Using the Competition to Your Advantage - Think Strategically!

Summer is a blast this year. My family has spent lot of time on the beach and those cloudy, rainy days, when wiggling our toes in the sand along the shore line is not an option, we stayed inside and played interactive computer games, Wii. My 14 and 12 nieces and nephews picked up tricks on how to play different games pretty quickly, but their 7 year old sister struggled for a bit. She then asked her older brother for help. Keep in mind, they competed. When I asked my nephew why it helped, he said, "If she plays at his best, it seems to me better. Besides, if you know where it is weak, it can attack and skills." I see a lot of wisdom in this statement and I began to think about how it can work in business and how it affects the ultimate customer satisfaction. Here are some of the things I came up with the competition about how we can help you:

• Education-we can learn from the competition as well as my niece learned from her older brother. They are our ideas and motivate us to come up with new products and services for the customer. By observing them, we learn new ways of working that may be more effective and efficient. Reduce costs, we have become more profitable.
• joint-venture partners - We can not be all things to all people anymore. In those cases where we lack a product or service to meet needs, we partner with a competitor to provide it. I work with many other marketing companies, for example to provide. This service is not usually offer, so you partner with me to get the information they need for support or complete a project.
• alternative providers - Some of the best customer experience I had when the job will refer me to a competitor when they have a product or service I need. This happens a lot in the retail industry. I always appreciate it when the sales associate will direct me to another store that carries the product I want. They understand that for today's consumer it's all about immediate gratification. I will always remember and return to the store that I was out of loyalty. Most consumers recognize that in such situations, satisfying customer's need outweighs the fear of losing customers.

Looking back on my nephew access to competing with her ​​sister, I see that if we approach it strategically, we can use the competition in our favor, and Garner loyalty and support to our customers, while we are at it.

be good to your customers so that competitors can not get a chance to!