There are four things that will make your customers leave you. If you perform three of them above average, but default on one, you will open the door for your customers to leave you and walk into the waiting arms of your competition. On the flip side, if you perform these four functions at a superb level, your customers will stick with you forever. The four functions are price, quality, delivery time and customer service. Let’s take a look at each of them.

Price

I admit that this is the biggest no-brainer of marketing. If you price your products or services above what the market will bear, you will lose customers. But many times I find that businesses are unaware that they need to adjust price. A competitive analysis will help you stay in touch with the price points that are moving. Adjustments need to be made when the competition is shifting a price point downward or readjusting how they turn revenue on a product or service. For instance, let’s examine the way phone services are priced. The first mobile phone I owned was based on a strict charge by the minute (there was no such thing as texting back then.) Then came the unlimited calling plans that were priced by the month regardless of how many minutes you used. Now I pay a bundled plan that is priced by the amount of data that I use in a month. The competition between phone carriers drives price. Just when the price is being driven higher, one of the phone servicers comes up with a new pricing strategy that drives it down again. If you don’t keep up on price, you find yourself quickly out of business.

Quality

Price is not everything. You can have the best prices in the market, but if you are producing junk, you will lose customers. Whenever we are promoting a brand, we want to lead with quality. Push the finer points of whatever you are selling. If you lead with price, you are nothing more than a commodities dealer. The point is, quality is a very marketable trait – and it always has been. Think about these brands: Mercedes, Rolex, Ghirardelli, Brooks Brothers – all of them are marketed on quality. Does that mean they can ignore price? No, but it does mean they can push the upper limit of the market on price because the perception is their quality is unmatched. But even if you are not at the elite level, quality still matters. People will forget about your cheap prices if the product does not do what you said it would do. If quality is not there, they will leave you.

Delivery time

Your price may be competitive and your quality may be exceptional, but if you cannot deliver the product or service on time, people will walk away from you. This impacts some industries more than others. The bottom line is customers are impatient. No one likes to wait anymore. We have become so accustomed to getting what we want when we want it, if there is a delay, we begin to look for faster options. Buy something online and we expect to get it the next day. Walk into a retail store and you expect to carry out whatever it is you need. If they don’t have it in their inventory, so long! No one wants to wait for a back order. Don’t ignore this. Time of delivery has become a very marketable function in business today. The logistics industry has grown exponentially because of the high value we place on getting what we want immediately. If you fail to deliver in a timely manner, your customers will shop for a faster source.

Customer service

This leads to the final function: customer service. Let me explain that customer service is more than dealing with customer complaints, although that is a part of it. Customer service is the entire interaction the client has with people in your company from the beginning of the buying process until the end. Customer service is happening whenever there is human interaction with the client. If you do everything else right, but the customer has a conflict with a person in your company, you are in jeopardy of losing them. Likewise, if they feel like you are ignoring them or not taking them seriously, you are in danger of making a blunder that will cost you future selling opportunities.

Now what does all of this have to do with marketing? Plenty. Marketing has to manage the brand image, and your brand is at risk at each of these functions. If your brand reputation comes under fire because you are performing below par in any of these four categories, you will have a hard time changing the minds of your customers. At the end of a purchasing cycle, if these four functions are done well, you can expect your customer to return to buy more from you, recommend you to someone else and become loyal to your brand. This is what marketing is trying to achieve. That is why it is so important that your marketing strategy takes into account these four critical functions. Your business is in the balance. Make sure your marketing is engaged with each of them.