Three Factors That Drive Customer Choice Over Having the Best

No matter what industry your business is in and what you sell or what services you offer, there’s one thing we all have in common and that is our need for customers. It makes no difference where you are in the world or how good your product is, if you don’t have any customers then your business will not survive.

It is one challenge that every business is trying to overcome on a daily basis, whether it’s a small start-up or a multi-million dollar enterprise. Don’t believe me? Go on google and search for a product you want to buy. How many “Sponsored” results do you get? Do the companies at the very top seem “little” to you?

Every company needs customers and we are all often competing over the same groups of people. What I find quite common though in all of these is this mantra that, “We are the best in…”

Gillette: The best a man can get.

Mercedez-Benz: The best or nothing.

BMW: The ultimate driving machine.

There’s nothing really wrong with that but my question is always, “well, best for whom?”

Find your favourite restaurant on Google and read through the reviews. Yep, I’m that guy and I do exactly that. The same burger that I might enjoy every time gets these two reviews from two different people:

- The beef was undercooked, there was too much sauce, I couldn’t taste the veggies.

- Too dry, not enough sauce. Pattie was overcooked.

Now, of course, the chef might have made them differently on different days but that doesn’t negate the fact that we are all so different. Any steakhouse will list the ways a steak can be cooked from having the blood still oozing out of it all the way to the other end of the spectrum where it’s so hard and dry you could hammer a nail with it.

What I’m trying to say is, trying to make your product “the best” may not always be the greatest way to find good customers.

By the way, when I say “best”, I am not talking about the quality. Your product and service should always be at the best of your ability and top notch, your reputation is on the line after all. What I am referring to, though, is try to compete with every competitor out there to have the best product imaginable. There will still be many customers who feel alienated by your product because it doesn’t quite suit them.

Instead, here are three other factors that greatly drive traffic more than having that ultimate product.

1. Convenience: Make life easier for your customers

Did you know that drive-thrus at fast food restaurants can account for up to 70% of their sales? The product may not be the absolute best around or even the cheapest but because the process of attaining it is convenient and easy, they’ll come to you.

Take me, for example. Before they built a Guzman Y Gomez almost as close as my front door, I used to be willing to drive 15 minutes further than the, then, closest one to me because they offered drive-thru while the one closer was inside a Westfield.

More and more people are opting for online shopping over visiting a brick and mortar store. Major shopping centres are reporting an incline in foot traffic every year. Libraries in Australia found that digital format lending grew by 48% over the past handful of years. Netflix swallowed up VHS/DVD Rentals with 90% of stores now closed since the early 2000s.

Convenience isn’t everything but it’s a very tempting offer against the competition who doesn’t offer it.

2. Practicality: Make your product more usable

Remember at school that amazing pen that came with 4 different colours? You push down on the colour you want and magically, at least it was to a primary school kid, it starts to write in that colour.

I hated it. With a passion.

After some use, the levers would jam. Holding the pen wasn’t even practical because of how big it was that I couldn’t write as neatly as I would like. I was happy to carry multiple pens, each of which wrote in one single colour. Why? It was way more practical.

In fact, you will notice that you often opt for practicality too over a seemingly cheaper product or the “ultimate” problem solver. Go ask your grandparents how much they love new smartphones over their beloved old Nokia phones.

Don’t underestimate practicality. It may not be everything, but people are often willing to pay more for it than a product that is amazing at one thing.

3. Trust: Make your name familiar and reliable

If I could stress any factor of your business, it would be this. Be a business your customers can always count on.

A customer once called me and said that they had looked for a web developer who was closer to them in proximity but, months later, the work still hadn’t been done. He decided to tell their business to come back to me because, “he gets the job done”.

Not to toot my own horn, though, if I can, why not, right? That’s not the point of what I’m saying. Customers need to rely on the product and service that they are paying for and if either fails them, they have no reason to come back.

Most e-commerce businesses, possibly even like yours, are willing to completely write-off certain logistics providers because of repeated negative experiences. They are willing to not offer certain shipping options, or even raise their own expenses, for a more reliable service.

Unlike the other two factors, trust is in fact everything. It doesn’t matter how practical the purchase process is or how practical your product is. Even if your product is the shiniest and the “ultimate”. Break your customers’ trust and, often, they will never return.

Conclusion

Every competitor of yours will try to beat you at your product and your service. They will drop their prices, include more features for the same price, throw in all the bells and whistles that make their product look better than yours but, in the end, what customers will always always look for are:

1. The convenience of the process

2. The practicality of your product

3. Most importantly of all, the trust you’ve built