Keep Your Customers Happy and Coming Back for More

8/12/2019 Keep Your Customers Happy and Coming Back for More

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/keep-your-customers-happy-and-coming-back-for-more 1/12

Keep your customers happy and coming back for more

By Joanna L. Krotz

No doubt you've heard something about the 80/20 rule. Originally devised by

a nineteenth-century Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto, the law grew

out of his keen observations about the trivial many and the critical few. Pareto

noticed that 80% of the possible value of business activities tends to come

from only 20% of the effort put into it.

Why should you care?

The 80/20 rule means that if you can define your critical few customers and

target marketing directly to their needs, it's likely to pay off big time. The cost

of acquiring new customers, according to many surveys, runs eight to 10 times

more than the cost of keeping existing ones. So you get a stronger return on

your marketing dollars and better sales by focusing on 20% or so of your top-

tier prospects. Usually, that requires three steps:

• Identify and characterize your key customers.

• Target messages in suitable media to hit nerves among the important

customer segments.

• Build in a payoff that rewards customers for giving you time and attention.

Here's how to stay connected to customers who count.

1. Identify Your Best Customers

First, find out more about your customer. You need to learn details about their

habits, profiles, and preferences before you can characterize them. In technical

terms, that translates into creating a customer database that can be

conveniently accessed and manipulated by the staff, including sales,

marketing, customer service, and billing.

http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-us/resources/marketing/customer-service-acquisition/keep-your-customers-happy-and-coming-back-for-more.aspx?fbid=zBIsh7aGQCA






Information most helpful to collect (with the customer's permission, of course)

includes:

• Name, full address, phone number and/or e-mail address, including the

names of all family members or company title and department.

• Date of birth, so you can send out cards or e-mail with birthday discount

offers or gifts.

• Annual amount spent with your company.

• Products purchased and past history.

• Dates or schedule of purchases.

• Special offers acted on.

• Customer service history.

• Special requests for products or service.

• Participation in any loyalty clubs or events.

Business Contact Manager (BCM) can both capture customer intelligence andprovide the easy access you need to effectively mine customer information.

BCM is part of the Outlook e-mail program in Microsoft Office 2010 . It has

pre-formatted Account reports that give you immediate information about

who buys what, how well they pay, and more.

Business Contact Manager lets you go beyond simple contact information to

consolidate all interactions for a given customer or account, including e-mails,

tasks, appointments or sales calls, notes and other documents. Further, you

can easily create customized reports with criteria of your own choosing or, ifneeded, export those reports to Excel for further analysis.

2. Monitor That Data

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/microsoft-office-overview/default.aspx






Using those tools, get into the habit of consistently updating customer

information. At every customer touch point, try to learn a little more or verify

your existing information. For instance, ask why the customer is buying the

larger size rather than the small one. Why choose blue rather than gray?

Has he or she been promoted, with a new title and responsibilities? Note any

responses to marketing efforts. Keep adding details and making sure the

customer profile is up-to-date.

After a half-dozen interactions, you'll not only have an individual account's

purchasing history and proprietary profile, you'll have it captured in a

centralized location for every customer—no more outdated sticky notes or

multiple folders with conflicting information. Plus, all the actionable

information will be easily accessible.

Armed with this information, you can categorize customers into four target

groups—from highest to lowest spenders. Then, analyze which products or

services grab the most attention or sales.

Next, start reviewing your list and segmenting customers. Pruning your client

base of low-margin, high-demand and time-consuming customers lets the

sales and service staff focus on key customers: loyal, repeat buyers and worthy

new prospects.

3. Target Your Messages

When you're clear about the target customer and you can rely on smart,

centralized customer information, you can send specialized offerings to

selected customer segments. Use Publisher part of Office 2010, to create

flyers, postcards or other mailings that send news of customized offers.

• Cross-sell or up-sell additional offers and products.

• Provide well-timed rewards or discounts.

• Communicate with customers in the medium they prefer—direct mail,

postcards, e-mail, phone, letters, flyers, or, in some cases, simply an annual

thank-you note.



• Create insider or time-sensitive deals.

10 Ways to Make Customers Fall in Love

with Your Business

Nurturing relationships with your customers is a crucial part of growing a successful business. In this

age of automation and innovation, caring for your customers has never been more important.

At any moment, an unhappy customer can share their opinion with the masses through social media

and the web and negatively affect your business. That’s why it’s even more important than ever to

create an excellent experience for your customers to help develop your company’s relationship with

them into love.

Walt Disney said it best, “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring

their friends.” Creating love between your company and your customers can help scale positive

word of mouth that’s absolutely priceless.

Creating a customer-focused culture of this nature is a business opportunity that should not be

overlooked. Most businesses are failing when it comes to the customer experience, which is your

opportunity to swoop in and enchant those same customers into falling for your company.

The data speaks for itself:

Only 37% of brands received good or excellent customer experience index scores in 2012.

Whereas, 64% of brands got a rating of “OK,” “poor,” or “very poor” from their

customers. Source: Forrester Research

As many as 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor

customer experience. Source: RightNow

Up to 60% of consumers will pay more for a better customer experience.Source: Desk

Average annual value of each customer relationship lost to a competitor or abandoned –

$289. Source: Genesys Report

http://www.forrester.com/The+Customer+Experience+Index+2012/fulltext/-/E-RES59377?objectid=RES59377



http://www.rightnow.com/files/analyst-reports/RightNow_Customer_Experience_Impact_Report_North_America_2011.pdf



http://www.desk.com/customer-service/training-tips



http://enterprise.alcatel-lucent.com/private/active_docs/Genesys_US_Survey09_screen.pdf









It’s quite clear that now is a good time to solidify your relationship with your customers in a

meaningful way. Here are 10 ways to help make your customers fall in love with your business.

1. Treat your Customers Right – Genuinely Interact

Happy customers who get their issue resolved tell 4 to 6 people about their experience. So that’s a

way to significantly influence the word of mouth about your business. Don’t act as a nameless or

faceless business; genuinely talk with your customers as a person representing the business.

Address your customers by name, and tell them your name at the very beginning of your interaction.

Talk to your customers as you would in person, not like you would in a press release. Examples of

this are noticeable when it comes to customer service on social media where the genuine shine

through and the others seem forced and uptight, which is the opposite of being “social.” American

Express does this well onTwitter, ensuring all customer concerns are answered in a timely manner

with a friendly and personal response, signed by the employee who’s doing the tweeting.

2. Don’t Come on Too Strong – Respect Your Customers

A third of consumers say they experience rude customer service at least once a month, and 58% of

them tell their friends. This is exactly how word of mouth can work against your company’s

reputation for the long term. It’s very important to be respectful of a customer’s mood when trying to

resolve an issue they have with your company.

https://twitter.com/AmericanExpress/status/306615642608513025





Keeping your patience is key to giving your customer the time to air out their issue. And, in turn, it

creates the opportunity for you to help resolve the issue and make them comfortable. The more

comfortable the customer is the more likely they’ll share valuable feedback that can help prevent

similar issues from occurring again in the future.

3. Always Listen – Hear What Your Customers are Saying

At a time when it’s easy to have a two-way dialogue with your customers, it’s important to truly listen.

When listening to your customers, take into account what changes your organization should make

from this feedback, and then follow through. Your customers are the lifeblood of your organization,

and not dealing with the reasonable requests could cause backlash.

Use the following methods to gather feedback from your customers:

Surveys

Focus Groups

Observation

Point of Sale

Customer Service

Social Media

Communities and Groups

Email and Web Forms

4. Continue to Satisfy – Offer Ongoing Support and Specials

The #1 reason for customer attrition is dissatisfaction with customer service. Do everything in your

power to provide excellent service to your customers on an ongoing basis. Respond quickly and

enthusiastically, and be ready to present a special offer or discount with the hope of up-selling the

customer to buy more.

There’s never any reason to slow down on satisfying your audience, especially when they’re chatting

with you live over the phone. It’s important to note that 81% of companies with strong capabilities

and competencies for delivering customer experience excellence are outperforming their

competition. Take note, customer satisfaction is a key differentiator in a sea of other companies.



Besides offering support, ongoing specials will continue to help enchant and satisfy your customers

for the long term. Create engaging multi-channel promotions centered around discounts, giveaways,

sweepstakes, and contests. Distribute these offers via email, social media, print, in-store, and across

your other marketing channels for full exposure, much like HairDazzle has done on Twitter above.

5. Treat a Customer Like a Valued Partner – Communication is Two Way

As previously mentioned, take your customer’s feedback seriously and act upon reasonable

requests. What’s the point of listening if you’re not going to act on that feedback? Make sure it’s

clear that you want your customer’s feedback and that your business truly values them as a partner.

If you’re looking for an example of how to show your customer that their opinion matters, look at

what the Buffer app team is doing. Buffer app is a social media management tool that helps

businesses and individuals schedule their content for the best times to share and get engagement.

The Buffer blog features a variety of quality content focused on marketing, achieving happiness, and

a monthly series known as the Happiness Report.

https://twitter.com/HairDazzle/status/198029988761571329



http://www.bufferapp.com/



http://blog.bufferapp.com/measuring-happiness-at-buffer-january-2013








This report highlights how the Buffer team is managing customer support each month by what

worked well, what didn’t work well, what they plan to work on for the future, and finally, a request for

feedback from their customers. This is a lesson for all businesses on how to be completelytransparent and actively allow your customers to partake in improving your product for the future.

Focusing on your customer to this degree is a major way to strengthen their trust, loyalty, and overall

love for your company.

6. Build Trust – Alert Customers to Large Scale Changes, Good or Bad

It takes 12 positive service experiences to make up for 1 negative experience. This is how sensitive

trust is between a business and its customers. No matter your size, keep your customers in the

know when it comes to positive and negatives changes to your products and services that affect

them. It’s crucial to tread lightly when making changes to your products and services because your

customers have become accustomed to what you’ve already got.



Here’s an example of what not to do.

Recently, Instagram updated its terms of service but neglected to be clear about the changes that

would be made to the social network. The wording was confusing, and therefore, the company’s

intentions were not clear. Their users immediately voiced concern across the web about these

changes. Most of this feedback was outrage and many left the service or threatened to leave, like

power user National Geographic. Instagram quickly responded to the outrage andreversed their

decision to update their terms of service. In the end, the situation was handled well in terms of the

cleanup; but now, due to the poor communication around their terms of service, Instagram has lost

the trust of their audience, which is hard to regain.

Here’s what to do to gain trust:

Heavily research whether changes to your company could alter public perception.

Be methodical in how you communicate the changes to your product and services.

http://blog.instagram.com/post/38421250999/updated-terms-of-service-based-on-your-feedback








Tell your customers when you’ve made a change, you’ve screwed up, or you’ve done something

right. A healthy mix will give your customers a transparent look into your company that can’t be

forged.

Find value in the feedback about your company changes.7. Be Transparent – Honesty is Crucial When it comes to Mistakes

Being transparent in the digital age is a must. Much like the principles discussed above,

transparency is a critical factor in building trust, satisfaction, and love from your customers. What

does it mean to be transparent?

Transparency means that you are not afraid of feedback.



Transparency means that you have nothing to hide.

Transparency means your employees’ personal and work persona blur.

Transparency means you like to have conversations with your customers.

8. Follow Through on Your Word – Follow Up on Promises

Your word is your bond. Following up on your promises helps show the transparency of your

business, while helping to build a feeling of trust and dependability with your audience.

Manage the expectations of your customers to ensure realistic goals are set and can be met. By

remaining consistent in your messaging, your customers will learn what they should expect from you

in the future.

F.W. Nichol said it best, “When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word “succeed,”

you find that it simply means to follow through.”

9. Recognize Responsibility – The Customer is Always Right

No matter the circumstance, the customer is always right. This is a rule to guide your business

through its growth, from customer service to user experience to product development. To help set

this in motion, create a customer service policy to show your customers they are always right.

Organize this policy into three parts:

1. Highlight phrases for your company to use that’ll make your customers happy. Again, consistency

and a personal touch go a long way.

2. Never let your customers forget your business by following up effectively. Keep it personal by

following up on special occasions and consistently writing handwritten follow-up notes.

3. Define how to deal with unsatisfied customers with action steps to ensure there is a thorough

process for all employees to follow to resolve a customer issue, ideally turning unhappy

customers into your strongest advocates.10. Always Say “Thank You” – Kindness and Gratitude will Take You Far

Last, but certainly not least, always say “Thank you.” As many as 3 out of 4 customers say they have

spent more with a company because of a history of positive experiences. Kindness and gratitude for

a customer’s business is an undeniable way to further enchant them for the long term.



Craft every thank you sent out from your company to be specific to the customer, relevancy is key.

Be as appreciative as possible to your customers for taking the time to go through the process of

resolving their issue. Finally, follow up with a good old fashioned “Thank you.”

Take a look at these 10 golden rules of customer relationship managementvisualized.





Documents

Keep Your Customers Happy and Coming Back for More