Need a simple way to reduce the pressure to discount your offing:  consistently exceed your customer’s expectations.

Simple.

But not always easy.

Give more than expected – deliver faster, add bonuses, giveaway extras, respond faster, increase your quality, and outperform your competition in all areas of customer service and support.

Give far more than expected and you will reduce your need to discount. Your price is justified by your actions.  Your customer will realize the benefit and value of doing business with your company.

I once worked for an agency with an unofficial motto of failure is not an option.  The mindset of eliminating failure as a outcome was incredibly liberating — the things we achieved were incredible and often unbelievable.  But from within the agency, our achievements were the norm.

If failure isn’t a possible outcome, the worst you face is a temporary setback.

I clearly remember being in the conference room thinking What the hell are we doing? Our CEO just finished a rant on why should be paid well for the products and services we provide.  The crescendo moment came when he railed against a customer who was behind in payment — they were withholding payment because the products and services we provided them weren’t working as advertised.

A fact we didn’t deny.

Several years ago I worked with a client who self described their business as offering the lowest cost, highest quality product in their market.  Their sales were lagging. They had a fair level of interest in their offer, but couldn’t attract the volume of interest they needed to sustain operations.  Despite their best efforts, they were no longer confident their business could survive.

That was about four years ago.  They exist today and are doing well.

I recently watched The Caine Mutiny — if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a good Humphrey Bogart movie.

Here’s the summary plot in case you haven’t seen the movie or haven’t watched it in some time: When a US Naval captain (Bogart) shows signs of mental instability that jeopardizes the ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.

I clearly remember being in the conference room thinking What the hell are we doing? Our CEO just finished a rant on why should be paid well for the products and services we provide.  The crescendo moment came when he railed against a customer who was behind in payment — they were withholding payment because the products and services we provided them weren’t working as advertised.

A fact we didn’t deny.

Without need for build-up, here’s the point of this post:  Customer relationships matter because they create loyalty.

Customer loyalty represents the opportunity for predictable and profitable growth.  If you don’t care about those thing, there’s no reason to care about your customers.  In fact, if you’re not interested in predictable and profitable growth, simply abandon the customers you have and try to make up the revenue with continual new customer acquisition.