Encourage Customer Loyalty - Positive Customer Experience
You don't need to swim faster than the sharks... just faster than the other guys in the water with you!
What keeps customers coming back for more? The answer is the experience they have of dealing with your business.
Businesses have to work hard to get this right all the time, although some don’t seem to bother. These may be “monopoly providers” (a lot of government departments, for example), or being the only provider in a particular area (so they have a “captive market”) or being the sole provider of a particular product or service.
The problem is, if another business with the same (or similar product/service) comes along and provides a better experience, customers will vote with their feet and go to the new competitor. Customer Experience is often confused with Customer Service, but the two are different. Service is a very important part of the whole experience.
Often, the problem lies in awareness (or in a lack of awareness) of what makes the difference. From experience, trial and error, I’ve developed a list of a few areas on which to concentrate - a basic “Customer Experience Audit” checklist. This can be used by any business and changed or added to suit its own needs:
• Entrance
• Exterior
• Reception/Greeting
• Waiting Area
• Interior
• People
• Uniform
• Attitude
• Checkout
• Returns
• Telephone
• Complaints
• Loyalty awards
• Consistency
Every one of the above is a “touch point” on which customers judge their experience, and you will find others for your own business. The point is that there are areas that make critical impressions on customers and will either have them “coming back for more, or running out the door”.
Different businesses will want to deliver different customer experiences. The experience at an upmarket store will be very different from a “low-cost” provider in many ways, but you’ll be surprised at the similarities.
Make sure that you agree a Customer Experience Policy with your team and then put it into action. A positive experience in your business will ensure that you stand above the competition and that your customers keep coming back for more.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
Rise Above The Rest - Effective Customer Service
“Conventional Wisdom” says that it costs less to retain customers than to obtain them. How many businesses focus on increasing sales or revenues though acquiring new customers as opposed to maintaining the goodwill of those who already buy from them, or increasing their rate of purchase to get more of their business?
At times, a business may only be able to increase its revenues by increasing the number of customers if it’s constrained by geography (i.e. located in an area where there are a limited number of customers for its product, or where the market is “full” of that product).
The issue, though, is that many businesses seem more driven to acquire new customers (by various means) than to hang on to what they’ve got. Generally, this is done by offering a product or service that is:
• “New”;
• “Better quality”;
• “Cheaper”;
… than the competition.
Look at mobile phone operators, internet providers, energy companies or cable/satellite TV operators and you will see that they often have “special deals” for new customers. How many of them have a deal for those who are coming up for renewal? How many of them actually look to the continuing relationship with their customers?
For those products/services that can be copied quickly by competitors at roughly the same cost, price may often be the only differentiator, particularly during hard times. This means that other costs (usually service) have to be cut to remain competitive. As long as the product/service does what it’s meant to do, the customer remains satisfied and moves only if either prices rise too high or if the provider makes a “serious mistake”. This is known as “customer” (or “buyer” inertia”), and many businesses take advantage of this.
And yet, there are businesses that not only survive, but consistently show better returns even when they charge higher prices than the “competition”. Why? These businesses really understand what their customers need and the value of “annuity business” (business that has been won and continues to flow in a steady stream). This is “free business” as the costs of winning it have been paid off.
Winning new business is like buying a new car: you spend a lot to buy it, but from then on, your costs are maintenance only: petrol, servicing, insurance, road tax, annual inspection. Assuming no misfortunes, you won’t spend the same amount as the purchase price every year to keep the car running. If you don’t maintain your car, it breaks down and you spend more on having it fixed, or may even have to replace it.
So it is with customers; you put great effort into acquiring them, but then you need to maintain them. Why do so many businesses do the equivalent of not maintaining their car? There may be any number of reasons, but ignoring customer service leaves a business open to competitors.
The “cost” of maintaining a relationship is low, but it pays itself back over and over. You get to know about complaints before they happen, about changing tastes or needs, or about what the competition are doing just by “staying in touch”.
Thanks to a more intrusive news media and the internet, customers have much more information available than ever before through special reports, online forums, price comparison sites and interest groups. Nowadays, I find that I look at other customers’ comments on products that I buy from (say) Amazon before I buy, and I have refrained from making purchases because of those comments. I still go back to Amazon, though.
How many potential customers aren’t coming to you or coming back to you because of poor maintenance?
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
10 Questions To Compete Effectively
Customers come back because they feel important and because a business gives them what they want.
How do you make sure that you keep that business? Here are 10 questions that you should be asking your customers regularly to make sure your business survives and excels at what it does:
1. How long have they been using your business (existing regular customers)?
2. Why do they continue to come to your business (if they’re “regulars”)?
3. How did they hear about your business (new customers)?
4. What do they like about your business?
5. Do they have any “favourite” staff?
6. What does “the competition” do better than you?
7. What do you do better than “the competition”?
8. How have any complaints been handled in the past?
9. What products/services do they think will be important in the future?
10. If there was one thing that could be done better, what would it be?
The answers to these questions can reveal a surprising amount of information about why people come to your business, its strengths and weaknesses, how loyal your customers are (or how good you are at maintaining loyalty) and what future demand may be.
The trick is to be able to:
• Spot “trends” in the information (you need to be asking these questions regularly);
• Extract
negative perceptions as well as positive ones.
What your customers tell you may be in line with your views, or may be totally different. The one thing you mustn’t do is
ignore it. It is highly valuable strategic and competitive information. People like bankers, accountants and prospective investors or buyers like this kind of detail.
Think about the kind of questions you would like to ask yourself (they may be totally different to the ones above) and then think
how you’ll ask them to get the information you need. It could be face-to-face as part of a general chat, or more formally through a “customer survey”. The advantage of the latter is that it allows your customer to be “anonymous” when giving negative feedback. You can hand surveys out to them, or have someone outside the premises (on “neutral ground”) asking the questions.
You may find that you will refine the questions above, or develop different ones. That’s perfectly fine, as the important thing is what works for you. Your best PR machine is happy customers who tell people about your business, “like” it on Facebook, and keep coming back for more. The way to achieve this is to know your customers.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy
Win And Maintain Business - Effective Customer Interaction
We’re all busy / shorthanded / up against it these days in our efforts to increase (or even just maintain) business flows. These depend on the ability to satisfy customers and respond to enquiries.
Customers don’t remember what you say, but they always remember how you make them feel. They need to feel important and valued. They have a huge choice now in terms of providers and information available through the internet.
How we handle enquiries makes the difference between building and destroying business. Enquiries come in by phone, by email or may be face-to-face and many businesses really don’t understand how to deal with them effectively. Here are a few simple guidelines that can make a huge difference:
Phone:
The way you answer the phone says a lot about your business. Do you sound happy, energetic and eager to help? Or do you sound bored and as though you couldn’t care less?
• Greet customers cheerfully. I’ve had people simply start with “Name?” or “Account number?” as though the validity of my enquiry and existence hangs on these. Why’s it so hard to say a cheerful “Good Morning, [your name] speaking, how can I help you”? This earned me compliments when I used it.
• Stand up (if you can); it makes you feel and sound more energetic.
• Smile; it makes you sound pleased to be speaking to the caller (avoid this if they’re calling to complain!).
• Look up. This imparts a positive and forward-looking mood.
• Use the customer’s name as much as possible – it gives the impression that they mean something to you and aren’t just another interruption of your day. Ask them to repeat their name and even spell it if you didn’t catch it the first time.
Email:
• Send a polite response to all enquiries - a holding reply works if you can’t answer immediately. If you receive large volumes of email enquiries, use a system-generated holding response, but choose your wording carefully. Make sure it’s personal enough and that you get round to a full response quickly (say within 1 working day).
• Provide a contact name and telephone number on all system-generated responses.
Face-to-Face:
Unlike phone or email, the customer is in front of you and can see what you look like, how you carry yourself, how well-groomed you are and how you react. The flip side is that you can see this in the customer as well.
• Well-groomed, neatly-dressed staff have an advantage over those who look scruffy. Like it or not, customers
do judge people’s professionalism by how they look.
• Look attentive – listen with
eyes and
ears. Only 10% of communication is verbal – the rest is all in the body language.
General:
• Summarise what the customer is looking for. If it’s not correct, they’ll tell you and you’ll avoid costly mistakes.
• Don’t sound like you’re reading a prepared text (not easy). People can tell if you’re not being spontaneous.
• If you can, offer
alternatives. You may not have exactly what the customer is looking for, but do you have something that might work? The fact that you can generate alternatives will impress and may win business that might otherwise have gone elsewhere.
• Keep your promises. If you promise to call back within (say) 30 minutes, call back. One of my friends had this happen to him and after waiting one whole day for the call back, he posted his experience on Facebook, naming the company concerned. He has 150 friends on Facebook, all of whom saw his comments. That’s 150 people who know that the company he dealt with doesn’t keep its promises…
• Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, or that rely on someone else keeping them for you.
• Ignoring something because it doesn’t look promising may be disastrous.
• Don’t use phrases like “Company policy is…” Customers don’t care about policy, they care about solutions.
Many businesses feel that being “no worse than anyone else” is good enough. Unless your product or service is truly unique, there’s always someone else who will look after your customers better.
Whether times are hard or good, people will always remember how you treat them.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy
