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How to Make your Business Feel More Personable to Customers

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Written By Adeyemi Adetilewa

In this article, we will explore some tips on how to make your business more personable to customers. When it comes to creating lasting bonds with customers, you better be in it for the long run.

Of course, the rewards are undeniably well-worth the wait, but sometimes they can feel a little out of reach. Sometimes your rapport with customers can also feel fragile, which can make you hesitant to make a move when it comes to selling something to them.

But the key to this is making sure that your brand is one that can be trusted, therefore making your business more personable to customers.

What makes a good brand personable to customers?

How your customers see your brand is composed of a few things: Brand association, brand image, and of course brand identity.

These are all things that make up what the public thinks of the brand, and also identifies the brand to individuals whose own beliefs align with your business. A good image makes a good brand. Here is what each component of a brand is:

a). Brand identity

brand identity

A brand identity comprises identifiers that make the brand different from others. This can be a logo, color scheme, or font.

For example, McDonald’s’ color scheme is yellow and red, and their logo is the world-famous ‘golden arches’. This is how the public recognizes it at a glance, to help them take in information faster.

This is great for advertising. A good brand identity is also heavily reliant on good brand image and association.

b). Brand image

A brand image is how the individual customer perceives the brand. This depends on ethnicity, morals, religion, and the individual’s own interests.

Brand image is also used to appeal to target audiences. The more your brand image appeals to a certain age group, class, or gender the more likely you are to sell a product that appeals to them. 

c). Brand association

A brand association is the ideas and cultures surrounding your brand. To put it simply, if your brand was a person, it would be what their hobbies are, their political views, and who their friends (other brands, marketing partners, etc) are.

This is affected by the above and the brands around you, your marketing partners, and the people who shop at your business. 

Now you know what a good brand is based on, you need to think about how to improve them. Here are four ways in which you can improve your customer experience to make your brand more personable.

Organizing your service model

Organizing your service model can be a stressful task if you don’t know who your target audience is, and their shopping habits when it comes to choosing a brand or service. The best thing to do in this situation is to look at what products sell and what don’t and think about who those products are aimed at. 

This is far from a perfect solution but can be a good way to get a vague idea of who your customers actually are. 

What is a service model?

What is a service model?

A service model is a way your business sells things. There are two main types, and they differ from each other quite widely.

They will affect pretty much everything about your business, especially if it is primarily online, like your website and social media will also follow the expectations of your chosen service model, otherwise, your business may feel inconsistent with your customers, and as a result, perhaps a little untrustworthy.

Here are those two different types of business models:

i). Transactional

This is the service model that is far more focused on making the best sale possible per customer. This is, for want of a better phrase, a more ‘car salesman’ approach. They will offer deals and as many add-ons and features as possible to get the most amount of money out of one sale as they can.

Transactional service models
are very good if you plan on having a lot of customers who might be a one-time shoppers at your business, and someone who probably knows exactly what they want. You will probably have to make your selling process far more direct.

ii). Relational

Relational service models are at the other end of the spectrum. These are all about building a connection and rapport with your buyer and hoping for customer loyalty or a repeat sale.

This is best for the kind of buyers who prefer to browse items and will return because they enjoy the experience of shopping. Your website will encourage people to browse and ask for memberships to newsletters and suchlike.

When you decide on your service model, you decide the way your business is run, intentionally or not. It is often described as a spectrum, meaning that you don’t just have to stick with one or the other and you can find the perfect balance between the two for your business.

This process will need a little trial and error but taking notice of your service model is imperative to your business’s success. 

Sorting out your sales pitch

Sorting out your sales pitch

The way that you sell your items is not only dependent on your service model. It is also dependent on how you sell things personally and your own skill as a salesperson.

It might be useful for you to look at sales pitch examples to get a good idea of how to present yourself, pacing, and how to quickly build trust within your business-customer relationship. 

Where would you use the skills of a sales pitch?

You would use it pretty much everywhere within your business. From emails to clients on your website to your social media page. Anywhere that is promoting one of your products, you should be using your best sales pitch upfront.

This is important for not only keeping consistency throughout your business but also keeping congruity for new and existing customers, which is very important for your businesses association and image. 

Use services that improve customer experience

This is not only important for feeding into your business service model, but it is also good for your brand image and association.

If someone has had a good experience buying from a business, they are definitely going to tell their friends about it. Especially if they got a good product at the end of it. Here is an example of services you might use to make the buying process much more enjoyable. 

1. Chatbots 

Putting a chatbot on your website that encourages customers to interact with it can be a good way to help customers feel like they are being waited on, hand, foot, and finger.

It can either have a colleague on the other end or even just an automated reply. This can be great if you are focusing on a more relational approach. 

There are a huge number of services that you can use to help your business become more appealing through your website.

It can be tricky to find the perfect ones for your website, but it is well worth looking at what is available to improve your customers’ experience because they are more likely to return if they associate your brand with prompt and suitable service. 

2. Make their purchase memorable

Making their purchase memorable has to be the perfect way to help boost your association and brand image. By making their purchase easy and well matching to your business, you can make your business stick in your customer’s mind.

There are many ways to build a good association and keep your customers coming back for more. Here are some examples of how you would do this.

3. Put in a little extra effort into packaging

The buying process has a much longer duration than you would think. It goes all the way back to when the customer first expresses an interest in a brand or begins looking for a certain item, all the way until it is ‘unboxed’ and in their hands.

Even if you have the whole website and first half buying process mastered, it can easily turn sour if the packaging is less than promised. Making sure it looks good and well packed can help your customers feel a little more fulfilled at the end of their buying journey. 

4. Custom swag

To top things off, put in a little branded freebie to make them happy. Make sure it relates to what they are buying.

There is no point in giving them a branded eraser for purchasing a computer part, that would probably be more useful for buying notepads or other stationery items. This can be a nice little touch, as well as sending them a little note to say thank you for their purchase. 

To wrap things up: Make your business more personable to customers

Figuring out how to make your business more personable can be a tricky process. But by working out how to increase your brand association and image, and therefore your brand identity, you can make it so much easier to come across as a good brand.

You can do this by organizing your service model, thinking about sales pitches, services that increase your customer enjoyment, and making purchases more memorable.

All of this requires quite a bit of research and patience, and a little trial and error to be able to get it right, but the rewards are well worth it in the end.

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