Increase Product Perceived Value

While customer relationship management often comes from the way you interact with your customers, the products your company sells may play a role as well. A great example is with computers. Computers have a tendency to become nearly irrelevant within a few years after purchase.

Yet many consumers are not ready or equipped to continue to buy new computers every two years simply because new technology is being released. So a consumer that bought a computer that is slowly starting to die/fail is going to become more and more unhappy with both the manufacturer of the computer, and the retailer that sold it to them. One way to reduce this problem is to provide products that have a greater perceived (or real) useful life.

The idea is that if the product is able to perform at its best for longer, you should easily be able to continue a positive relationship with the customer.

Provide Great Warranties Warranties and repair options help to make sure the products continue to have a long perceived value. Customers that start to get unhappy or dissatisfied because their products are no longer working as promised will have the option of fixing it up as best as your company can afford to offer in order to expand that same lifespan. Offer Discounts on Upgrades Another option is to show that the product will continue to hold value to them, even after it has outlived its usefulness.

Using the computer example, a good way to do this would be to promise that anyone that turns in their old computer will receive a new, better computer for a considerable discount. This shows the customer that the product is retaining its value, even when it has lost value to the customers themselves. Marketing Value Finally, companies can also look into the possibility of marketing the idea that the product is actually gaining or retaining their value because of the years that have passed.

Car companies argue this all the time in their adds, and wine as a product does this naturally (the older the bottle, the greater perceived value). By giving the impression that the product is worth more, the company will keep their relationship with the customer strong.

How a company should go about improving the perceived usefulness of the product is based on the products themselves, but the idea behind the strategy is clear – by giving the products a greater perceived long term value, your relationships will your customers will stay strong for longer.