Building Long-term Customer Relationships by Presenting Intrinsic Value

Value is a word that is often thrown around in business and in entrepreneurial circles the world over. From Madrid to Botswana, and everywhere in between, those in business do a lot of talking about value and presenting value. Real value. Long-term value.

And for good reasons. Value, no, intrinsic value, is the most important customer-facing aspect of business today. Any business.

With so many different options in almost every product category, consumers today are specifically looking to their favorite brands and those looking to be the next Netflix or Starbucks, to offer more value, more bang for their buck, than any other time in human history. We, as consumers, have come to expect a lot from the brands we love and give our hard-earned money to.

The 21st-century consumer ain't no sucker. She knows she works hard for her money, and you better treat her right.

Startup-ers today, more than ever, especially those of us in the subscription (SaaS) space, must eat, live, and breathe this idea. We must become fully obsessed with finding the answer(s) to the ever-evolving question of “What more can I offer my users to make their lives better or easier – do their jobs better, make more money- for what they are paying me?”.

Center stage

A realistic, panoramic view into the core and peripheral needs of your customers and audiences must be front and center when it comes to your daily business activities at your new firm. Or even at your more established organization.

You and your team, if you have one, must spend every waking moment at the office and at home trying to understand the needs of your customers and would-be patrons to try to up the ante on your value proposition, always.

This idea, this obsession, will eventually become one of the key drivers of success at your organization. This will become, or should I say, can become the main competitive advantage you will come to use to carve out your spot in your chosen industry.

This can become your thing: Catering to the needs of your customers’ needs/ presenting value beyond your core business.

Your House of Cards. Your Orange Is The New Black. How Netflix Changed the game by creating their own shows rather than simply investing in costly licensing deals for content.

This is the one and only way to maintain long-term, healthy relationships with your users. And to be able to attract new ones.

Value indeed is the most fundamental tenet of any viable subscription business model.

Value = Giving folks something for their money and being able to deliver on that value proposition long-term.

Brand empathy

Through all the changes your customers may go through during their lives, businesses, and so on, making one’s product or service an indispensable part of your customers’ lives, and doing so in a way that enriches various other aspects of your customers’ existence will prove invaluable to your brand story.

Your customers’ view of your product or service may not always align with your fundamental view of what your company has to offer.

Instituting rigorous company-wide empathy-driven policies to derive the intelligence needed to add value to your customers’ lives will prove vital to unlocking revenue growth and connecting with your customers on a much deeper level.

This intel will help enrich your product development process, your marketing infrastructure, and so on.

So let me explain what I mean by that. If you offer your customers access to say your strong, one-of-a-kind coffee for a monthly fee. In this product-as-a-service scenario, they- your customers/subscribers get to pay one subscription fee and get to come into your coffee shop as often as they want to enjoy your sweet brew.

Or maybe, you deliver, for a monthly subscription fee, unique types of coffee to your customers’ homes and businesses.

MRI for greater ROI

Or let’s say you operate a co-working space, offering access to your space to your users for a monthly fee. Businesspeople often look at their offering as just that: Coffee, Working space, and so on. Just the product or service at its most basic level. Your customers, however, may have a more complex view of what your offering means to them.

To most entrepreneurs, or at least the ones I often come across, customers only exist to use their services and to add to their bottom lines.

For one, this view of your customers will eventually prove unprofitable. Two, this mindset will leave you especially vulnerable to predation from your competitors.

It is best to try to see your service or product through the eyes of your customer on an individual basis and try to offer solutions to their daily headaches even if offering said solutions falls outside the scope of your core offering.

For example, if most of the folks who come to use your co-working space are young, single moms. Say, they often come in after they leave their 9-5s to work on their side gigs or writing projects.

Imagine how badly your business will be hurt if I set up shop down the street from you but at my co-working space, not only are my prices more competitive than yours, but I turn one of my unused office spaces into a free childcare area for my customers.

I am offering value beyond just working space and the thing is, doing so wouldn’t cost me that much extra.