Offer Customers a Sense of Ownership

When customers feel a sense of ownership in the success of your store, they’re more likely to:

• Shop with you even if your prices are somewhat higher
• Recommend you to family and friends
• Defend your store against criticism, even criticism they overhear from people they don’t know

     According to research reported in Harvard Business Review, if you can increase the number of these stakeholder advocates by, let’s say, ten percent, you’ll see an increase in sales of substantially more than ten percent.
     Maybe you could develop stakeholders by making customers into stockholders. The Financial Times in London reports that ecommerce food retailer Ocado is doing that. Each Ocado customer who has spent more than ₤300 in 2010 will be invited to purchase online up to ₤12,000 worth of shares in an initial public offering.
     Don’t feel like selling the shop to your customers? Well, another approach is to incorporate customers’ ideas into your operations. Do adhere to three requirements:

• If you ask for ideas, seriously consider them. If you don’t have time to consider submitted ideas, don’t ask. Otherwise, you’ll frustrate your customers.
• Adhere to legal advice regarding solicitation of ideas. For example, you might be advised to always include a notice that submitted ideas become your property and there is no compensation aside from what you’ve explicitly promised.
• Give ample recognition to the people whose ideas you use. Those who are recognized will feel the sense of ownership. And all the others will be able to see that they too can join in by sharing their good ideas with your store.

     Other approaches? Set up a Facebook page to which you invite customers to declare themselves as your friends. Offer to Twitter to your customers the latest insider chitchat about your operations. In your frequent shopper program, refer to participants as members.
     But whatever you do to encourage your customers to feel a sense of ownership, continually work to justify the pride in themselves that comes from identifying with your store. The awful diametric opposite to pride in ownership? Recall what comedian Groucho Marks said about this matter many decades ago: “I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”

Click below for more:
Keep Creating Advocates for Your Business
Ask Customers & Staff for Ideas
Give Loyalty Program Members Prestige