Versus the competition

I'm not someone competitive by nature. I know this from my Gallup Strengths profile - I'm high on achiever (which is more about a personal sense of achievement) and low on competition (which is more about focusing on results in comparison to others).

But sometimes I am forced to think about competition, particularly in my business and my clients’ businesses.

Many of our clients at Human Experience are facing more competition and better competition. Often the competition is smart; they have access to more resources, and let's face it, they're often shiny and new.

The reality in a service-based business is that if you don't have strong competition, you're incredibly lucky, and it's unlikely to change in the future if you've got a good business.

But here's where good old customer engagement comes in. Did you know a fully engaged customer represents a 23% premium in terms of both revenue and profit when compared to your average customer (Gallup: “Why Customer Engagement Matters So Much”)? Compellingly, Gallup's analysis found that this applies in good economic times and in bad.

So, whether or not you have competition, the question is, what makes you different? Why do people buy from you, and why do they come back? What do you and your team do differently to have customers fully engage with you?

What if the biggest competition to your success is not you versus the competition, but rather it's you versus your focus on delivering your unique value proposition consistently to customers?

At Human Experience, we sometimes get hired to do competitor mystery shops. 80% of the time, the competition is not delivering on best practice standards in the industry. This can be music to our clients’ ears to know the competition may not be as fierce as they were worried about. #insightful #winning.

But there's often more to this story...

If the client who hired us has never mystery shopped their own business before, we also mystery shop their sites. 50% of the time they don't score any better than their competitors. #insightful #notwinning

Is your competition taking market share from you because they are your competitors? Or is the competition taking market share from you because you have not been delivering to your customers??