What Are You Training Your Customers To Do?

Whether you realize it or not, you’re training your customers, the question is “What are you training them to do?”

Training examples

If you offer discounts at regular intervals, you’re training your customers to wait for a sale. That means that either you have to build your inventory or scramble to meet the demand created by your discount. Both are expensive.

Holiday sales are even worse. The time interval between holiday sales is longer than between regular-interval discounts. Plus you’re offering lower prices when demand is highest…when the customer would have purchased your offering anyway. Think turkeys and cranberry sauce.

When a customer or prospect asks for a lower price or additional services at the same price and you concede, you’ve trained the person that you’re hungry for business. They’ll use that against you in their future dealings with you.

Advertise your price as being the lowest and you’re touting low quality…which typically is the opposite of what your marketing messages are saying. You’ve just trained your customers to ignore your messaging and trust your price. You’re also telling value buyers that your quality is lower than your competitors, which has the effect of sending them to your competitors.

When an existing customer asks for more but doesn’t offer to pay more and you concede, you just trained them to continuously ask for more. If, however, you ask them to pay more for the extra they’re requesting, you’re training them to expect to pay for extra service.

If your customer fails to do what they committed to do and you tolerate it, you’ve trained them to make your and your staff’s lives miserable. When you’re willing to walk away from this type of chaos, you’re training the customer to be responsible…or find another resource.

Continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of your offerings without raising prices and you train your customers to believe that the improvements have no value. Increase your price to reflect the additional value and they’ll appreciate the value you’ve added.

Raise your prices annually and you’ll train them to understand that small annual increases are to be expected and that these increases are less expensive than finding an alternative source. Wait a few years and hit them with a double-digit increase and you train them to shop your offerings.

Lower your price without asking the customer or prospect to give up something and you’ve trained them to think one of the following:

• They’re trying to take advantage of me.
• They’re not sure what the value of your offering really is.
• They’re hungry for business…which creates doubts about the quality of your offering.

Make decisions based on your bottom line, without regard to your customers’ experience, and you train them that their wishes are secondary to yours. You’re inviting them to pursue sources that are more attentive to their wishes…their well-being.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Takeaway

In every human interaction, one person is training another how to behave. The question is:

“What are you training them to do?”

The focus in this post has been on your customers, but it applies equally well to employees, vendors…and, yes, in your dealings with family and friends.

If your words and actions aren’t congruent, you’re sending mixed messages which confuses others and usually results in something other than what you desired. This is especially true when you’re asked to make a concession or to “bend the rules.”

Any time that you cave to these requests, you are telling the person that you weren’t serious and that you’re malleable to their will. From that point on, you’ll be at their mercy.

You’ll also find, that if at some point in the future you assert your unwillingness to cave, just how difficult it is to retrain the person with whom you’ve been dealing. There will be a lot of pain, as well as the potential for loss, associated in attempts at retraining.

Before deciding on a course of action ask yourself: “What will I be training this person to do?” It’ll save you a lot of headaches and heartaches.

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Resources

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