How can we change our pricing model?

Price impacts the service buyer’s satisfaction level. A higher price for an information services suggests more is included and that the quality is likely to be better. This leads to a more satisfied and longer lasting customer.  However, this means you must live up to the expectation of the price. The bundling strategy enables you to package more value in than the actual cost. For example, a packaged bank account might cost £25 per month but comes with a raft of benefits like phone insurance, travel insurance, zero commission travel money and more. These benefits are bought in bulk by the retail bank so cost them relatively little to offer. Yet the bank consumer is happy to pay this for the bundle. Similar examples are all-in-one utility packages, red letter day experiences and even the price of a lottery ticket.

What new distribution options are there for customers to experience our product, e.g. online, in-store, mobile etc.

These days, we buy products and services from all over the world. Depending on where you offer a service, you may be subject to different taxes, payment method restrictions and customer data protection laws. Then there’s the shipping challenges for online shops. Do you charge more for shipping to the outer Hebrides? 

If you watch Netflix (with rocketing subscribers during COVID lockdown), you see a different catalogue of films and TV based on where you live. You cannot watch the BBC IPlayer from abroard without a workaround like a VPN. If you use Google when in Germany, there is a high chance you will see German results first and have to use the translate function.

In the world of moving between devices, you may notice that Amazon doesn’t care where you added the item to your basket. If you add it on your phone and later look on your webpage, it’s there waiting to be bought. This is a recent upgrade to digital services. Melding of the high street with online, for click and collect. Genius simplicity in its offer yet very tricky to do with technology.

How can we add to or substitute the combination within paid, owned and earned media channels?

It goes without saying that we are barraged by marketing promotions in everyday life, from youtube ads to email marketing and occassionally by billboards and letterboxed flyers.

However, digital marketing on the whole is cheaper than traditional channels to acquire new customers because we can target our audiences in detail. If you want to sell dog food online and run a facebook ad, you can target people in the UK who love dogs. Facebook knows this about their audiences for the obvious reason that they see every photo and post we helpfully share with our friends.

If you have a subscription service, like our client Organic Mondays does, then running a loss leader or one time purchase to entice a customer into a long term monthly subscription is worth it.

We subscribe to 2kg of wasabi peas on subscription from Amazon every 2 months. Here’s an affiliate link, which earns us a small commission for promoting the product and gets you 30% off your first order https://amzn.to/3twL3Yh. We get 5% off for being subscribers. This discount is absorbed because the margin made on the product is higher and it’s cheaper to keep us subscribing than reacquire us in future.

How we reassure our customers, e.g. great website, impressive buildings, well-trained staff etc?

You are only as good as your reviews rating. Whether your business or products are reviewed on Google My Business, trustpilot or facebook is up to you on where you invite these reviews. But having genuine, independent reviews by buyers who’s identity links back to their real profile adds authenticity, credibility and evidence that your products and services do what they say on the tin (Ronseal). 

When consumers or business search for new suppliers, they typically read a raft of online sources of comment before coming anywhere near your sales email address or phone number. 

If you haven’t been asking for reviews, now is the day to start. One of our clients has over 250 Google Reviews and a score of 4.9 out of 5. How did she accumulate so many good ratings? Because for every client she meets, she tells them to click a menu item on her website which pops open the Google Review button. We added this for her because previously that conversation with clients took considerable effort.

Who are our people and are there skills gaps?

People make everything work. Today anyway. There will be a time in the future when most things will be done by robots. But until then, people are the key to delighting customers. Whether it’s a chat you have with a customer service person on the phone, zoom, a facebook messenger window or whatsapp. The way that person handles your enquiry, the way they make you feel, the way you remember that interaction. 

Recently, I dropped something heavy on our glass induction hob and cracked it. I had to buy another one and spoke to the manufacturer’s UK office. The first person, a customer service representative fobbed me off after an hour in a phone queue, asking me to email in my request for a different department to deal with. I was furious they didn’t take ownership. The next lady I spoke to in the sales team, about whether a marketing offer on free pans (worth £130) were available if I purchased the hob through Mark’s Electricals, was a totally delightful experience. She answered the phone with a smile on her face (you can hear this smile) and although she didn’t know the answer, she kept me chatting whilst she messaged her marketing colleagues. Within 10 minutes I had my answer and within a further 15 minutes, I’d bought the new hob and claimed my pans.

So how do we handle this people part of our 7Ps evaluation? We have to chat with the team leaders and the people in the teams and figure out if they have the right skills, training and tools to be the best people possible. Some people simply are not in the right jobs. Some just need a bit of coaching or mentoring. 

We provide these services to help you manage your people so your products are presented in their best light.

Processes are important to deliver a quality service. Since digital/information services are intangible, processes become all the more crucial to ensure standards are met.

We help with your process mapping to ensures that your service is perceived as being dependable by your target segment.

Having a slick process determines how fast the consumer’s issues get redressed. This directly impacts the customer’s satisfaction and the reviews and word-of-mouth things they say about you.

The wrong proceses impact the longer term “Customer’s Network Value”. 

But internally, having the right processes also impact costs. You only have to look at the clever experience differences in restaurants like Wagamammas and Yo Sushi versus traditional table service places. They give you happiness on a plate because the food is freshly prepared, service is friendly and quick and as a result you are in and out within an hour. This means they can serve many more customers in a day than a white tablecloth restaurant. So they’re cheaper, yet not in a way that makes you feel in any way dissatisfied. 

Team workshops with the people that do the things you wish to improve can quickly show ways to make the processes better. 

We offer team workshops that are fun for this exact purpose.