How To Avoid Alienating Customers In Any Business

No matter what business, customer is the king. You need to understand your customer, gauge their changing requirements, keep up with the times, adopt transparency, and pledge your promises among other things to retain them. Here are some tips to avoid alienating customers and keeping them happy and satisfied. ~ Ed.

One of the worst habits any business can find itself falling into is feeling entitled to their audience. It’s important to remember that any time a customer purchases an item or books a service with our company, that’s a vote of confidence that can easily be withdrawn at the next opportunity. Good businesses organize themselves to perpetually earn those confidence votes, by making the promotional aspect worthwhile, and also delivering when prompted each and every time.

Yet it’s also true that even before a customer purchases, improper management or planning can deter or alienate your customer base. This is never a good idea, no matter if you’re trying to break out into new markets or repeatedly serve the clients that have stuck with you through thick and thin. With that in mind, let’s consider six essential means of avoiding that outcome.

6 Ways To Avoid Alienating Customers Before They Buy

Take no one for granted. Always ensure you provide value for money and earn the customer confidence. The following tips may help you achieve success in your business.

Targeting Them Too Stereotypically

To most clear-thinking people it’s obvious that just because someone’s in a certain demographic, it doesn’t mean they all think or behave the same way. Let’s say you’re marketing to Gen Z – don’t assume all of them are after the same trendy products or are all addicted to TikTok. People hate feeling like they’re just a checkbox in some marketing strategy.

A better approach is to learn the process for creating buyer personas, as it allows you to take their very many characteristics in play without reducing them to a single type, while still making your marketing approach tight enough to attract the people most likely to buy.

Assuming Their Loyalty

Customer loyalty is a fragile thing – it needs to be earned continuously. Sure, you might have a loyal fanbase now, but all it takes is one bad experience or a competitor offering something better for that loyalty to waver. For example, most people have a Gmail or Outlook account, but if a brand new provider came with excellent domain names, and a 2TB free cloud storage account offered to every profile, you can bet those years of loyalty would dry up quickly. Don’t assume constant support, it will help you avoid resting when there’s competition to be had.

Failing To Explain Your Services

You’d be surprised how many businesses drop the ball here. We often assume that our services or products are self-explanatory when, in reality, they may not be. Customers want clarity. If they’re confused or unsure about what you’re offering, they’ll quickly move on.

Put simply – don’t make them dig for information. Be upfront and clear about what they can expect from you, and keep in mind that people are bombarded with marketing messages all day long, so your explanation needs to stand out by being simple, concise, and compelling.

Taking Away Utility

Nothing frustrates customers more than having something useful taken away from them, especially when it’s a service they’ve come to rely on. If you’re going to make changes to your product or service, especially when it reduces utility, you’ve got to be transparent and have a very solid reason for doing so. Otherwise, it just feels like a money grab or as if you’re trying to strip the value from the service to charge for it later. So for example, putting a service feature at one tier behind a higher paywall, without months and months of forewarning and a cheap upgrade for those currently on the prior plan is never going to go down well.

Charging More With No Explanation

Pricing changes happen. In fact, even well-meaning businesses often find themselves needing to grow their fees to match inflation. But you can’t just up your prices without giving customers a reason they can understand, and as before, especially not with good warning. People don’t mind paying more if they feel they’re getting their money’s worth, but they hate feeling like they’re being penny-pinched for no good reason.

Perhaps you’ve diligently turned your business into an entirely sustainable enterprise, but now you need to charge customers 5% more for the privilege of that. You may be surprised how many are willing to follow you, but it’s the explanation and justification parts that matter most.

Providing No Visible Security

Any security guard can tell you that the most valuable protection tool they have is just standing there and being visible. Because customers are increasingly aware of how their data is handled, and they’re more likely to trust businesses that take their privacy seriously, don’t hide your security apparatus behind closed doors. If your business doesn’t visibly prioritize security, customers may hesitate to trust you, no matter how great your offerings are. That might be as simple as working with secure payment providers, allowing 2FA on accounts, conducting audits, or having fraud alerts in place. It all counts, and shows you care.

Wrapping it up

Summing up, you need to keep earning the confidence of your customers and delivering your promises, ensure prudent planning of your marketing strategy, explain your product or services properly to the customers upfront, adopt transparency, make the customers feel secure and cared for. With this advice, you’ll be certain to avoid alienating customers before they buy.

Over to you

How did you tackle your wavering customer base and stop them from moving away? Share your experiences and tips to avoid alienating customers in the comments section.

Disclaimer: Though the views expressed are of the author’s own, this article has been checked for its authenticity of information and resource links provided for a better and deeper understanding of the subject matter. However, you're suggested to make your diligent research and consult subject experts to decide what is best for you. If you spot any factual errors, spelling, or grammatical mistakes in the article, please report at [email protected]. Thanks.