When you think of business, you probably think more about profit margins and marketing to a wider audience than you do about making people happy. And yet, customer satisfaction is the only thing that really keeps your business going.

In a capitalist society, focusing on happiness may not be the most fashionable thing, but recently, more and more people are coming round to the idea that a high quality of life might just be better than a string of numbers in a bank account.

Workers are much more likely to demand a better working environment and a better work/ life balance now than ever before and customers are no longer silent with constant access to businesses via social media. Put all of this together and you will start to realize that as a business owner, you are here to facilitate happiness just as much as you are to come up with a profitable idea.

So how can you put happiness at the forefront of your business model?

Happy Customers Buy More and Tell Their Friends

Customers are notoriously fickle and you cannot possibly please everyone. However, you can do as much as possible to make sure that you are providing what your customers want rather than what you want to sell.

This is quite a specific distinction, but basically in practice it means that you need to put more effort into your market research to get your products right first time. Coming up with creative ideas in the office is all very well but if your consumers aren’t interested or spot a fatal flaw immediately, they won’t be happy with the money they have spent.

One of the best ways to ensure that you give customers what they actually want is to do product testing. For example, if you are developing an app to help your clients interact with your company you could use a site like globalapptesting.com to ensure that your app is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Getting this kind of feedback is really important for making your product as good as it can be and ironing out any issues before customers see them.

Product testing will also show up where you could develop other things to fill in gaps in the market. For example, you might develop something almost identical so another company’s product but find out during testing that people are actually looking for it to do ‘this’ as well as ‘that’. Solving problems like this won’t just show that you are innovative, but also that you are receptive to customer’s needs and able to make them happy.

Another reason to keep your customers happy is that they are much more likely to buy from you again and recommend you to their friends. Given the polarizing nature of social media, doing good is just as fast a way to get noticed as doing bad. The more you can show your customers that you are here for them, the happier they will be to stay loyal to your brand and tell all their friends to switch too.

Happy Staff Stay Engaged

Since millennials entered the workplace, it has become clear that employers need to do much more to keep them happy. Where Generation X might have stuck to one career path and even worked for the same company for their entire career, millennials are much more likely to be tempted away. This means that it is your job to keep them happy if you want to tempt them in and encourage them to stay.

There are lots of things that can make your staff happy and most of them don’t require a slide between storeys or unlimited holiday (although that is going to be popular). In fact, what people are really looking for is a chance to shine and progress in their career without having to put their personal life on hold.

Giving your staff lots of opportunities to stretch their capabilities through learning programs, courses or even shadowing within the office will make them feel much more valued and happy in their role. Similarly, asking staff to come up with suggestions and then acting on the brightest and best will show that you are willing to listen and make changes where necessary.

Happy staff aren’t just more engaged, they are also likely to be less stressed and healthier as a result. By fostering a healthy work environment, you give people the chance to shine and do their best. Though it is easy to assume that deadlines are the best motivators, if you want your staff to do something truly special, you should give them time to work on things by themselves or in groups without the pressure to be perfect. This is a great way to improve the creativity in your office and open up new ideas.

Another key part of keeping staff happy is putting together a brilliant team. Diversity is key to making the best group as you will always get a wider variety of experiences and perspectives around the table.  The better your staff can work together, the more satisfied they will be with their roles and the more successful you will be too.

Everyone wins when staff are happy!

Happiness can’t be measured in monetary terms but over time, you should see your productivity rise, your staff relax and your customer retention improve. Though you can’t see any direct results of happiness, what you can see is that it is a significant factor in how well your company is doing.

The more you can show people that you are worth buying from, the more they are going to flock to your company and confirm its good reputation: and this applies to both customers and staff. When people like working with you or like the brand you have created, that positivity filters out and gets bigger and bigger.

Focusing on the numbers might get you somewhere, but focusing on happiness with get you everywhere.