Why the thing that won you customers stopped working

There was something you did that used to win you work. Maybe you answered the phone the same day. Maybe you sent photos of the job as it went. Maybe you gave people a written quote when everyone else in your trade was doing it on the back of an envelope.

Customers noticed. They mentioned it. Some of them chose you because of it.

You still do it. Nobody mentions it any more. Nothing about your delivery got worse, and the thing that used to be your edge now generates no reaction whatsoever.

That is not your business going stale. It is a pattern so reliable it has been documented since the early eighties, and understanding it changes where you spend.

Three kinds of things you offer

Everything a business provides falls into roughly three groups, and they behave completely differently.

• Expected. Its absence makes people angry. Its presence earns you nothing. Nobody has ever praised a business for turning up on the agreed day. They will certainly leave if you do not.
• More is better. The straightforward ones. Faster is better than slower, cheaper is better than dearer, and satisfaction rises roughly in line with how much of it you deliver.
• Unexpected. Its presence delights people out of all proportion. Its absence costs you nothing, because nobody was looking for it. This is the only group that creates a reason to choose you over someone equivalent.

The third group is where reputations are built. It is also the group with a use-by date, which is the part nobody tells you.

Everything good becomes expected

Here is the cycle, and every business in every trade runs through it.

You do something nobody in your market is doing. Customers are delighted, because it is unexpected. Word gets around. Competitors notice and copy it, because it is usually not hard to copy. Customers start to assume it. Within a few years it is not a reason to choose anybody, it is a reason to reject whoever does not have it.

Your unexpected thing has become an expected thing. It has not lost value exactly. It has changed job. It used to win you work and now it only prevents you losing work, and those are very different things to be spending money on.

Free wifi in a cafe went through this in about six years. Same day replies went through it faster. Online booking, photo updates, a proper written quote, a text when the technician is on the way. All of them were once remarkable, and all of them are now the floor.

Why this is a budget problem

Now put the two things together, because the consequence is the part that matters.

If you do not deliberately add something new to the unexpected group, the whole of your offer eventually slides into expected. Every pound and every hour you spend is then going into things that, at their absolute best, mean nobody complains.

That is the position a great many solid, well-run businesses find themselves in without noticing. They are working hard, doing everything properly, competing entirely on price, and wondering why the work feels like a grind. Nothing is broken. They have simply run out of anything a customer would remark on.

And the fix is not to work harder on the expected group. You cannot out-deliver your way back to distinctiveness there. The ceiling is neutral.

Sort your own list

Write down the eight or ten things you would list if you were explaining to a customer why they should use you. Then put each one into a group.

Is it expected, meaning its absence would cost you the job and its presence earns nothing? Is it a more-is-better one? Or would a customer actually remark on it?

Two things usually fall out of this. The first is that most of the list is expected, including several things you still describe as though they were selling points. Anything on your website beginning with the words we pride ourselves on is worth checking here, because that phrasing almost always sits on top of something the customer takes for granted.

The second is that the genuinely remarkable item is often small, often cheap, and often something you do by instinct without having written it down anywhere.

Then find the next one

Do not look for something impressive. Look for something unexpected, which is a different and much cheaper target.

The most reliable place to find it is a moment in your process where customers are anxious and currently hear nothing from you. Anxiety with silence in it is an opportunity, because filling it costs almost nothing and nobody else has bothered.

Whatever you land on, assume it has about three years before it becomes expected too. That is not failure. That is the cycle working, and the only real mistake is being surprised by it.