February 2009 News Letter from Paul J Da Costa and Associates, Inc.

How many times have we heard "Perception is more important than reality"? This is definitely the truth when people think they are getting a deal. My son, Paul Jr, works at Circuit City which, as you know, is being liquidated by court order. When the liquidation order came down, the store was instructed to raise all prices back to manufacturer suggested retail price. Once this little task was done (on almost 8,000 items) they then lowered prices by 10% and started marketing their liquidation program. People were lined up around the block to get the 'going out of business' prices. The funny thing: the prices they were paying now were higher than the prices before the liquidation sale started. In fact some people stated if the store had these prices all along they would not be going out of business! Maybe they are right: people were gladly paying more for the same product because they perceived they were getting a deal. And every day the store is packed. As of this writing the prices are marked down by 20% on most items and some are still at 10% price break. But either way the prices people are now happily paying are still higher than they were for Christmas.
Now how are you going to use this information in your business? The first thing you must do is evaluate what your customers and clients feel is the value of your product or service. Once you have that information you can go about building value for your product or service that customers can't live without. Call your office and ask questions. How are your customers being treated? Are they put on hold forever? Are they being treated like second class citizens or are they treated like GOLD, which is what they are to you. Try this little experiment: Call your competitors (make sure you use a phone line that doesn't bring up your name!!) Ask them questions about their business. How are they answered? What was the tone of voice? Do they even care about your question? Or you for that matter. How would you rate the call? Now see how that compares to your office. What changes do you need to make? Remember the customers' perceived service starts with that phone call. If the initial call is only so- so it puts a damper on the rest of the deal because potential customers might feel they are not being treated right, or are not going to be treated right. Again perceived thoughts. When your customers feel they are being treated
with kid gloves they are more likely to pay a premium for your service, be happy to pay it, as well as refer you to their friends. Your customers' perceived value of your service or product is vital to the survival of your business.