When you buy a ticket to go watch an Ebo White Play, you do not go to his shows for the price of it, but for the life changing scenes you shall experience in the theatre hall, which could change the way, you are or should live your life. If you buy a MTN airtime to make a call, you are not just thinking of the airtime cost, at least for the moment, but the pending conversations you are going to have with your dad, mum, siblings, friends, lovers, with that HR Manager for the job updates, with that personal banker for that credit facility, with the procurement officer for the contract you have been gunning for, etc. So the value is not the MTN airtime, or the Ebo Whtye ticket, but the life saving conservations. And that is what businesses are missing- user experience, UX!
Have ever developed a simple product of huge value to people and never got customers flooding your doors? Or better still ever had a smart product with a ridiculous price, or for free, but again never see the reason why customers are refusing to lap? The simple truth is that the your prospect or customer, or the people around you are not interested in the price or what hot meal you have just cooked from the kitchen.
What people hanker after are the true-life user experiences. So how do you create true-life user-experiences? Here are my 3 simple guide:
Throw Free Content
Create free content that the prospective user or customer can have with, hold on! not your product BUT your industry. So, if you are KooKo King, and you sell Kooko (Ghanaian cereal), mind you there are plenty Kooko sellers in Accra, please tell us what Kokoo does to the human health. Write a brief piece of paper, create a short 5-minute vine twitter video, and share a health tip on Facebook, or sms on with your phone. The more you create such free content for your prospective users and customers, they will grow to earn your trust (that is if your health tip works), win your loyalty, and they will refer to you as a growing source or authority in your industry. And whiles you are at, please, never, never advertise, show off your product anyway in the product. Your contact details are enough. The focus is on the content not your product or service.
Keep a blog
We cannot bury our businesses under the cloud. The current markets and markets of the future are using the Internet and mobile phones for exponential growth, and you cannot afford to miss out. And guess what, it is free or cheaper to have a blog,Tumblr, Blogspot, WordPress or a sms short code. These services are available yearning for your services.
Get someone to assist you to create a blog. Regularly, post your content online for your customers (better start gathering their facebook, twitter, and email accounts) and share what is of value to them, not you please
Show care and respect
I think customer service excellence is over-rated in Ghana. Our battered ears have had enough of the speak than the act of care, and respect for our customers.
Let’s face it, there are places you and I have stop going to because that one owner or employee spew out what needed to be kept in their mouth, or showed lordship honour than servant leadership, threw out that change at you like to their kids, suck the moisture out of you listening to their sarcastic insult. These are harmless but painful acts of disrespect.
Please the next time you offer a product on the market, show love, care and respect like you will do to you grannies that you are wooing to take that extra meal, walk, rest to save their lives. Your grannies were before you are…Your business exists because your prospects and customers exist.
Show some love, not fake love.
Share with us your ways of enticing customers not for the product or cost of it but for the user experience.
