I was a lucky kid when I grew up. Lucky, because I had a big back yard. It
was about 28 acres big. My siblings, friends and I spent many days exploring,
building, digging and hiding in the vast outback. Geographically disadvantaged
as a flatlander, there were no rushing mountain streams or flowing rivers in the
valley for exploration and water play.
There were only a few ditches
that the rain and snow runoff would eventually pool in to create a kid’s river.
Kids’ rivers are navigable by toy boats and are only inches deep at flood stage.
It was in the kids’ rivers of the flat lands that I began to understand the principles
of controlling water flow. Mudding about in the puddles and ditches, I could create
my own mini rivers, dams and lakes with just a shovel. One of the few things that
man has been able to count on through time is the fact that water always runs
downhill in the path of least resistance.
Customers like a little help
from gravity and low resistance just like flowing water. They almost always choose
the easy way, the shortcut, whenever they make their purchase choices. As examples,
the drive-in window for morning coffee attracts more customers than the walk-in
convenience store. The mall parking lot is preferred over parallel parking on
the street. The business that offers consistent, friendly service attracts lifetime
customers.
Creating the path of least resistance to divert the flow of
customers to your front door, whether your business front door is real or virtual,
can be done easily. Here are some suggestions:
- Create well placed, easy
to read signage.
- Add Mapquest or a similar directions link to your website.
- Maintain
easy parking or offer to pay for customer parking.
- Use large type for
telephone numbers on printed material and business cards.
- Use self addressed
stamped envelopes to return mail to you.
- Provide product use information
on your website to help after the purchase.
- Keep the building entrance
well lit, clean and inviting.
- Have an answering machine for after hours
messages and business hours.
- Provide comfortable chairs in the waiting
area.
- Ask your customers what else you can do to make it easy to do business
with you.
Understanding the path of least resistance for
your customers is nothing more than child’s play. Start working on diverting more
of the customer income stream into your business today.
See you in the
mud puddles.
Learn to be a catalyst for customer service, one of the
eight strategies for success I work on to help owners grow their business. Would
you like to know more? click
here
