Choice, Control and Customers
In today's 1to1 Weekly article, Virgin Atlantic's Paul Dickinson talks about how important it is to give customers choices. The company's approach to air travel and the customer's experience with it really makes it stand out. For a company known for its branding skills, it also has a very strategic outlook when it comes to customer choices.
Some companies are hesitant to offer too much freedom to customers. They fear that they might lose control of the relationship. Any company that thinks like that doesn't realize the benefit of having a learning relationship on the part of both the company and the customer.
What do you think? Does flexibility help or hurt a business? Is your company proactive about customer choice?
Flexibility targeted to and provided for your core customer is very powerful. Companies that know their customer and provide a choice typically have very loyal customers. Virgin, Harley Davidson, McDonalds and some names come to mind. I also know of some companies that consider choice as providing everything to everyone and frequently the result is no one is satisfied. Our company's philosophy on choice is to do what we do best and expand choices without sacrificing doing our best. Better to offer 2 great choices than 3 ok choices.