, backstabbed you and was just generally out to get you?
My guess is NO!
Best friends and lying don’t go together. In a “sensible world”, it would be unwise to be close to someone you knew did not have your best interests at heart. The same is applicable to your business/brand.
In this post, ‘What Exactly Is A Brand?’, you will recall that I mentioned that a business’ brand is its character (Build your brand character with us). The way you act as a best friend is the way you should act as a business to your customers. You want to get to the point of occupying a specific space in the mind of your customer, so that when they think of a specific need, they associate that with you. For example, when I think of say African Pastry goods, I think Feldos. If it’s a used car that I need, I think, Delight Auto Group. You need to develop the mentality of becoming your customers best friend.
Think about that one time when you knew for certain that you could count on someone. How that person made you feel is how you should make your customers feel.
How do you prove to be dependable and trust worthy in your business?
If your business tagline is “Always on time”, you need to always be on time! It’s that simple.
If your store hours are posted as 9am till 5pm, the doors should be open to customer by 9am and available till 5pm at the earliest.
The general idea is to mean what you say and say what you mean.
The benefit of dependability is the “overlooking advantage”. It is when you make one mistake after accrued successful deliveries, but your customer overlooks it and remains loyal to you because now you have built character. This is only awarded to businesses that have been dependable over time and always gone over and beyond to deliver. It’s how you to retain existing customers and therefore maintain a referral pool.
People who believe a brand is dependable find it easier to refer friends to the business. As we know, word of mouth is the most valuable advertisement you could ever have. In fact, a report by Nielson proves that 92% of people trust recommendations by friends and family over any other form of advertising. This number is probably much higher now considering the rise of Influencer Marketing across social media and various channels. In financial terms, with a good attitude and dependable brand, the cost is zilch, zero, virtually nothing. Also, it is the highest quality of advertisement because when customers refer others, what they are doing is putting their seal of approval on it. Who wouldn’t believe the review of a trusted friend over a stranger?
Still on dependability, I’d share a little story about one of my most trusted brands – WestJet.
On a recent trip to the U.K., I flew WestJet and was unable to return due to every fault of mine. To keep the story short, let’s just say I had to remain in the U.K. UNWILLINGLY for an additional 4 days, without knowing when I’d be able to return. I explained the situation to WestJet attendants, but it appeared that due to certain inflexible rules imposed my third party relations, they were unable to help in the way that I initially wanted.
As you read this next bit, remember their tagline; “To enrich the lives of everyone in WestJet's world”. This is what they did when they provided me with an open return ticket, saving me $675+ in additional charges. This was most definitely enriching to me, especially as my original ticket was an economy class ticket, not first class or business class.
While they could have made extra cash from me, they stuck with their brand promise, which involved evaluating the situation and then going the extra mile..
From their P.O.V., the unspoken promise was to take me from my home to the U.K. and bring me back home. This is what I was depending on them for and this is what they delivered to me, delayed or not. That’s what a true friend does.
WestJet was dependable!
Be like WestJet!
