Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

In the minds of consumers, the cost of business has been increasing for the last several years. I am not talking about simply financial cost, but emotional as well. The constant barrage of events that are displayed in the media gives people an increasing sense of insecurity about being in the world.

We in the business world need to respond to this accordingly.

The best way I have seen throughout the years is to make your business a place someone wants to visit.

What is the best way to respond to this?  

Above anything else, someone must be made to feel that they are welcome. I think of it as inviting someone in as if it were your own home. This relaxes them and makes people want to be in your store. It has to do with the attitude of you and your employees, and also the way your place of business is practically set up.

This is not only in a brick-and-mortar store but would include the internet also. I am still amazed after all of these years, at how many online businesses have practices that discourage a potential consumer from wanting to stick around. A big part of this has been the payment process itself once someone takes things in their shopping cart and attempts to pay for them. I have left more than once after picking out some items to buy when I attempted to pay for them and went through all sorts of problems that I didn’t want to deal with. They didn’t make it with a consumer in mind. The last thing a business needs to do is to add frustration to a customer’s life experience.

It reminds me of a home I used to visit all the time years ago. The person had gotten new carpet and would endlessly badger his sons and daughters (along with the grandchildren) about taking their shoes off. Of course with children they are so excited that they forget things all the time.

This became such an issue that the children stopped visiting almost completely. It no longer felt like a welcome place to visit, even though it was their own dad.

The point is that we can do many things in business that make people feel unwelcome. Everything we do should be done to make people feel like we want them to come and visit us. Every practical thing should come from keeping the consumers’ point of view in mind.

And in these uncertain times, that, possibly more than any other factor, may determine the success of your business.