Your attention to customer relationships always pays off – either for you or your competitors.
I recently met with the creative director of a large communications company. She was talking to potential replacements for her current printer and a colleague referred her to me. I asked what the problem was with her existing printer.
Even though she spent between $125,000 to $175,000 annually – healthy revenue for any printer – she didn’t feel appreciated.
She wasn’t looking for fanfare or gratuitous gestures. Her printer’s lack of attention and recognition made her feel awkward whenever they met. The printer was so oblivious that the creative director had to track project milestones, schedule times to check proofs and other routine aspects of the commercial relationship.
We all know we’re supposed to thank customers and make them feel appreciated. However, we shouldn’t be store clerks reciting, “Thank you for allowing us to give you super-duper service and make you feel happy and loved, today.”
Appreciation is not feeling happy and loved. It’s being acknowledged and respected. Appreciation is the foundation for building good relationships that keep customers loyal. It’s far easier and cheaper to hang onto satisfied existing customers than to find new ones.
Many of your competitors offer similar products and services with prices and delivery standards that are on par with yours. Knowing this, how can you continuously keep your current clients and customers from being lured away?
All things being equal, your clients will go where they’re well treated, appreciated and respected. Where they feel at home. In fact, such relationships will surmount some failings on your part.
We’ve all made errors in managing customer relationships. What are your biggest relationship mistakes? Don’t be afraid. Be honest and candid. Feel free to use a pseudonym if you really blew it. Our mistakes are how we learn, right?
What other topics are of interest? Let us know and we’ll try hard to cover them, or get an expert to do it. Want to share your experience? Let us know. We’re eager to share this space.
I’m working with a new client who has a very good product for all of the virtuals out there–those people working in their home offices who have the occasional need for brick and mortar office facilities. I think there is a growing demand for this kind of space–at a networking event a few weeks ago, nearly everyone with whom I spoke worked virtually; and for many of these people, their corner offices are the corners of their bedrooms–not the best of places to be entertaining clients.
My new client is wisely locating his facility close to an airport so that people can fly in from various locations, have their meetings and fly back out. He is also positioned close to a big vacation market, so he will also be able to capitalize on people who are vacationing but still need to be doing business, which is most of us these days.
In terms of marketing, he wants to focus on an aggressive social media campaign, which is a good start, but he’s not convinced that he needs a website. His contact list includes a grand total of seven names, and he thinks networking is a waste of time. With a little coaching, we are developing a high-touch approach to nurture these contacts–meeting for coffee and sending a handwritten note thanking them for their business.
He’s looking forward to business ownership so he can set his own hours. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that yes, he could set his own hours, but as most of us quickly learn, those are punishingly long hours that include a lot of late nights and weekends. The reality is that as small business owners, we assume more roles than we ever thought possible–we instantly become CEO, CFO, CMO and Sales Director.
So what’s next for my new client? We’re working on a balanced marketing plan that starts with a timeline and budget to keep us on track. We’re researching a name and working with a graphic designer to create a logo and branding that will carry over to a simple website that is a critical-mission business tool. We’re working to develop a direct mail program that will include his following up to schedule meetings. The most important breakthrough? He is beginning to understand that networking, cold calls and endless follow-up are absolutely critical to his success.
I have a client who owns a heating and air conditioning business. At first, he promoted his business through outbound direct-mail marketing. When I’d see him every few months, I’d ask how the program was going. I was curious how many responses it had generated and how many turned into sales. He never knew, which absolutely stunned me. Tracking responses is the only way to determine how effectively you’re program is working.
With all of the moving parts in a direct marketing campaign, he was throwing darts in a bar blindfolded. Odds favored him hitting the cocktail waitress long before the bull’s-eye.
By the end of 2010, he was still slinging darts helter-skelter and the waitress was on crutches. So, he switched to online marketing by purchasing “key words” related to his industry. He’d concluded online marketing would be more effective and cost less. But how?
I wished them well, but knew the waitress was in big trouble. When I checked in every few months, I’d ask about the new campaign.
“It’s going great!” he’d assure me. But he had no evidence. How did he know? “I don’t know, it just feels like it’s working.”
As time went on, he’d blindly abandon one marketing method and adopt another. He still doesn’t analyze response against sales. Of course, some responses do turn into sales and that apparently gives him that feeling that it’s working.
In truth, he’s still blindly slinging darts with his marketing dollars. Without any data, he has no idea how much better his programs could be working. I’m just hoping the waitress doesn’t get tetanus
My client may never learn. You, however, can hit the bull’s-eye with every campaign at no additional cost. Just repeat – and then act upon – my 3-Step Tracking Pledge:
I will track the source of all leads AND how they heard about us.
I will train my sales and reception staffs to without fail ask all prospects how they heard about us.
I will ensure that when prospects say they found us through our website, my sales and reception staffs will ask how they got to our website.
That’s it. Turn my pledge into action and use the tracking data to zero in your marketing campaigns until you’re hitting the bull’s-eye every time.
Waitresses rejoice!
If you currently track how prospects and sales came together or if you’ve decided to start, let us know the difference it’s made in your business. What secrets can you share that will make the process easier for all of us?
What other problems are you facing? Want to guest blog? Let us know.
AirSprint Private Aviation increases business people’s face-to-face time with clients, colleagues and family members through fractional ownership of the firm’s fleet of Pilatus PC-12 luxury aircraft.
The promise of the 12-year-old Canadian firm is that business moves incredibly faster if you aren’t shackled to commercial airline schedules, long lines and plastic chairs as your workspace. Having made its success in Canada, two years ago AirSprint set up a U.S. head office in Scottsdale, Arizona, and expanded its operations into the American Southwest.
The problem they faced was how to appropriately deliver its key message that positioned AirSprint as the premier provider of business and personal luxury private aviation services that are exceptionally safe, secure, and convenient. This isn’t a market to be addressed with cold calls and coupons. Nor, would passive mass-market advertising programs catch the attention of busy C-suitors.
Direct mail might seem a surprising tactic. After all, AirSprint is selling a luxury aircraft experience, not supermarket bargains. However, using new computerized printing methods in conjunction with a database refined by the company’s sales staff, AirSprint could individually personalize letters, brochures and other collateral to achieve the right upscale look and feel.
To connect directly with decision makers, AirSprint needed to dodge the inevitable gatekeepers who might trash or redirect even the most personalized letter.
That trick was accomplished by sending a handsome personalized hourglass, alluding to the value of time saved with AirSprint’s solution, via a delivery service. While the hourglass and delivery charges cost considerably more than a letter-and-stamp approach, they won passage of AirSprint’s message directly to the decision makers’ desks.
The delivery service confirmed arrival of each package, setting the stage for salespeople to call the prospective execs the next day.
During follow-up calls, the AirSprint’s hourglass promotion earned “rave reviews.” Though still early, the program has netted 12 interested parties and six proposals are already on the table. That’s a pretty quick conversion rate when the initial cost for your share of efficient luxury business travel is $614,000.
How often do you get to shake hands with the decision makers the day after your first pitch? AirSprint demonstrates how focusing first on what success looks like, rather than the delivery vehicle, and then planning backwards gets incredible results.
The hourglass and delivery service worked well for AirSprint. What is your craftiest caper for getting past the gatekeepers directly to the person who writes the checks?
What other problems are you facing? Are you expert on a topic that will interest this community? Contact us. We’re always looking for what interests you and for expert guest bloggers.
