People want meaning. They want to feel like they belong. A chance to be more than they are. To feel like they matter. To feel like you care about them. Some of these people are your clients, have been your clients and could become your clients.
What is your business doing to help them feel like more than just a client? Yes, they hire you to provide them with a service. But what are you doing to address these deeper desires and feelings they have?
You could say, “That’s not my job. I’m here to help them with this legal case.” But another law firm may offer more than a basic level of service. Maybe they make a couple of extra calls to check-in to see how the client is doing without billing them for it.
When was the last time you felt like more than a client or customer? When did a company or employee do something that made you feel human? Made you feel like you mattered. That they cared about you as a person not just as a client or customer.
As I checked out of a grocery store recently I was reminded of the inhumanness of their self-checkout line. If I don’t get the sequence just right and in the perfect timing the machine barks at me to scan the item before I place it in the bag. I just did. How frustrating. The experience felt like I was supposed to perform for the machine.
A few weeks before I’d been at a different grocery store using their self-checkout line. The attendant was standing there and I asked about having to be so careful about placing the item in the bag. Her response was, “No problem, these machines are easy. You don’t have to worry about placing it in the bag.” If it’s a jug of milk and you want to scan it and place it in your cart and skip the bag you can. Sweet! That was a much nicer experience. This experience felt like the machine was there to expedite my checking out. Now that’s more like it.
When people feel that they are being treated more like a person than a transaction they are much more likely to talk about the experience in a positive way. A way that could lead to more referrals. That could mean more business. Maybe considering the humanness of your clients isn’t just nice, it also could be good for business.