Raising prices is a topic that evokes a lot of excitement. Because everyone wants to earn more. Either to work less or to earn more. Ideally, both should be successful. If you raise prices for your products or services, you will be able to achieve any of these objectives. Of course, as long as you don’t lose customers.
How to raise prices and not lose customers?
Nobody can guarantee that your customers will not leave when they find out that the price for your services has increased. Therefore, we are afraid of raising prices. Because if the client leaves, we women will most often feel it not only as a financial loss, but we will also feel as if we had done something wrong.
It is very important that you do not take such situations personally. Clients have their own reasons why they cooperate with you or why they quit. If the main criterion that drives him is price … you should be happy when you lose such a customer!
When a customer gives up your services or products, when you raise prices, it has its huge advantages.
First of all, by increasing the price, you can serve 2 times less customers and the bill will remain the same. So you eventually have more time to serve them as well as to find more.
Second, customers who pay more are usually customers who don’t whine, groan, complain, or call in the middle of the night. They usually recommend you to others. And their friends are usually people similar to them, so you start reaching out to customers who are fun to work with.
Third, your company is yours and you should really feel free in it. The fact that someone wants or does not want to use your services should not determine how you set your prices.
What you must not do by raising prices:
Do not hide the price increase – in this situation customers do not like to be surprised. Inform clearly and clearly, instead of silently raising prices under the cover of night in the hope that no one will get it.
Do not justify yourself with higher costs, price changes at subcontractors, and certainly with plans to go on exotic holidays. Your price increase is designed to provide the customer with value for which they will pay, not to make them believe that you are doing it purely for profit.
Don’t raise prices overnight without notice. Especially when you are in the process of implementing a project and when the client is convinced that he will pay as much as previously agreed.
Don’t raise prices and leave the rest as it was. That is, adding no value to your product or service. It won’t work.
Instead of this:
Give the client time to get used to the raise. Be aware, however, that the announcement of price increases from next month may end up suddenly having an awful lot of orders because customers will want to use your services at a lower price. This is also beneficial because in the event that you initially find that you have fewer customers for services or products at the new prices, you will have some “surplus” and you won’t have to worry so much about the temporary shortage of customers.
Give the customer a choice – at least during the transition period, create a cheaper and more expensive version of the product and let the customer choose between what they have had so far and the VIP version to which you add something extra. This will be nice for your regular customers, because you don’t force them to immediately seek their happiness with the competition, they will be able to use what they have become used to for a while longer. You can keep this option, for example, only for regular customers, for a longer period of time to appreciate them. Remember to let them know that you do it because you appreciate them and that this is an option reserved exclusively for them and only for a while.
Add so much value that the customer will want to pay more. Simply raising prices without adding value to the product may fail, and it will certainly meet with resistance from those who are already used to current prices. If you add a little more, you will give people a good reason to pay more.
Think about raising prices when:
Your prices are the lowest in the market (not a good strategy).
Your schedule is full and you don’t remember what the phrase “free afternoon” means,
You are still short of basic expenses in the company and you work like an ox, customers tell you that your products are suspiciously cheap, you have prices from many seasons that simply forgot to match the market realities.
Most of your clients pay a pittance and need to be treated like a VIP, and you simply don’t want to work with them anymore.
You want more free time, you don’t have to work as much as before.
Your experience and knowledge are so great that you have become a real expert in your industry.
Your services are highly specialized and targeted at a very small group of customers.
You feel that being paid for what you do is simply unfair in the world, because you give your customers value much more than the amount you get for it.
It is you who decide about the prices in your company. Nobody can impose it on you. And while you are certainly driven by many factors, such as the current market realities, costs, workload, your experience and tons of other important things, remember that no one can decide for you.
