Many businesses fail not because their service is not up to the mark or the product they are selling lacks something imperative. They are ineffective because they do not understand the impact their first impression tends to have on their clientele. You may be extraordinarily remarkable at what you do, but if you are unsuccessful in accomplishing a positive first impression, you will be standing on the verge of losing the game before you even realize it.
Successful businesses understand the importance of first impressions and their impacts on the world. Before their clientele is introduced to their product, they are exposed to something more significant than any other – it’s the first impression the business has on its clientele. Your consumer will enter your workshop or will decide never to show up again depending on the impression you made on them. Therefore, for a business to thrive, it is highly essential for the entity to work on the image they create for its customers.
There are experts that help these organizations to build a strong and lasting impression on their customers to ensure they would visit them again. One such connoisseur is Greg Atkinson, who has been helping businesses with his expertise in the field of creating an initial impression on clients. He has been working with churches, non-profit organizations, and several businesses that require a display of hospitality. He profoundly emphasizes on the importance of first impressions and their impact on the business as well as its clientele. Greg Atkinson is also the founder of the First Impressions Conference. According to Greg, First Impressions Conference’s focus is to aid church leaders in understanding how to create a welcoming environment for members and guests whenever the church doors open.
Importance of First Impressions – An Insight by the Expert
Greg Atkinson claims that the entire game is based on psychology. He believes that the primacy effect, a phenomenon in psychology, determines whether the ones visiting your business outlet or workshop will revisit it. This phenomenon refers to the tendency where the information we are exposed to first weighs more than what we learn later.
An individual is most likely to remember the initial encounter than the rest of the experience. In this first encounter, if the business is successful in establishing an image that the entity welcomes its guests warmly, ensuring they feel comfortable throughout and are dealt with hospitality, they are most likely to return to the venue. Even if the rest of the experience does not turn out to be as fruitful, the visitor will remember the hospitality he was dealt with. As a result, there is a likelihood that not only would the guest return but would also recommend your business to the people they know.
On the other hand, if the first encounter goes poorly, and no matter how good your service might be, there is a strong chance that the individual may not visit again, let alone recommend you to others. You may wonder if there could be something that you could do to make the customer reconsider his decision never to return.
Nonetheless, the product or services the client came for may be delivered with excellent skills and expertise while also being provided well enough with hospitality. You will still not be able to make up for that. The customer would only remember how his initial encounter was, and no matter how good the rest of the experience was, the impression the first encounter had would overshadow it all.
Hear It From The Expert
Greg Atkinson has been in the field for over a decade and has helped several businesses make a lasting yet positive first impressions on clientele. Over the years, he established that the importance of first impression, if understood well, can help a business flourish.
He advises businesses to conduct research on the line of customers they are dealing with. Once the nature of the group of people they are targeting is understood, it becomes easier to come up with ways to establish a lasting first impression.
He further advises businesses to tend to their customers’ needs and begin doing that from the moment they enter. Ensure that they have an ease of parking, because if they do not, then they may not want to revisit as parking seems cumbersome to them.
Someone must always be there to receive the customers at the doorsteps and greet them as politely and warmly as possible. Provide them with your undivided attention, and before you know it, you will have already cast the spell of an impactful first impression.
