Sales Tip of the Week from Mike Leeds – Pro Sales Coaching
Creating Awesome Customer Loyalty
If you want to stay on top of your game, you need to know what your customers think of your company as well as the products and services that you provide.
Getting feedback from customers can help you understand future purchase potential, consider product or service enhancements, and help determine commission or bonus plans. Overall, when reviewing customer service levels, we find three major categories of customers:
- Highly satisfied customers tend to tell many people about their experiences, make recommendations to others about the company, and usually return for future purchases.
- Satisfied customers tend to tell a few others, but generally don't go out of their way to recommend the company, and may return for future purchases. However, other competitive offers may impact the amount of future business.
- Dissatisfied customers tend to tell the largest number of people about their unsatisfactory experiences, will make recommendations to others that they buy from different companies, and most likely won't return for future purchases.
Strive for highly satisfied customers who perceive your service levels as excellent. This ultimately translates to customer loyalty. In a competitive marketplace, satisfactory is not good enough. You need to stand out, and be considered excellent in your field. This will help build a loyal customer base that will continue to purchase from you, and be extremely valuable in regards to referring you to others.
Activities to consider when creating customer loyalty:
- Always exceed any commitment you make to a customer, be specific when discussing times/dates and be aware of your customer's work hours/time zone.
- Ask for feedback early in the process so you can resolve any issues before it becomes too late.
- Create short surveys or feedback requests (5 questions maximum), and add space for specific comments. Scores are good, but customer comments will be more valuable to you.
- Let customers know why you are looking for their feedback; consider sharing some of the results of your findings, and any changes you plan on making. Be appreciative of their time and feedback, and most importantly, make this an opportunity to once again thank them for their business.
Activities to avoid when creating customer loyalty:
- Don't over-survey your customers, but consider having a feedback link in your website to supplement input from your customers.
- Don't bribe all of your customers with a gift for completing a survey. This could slant the results, and could look desperate. If there is a drawing for a single prize, make it public so people know it's legitimate.
- Don't ask customers to submit their survey directly back to you. Consider an unbiased third party to collect the data for you. This helps your customers know your feedback request is both genuine and legitimate.
Asking for feedback is great; however, if you're not going to listen to what your customers have to say - don't ask. It's a waste of their time and yours. Be willing and prepared to implement changes in your business, and understand that inflexibility may lead to unsatisfied customers - and lost business potential.
The goal of this topic is to help you keep your highly satisfied customers at that level, and move the other customers (satisfied and dissatisfied) up one level.