Jack Fraenkel
Stay in touch with your customers at least every 90 days, a newsletter is great for this but don’t lose the personal touch, if you see an article in the press or hear something that will interest a particular client, contact them directly and let them know. This shows you care about them more than just their business with you.
Make sure that your customers know everything that you can do for them, just because you know all about your business, doesn’t automatically mean that they do. For example do you create web sites, (if not why not), and does your entire database know this? What other services do you offer that customers may not think to ask you about, make yourself easy to do business with?
Have you ever answered a question with a question? Would that be making a difference to your retention rate? The answer to the latter is most definitely yes! Asking questions not only increases your conversion rate, it builds rapport with your customer and ensures that the sale becomes their idea and not yours and provides you with future opportunities.
Asking questions also means active listening. You can ask questions about your customers’ work, business, kids or hobbies and do make sure that you are listening with sincere interest. It may even be helpful to note down some of the answers – such as the names of their kids, interests etc for future communication. By asking questions and listening, you are building rapport and attaching importance to their conversation.
Marketing for Customer Retention is hard work and never ceases, here are 6 vital steps originally devised by William Davidow & Bro Uttal in their book, Total Customer Service:
- Devise service strategies
- Get top managers to behave like customer service fanatics
- Concentrate on motivating and training employees
- Design products & services that make good customer service possible
- Invest in service infrastructure
- Monitor achievement of customer service goals
Inky has a little story he likes to tell and retell, so here it is:
Remember me? I’m the guest who enters your restaurant, sits down patiently and waits while your front of house staff does everything but take my order.
I’m the customer who goes into your store and stands quietly while your sales assistants finish their chitchat.
I’m the client who comes to your office and waits patiently while your receptionist finishes typing before acknowledging me.
You might say I’m a good guy, but do you know who else I am?
I’m the guest/customer/client who never comes back, never refers your business and tells all my friend and acquaintances why they shouldn’t do business with you. And, it amuses me to watch you spend thousands of marketing dollars annually to get me back when I was yours in the first place…
All you had to do was show me a little courtesy.
