by Jim Cathcart
They say it is not what you know that counts, it is who you know. I disagree. I’ve found that what really counts in relationships is: Who cares whether they know you!
We only have a valuable relationship when both parties consider it valuable.
Customer Loyalty Revisited
For a couple of decades now the business community has been filled with messages and models as to how we can build more customer loyalty. The automotive industry has its “Customer Satisfaction Index” and many other industries have developed frequent buyer programs, starting with the airlines back in the early 1980s. All of these endeavors are intended to increase the customer’s loyalty to the company and its products. But I think the energy is being misdirected.
We need to stop worrying about causing the customers to become more loyal to us and start focusing on becoming more loyal to our customers. When our customers get it that we are truly loyal to them, then they will start valuing their connections with us more strongly. It’s like my son told me during his college years when he worked at Mailboxes, Etc., “Dad, I’ve noticed that the people who get the most mail are the ones who send the most mail.” Customer Loyalty should be approached in the same way.
Customer Loyalty should be something we give rather than merely something we seek.
Every day you and your organization have a multitude of contacts with the marketplace. From your online ads to your showrooms, phone calls, in person visits, service calls, telephone orders, mailings, and more…you are continually in touch with others. Each of these contacts has the potential to leave an impression, either positive or negative. If every impression you leave seems to show how loyal you are to those who do business with you, then others will want to do business with you too.
Isolate each Point of Contact and Enhance It
Think of your business as a golf ball. The average golf ball has over 300 impressions on its surface. If only one of those 300 impressions is imperfect then the ball is rejected as a “second” that is not fit for a retail sale. Your business makes hundreds of impressions each week and every one of those has the potential to be near perfect. The more positive impressions you make the more customer loyalty you will be giving and receiving. These have been referred to as “moments of truth” in which your relationship with a customer or prospect is influenced toward the good or bad.
The easiest way to approach this process is to isolate the various Service Cycles within your regular operations and identify all the points of contact. Then brainstorm ways to enhance each contact and assure that your high standards are maintained.
Up-Serving rather than Up-Selling
Businesses frequently encourage their personnel to “up-sell” customers to other products, bigger orders and higher priced items. This often leads to the associate pressuring the customer and some of the sales fall apart from the added pressure. The seller feels bad and the customer is annoyed. Of course, it can be done tactfully too and often is. But there is an easier way to approach it.
Change the effort from getting to giving. Instead of seeking to sell more, seek to serve better. Up-Serve instead of Up-Selling.
When you shift to looking for ways to increase customer satisfaction (instead of increasing the transaction) then what occurs is the customer notices that you are sincerely trying to help. That means you are seen as a helper rather than a persuader. They begin to accept you as a Partner in Problem Solving instead of a pushy sales person, and their tension drops. When tension drops, trust grows. As trust grows, they share information more freely and you will see more ways to be of service. This leads to bigger sales. Not through sales pressure, but through improved customer service.
Naturally you still have to present your services and products with an emphasis on the value of the benefits they contain, and you have to ask for the order, but not in the old sense of purveying your wares. Instead practice “Relationship Selling tm” and build profitable business friendships. My television show on TSTN is titled “The Purpose of Selling” and that’s what I say at the top of each episode: “The Purpose of Selling is Building Profitable Business Friendships.”
Decide in advance on the reputation you want to have…and deserve.
The quickest way to open doors and reduce customers’ tension as they consider working with you is to build a great reputation. The quickest way to build a great reputation is to earn and deserve it.
Here’s the process for Reputation Management:
1. Identify all of the groups among whom you will have a reputation
2. Determine exactly what you want them to think and say about you
3. Isolate the ways in which you communicate and interact with them
4. Specify the behaviors you need to cultivate in order to earn the desired reputation
5. Relentlessly perform at the new level in everything that you do
6. Measure and Monitor the messages you are sending and the reactions you are getting
7. Institute Systems and standards to preserve what you have built
In the Spirit of Growth,
Jim Cathcart
copyright 2008 Jim Cathcart
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