Archive for the 'Customer Retention' Category

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My Super Feeling About the Super Bowl

In case you didn’t know, I love football.  Pro, college, highschool, my neighbor’s 7th grade team, all of it.

So, needless to say, yesterday was fun.  On the NFC side, the “feel-good” underdog story of the year are the Arizona Cardinals.  9-7 regular season.  Ageless Quarterback Kurt Warner at the helm, who replaced pretty boy Matt Leinhart early in the season.  Unbelievable catches made by WR Larry Fitzgerald.  I love it!

Then, “my” AFC team (“my” team overall is the Green Bay Packers), the Pittsburgh Steelers had their way with the Baltimore Ravens. 

So now I get a great feel good story (the Cardinals) and my AFC team (the Steelers) in two weeks.  I couldn’t be happier and can’t wait to spend 11 hours in front of my TV on February 1.

So, does any of this have anything to do with sales or marketing?  I am not sure, but I do know that any “underdog”, “rags-to-riches”, “used to bag groceries in Iowa” story makes everyone feel good.  Kurt Warner and his Arizona Cardinals fit this bill to a “T”.  Likewise, we also feel good when the “best” team makes it in as well.  The Pittsburgh Steelers own the number one defense in the league, therefore it makes sense that they should be playing in the Super Bowl, right?  If nothing else, this feel good match up can maybe take your customer’s minds off the other challenges in their life and more likely to engage with you for something positive.  Find a positive reason to reach out to your clients today and you will find them more receptive (at least the football fans anyway!).

Published on Monday January 19, 2009 in Customer Retention and Direct Outreach. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Top 3 Customer Retention Strategies for Beating the Recession

Do you remember the three most important words in real estate?  Of course you do; Location, Location,Location, right?  Well what if you are a small business owner, what are your three most important words in small business right now?  Database, database and database!  Not having a detailed database of your current customers is not only inexcusable in today’s challenging economy, I maintain that it is a sure sign that you, as a small business owner, are not in this for the long haul.

Customer Retention Strategy #1:  Put together a database of your clients! 

There are many programs available to help you do this, you can simply Google “CRM” or “Customer Relations Management” and you will get over 65 million hits.  ACT!, Contstant Contact, Goldmine are just a few of the database applications you can use.  I don’t care if it is a simple Excel spreadsheet, just get a list of your customers on paper.

Now that you have the database built, what should you do with it?

Customer Retention Strategy #2:  Build a “Keep in Touch” strategy that communicates with your customer in an appropriately timed and value added way. 

Too many business owners either over-communicate, bombarding their customers so often and with so little value that they just eventually tune out or add you to their “spammers” list; or they never communicate at all.  I agree with my mentor and author Michael Port who said in his book, Book Yourself Solid, “The lack of a solid keep in touch strategy is where most businesses fail”. 

This first means that you have received their permission to keep in touch! 

Most of my database comes from the individuals in the groups that I speak to.  At the conclusion of my presentation, I hand out a simple, one page survey.  I ask them about the room, the content, the one thing they got from my presentation, etc.  Most importantly however, I have a checkbox that says, “I would like the opportunity to keep in touch with you and continue to provide value to your sales and marketing efforts after this presentation.  Please check the box to give me permission to do this”.  Guess what, I get 100% of the boxes checked.

You, as the business owner, have to decide what the appropriate frequency of communication is as it relates to your business.  I’ll give you an example of one business that communicates too much, The Men’s Wearhouse.  Once you get into their list, you literally get an email every week, sometimes more often, about their latest sale.  I often wonder who the really foolish people are who wander into a Men’s Wearhouse on the 1 day a year they don’t have a sale and pays full price.  How stupid.  There is no value for me in the never ending sale.  Eventually, I just added them to my “blocked senders” list and I never shop there.  A more appropriate strategy might be Nordstroms.  Once a year they have a Menswear sale.  I get the one email they send, I mark it on my calendar, and I make special point to attend, even though the closest store is 45 minutes away.  I can confidently say that I have never missed this sale in my 10 plus years as a Nordstrom customer.

Customer Retention Strategy #3:  Include a “call to action” and ask for the referral!

End every customer communication with a call to action!  Ask your customer to do something!  It might be as simple as “have a great holiday” (non-selling message), or it might be as direct as “these sale prices will only be available on Monday”.  Simply keeping in touch to keep in touch is not enough.  Also remember to tailor your call to action to the group you are communicating with. 

On the subject of referrals, I think that there is a stigma attached to that phrase sometimes that puts people off.  In my mortgage practice, I usually say something like this, “My team and I appreciate you very much, especially for those that you have introduced us to over the years”.  This, to me, is the same as “Thank for the referral”, but more customer friendly. 

So, to conclude, I maintain that designing and implementing your customer retention marketing program is more important than your new client acquisition marketing and, in the long run, pay bigger dividends.

I appreciate your comments and encourage you to send your questions to brent@coachbrent.com.

Published on Friday January 16, 2009 in Core Self-Promotion Strategies, Customer Retention, Keep-in-Touch and Referrals. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Are You Spending to “Get” or “Keep”?

For many small business owners, the economy is having an adverse affect on their revenue.  Many, faced with this new reality, are forced to reduce their marketing budgets, which brings me to today’s topic.  Are you cutting your spending on client acquisition or client retention?

Many will choose to spend less money working to maintain their existing client base, spending their entire budgets acquiring new clients.  I maintain that this is a slippery slope and very, very dangerous.  If you do not effort to keep your current client base engaged, pretty soon you may not have a client base at all.

Think about it this way, the cost of acquiring a new client is, depending on what or who you read, is somewhere between three to seven times that of maintaining a current client.  More importantly, spending to retain your current clients generally improves the profitablity of that client by 25% to 100%.  So why do so many business owners focus all their effort on acquring new customers?  I think it is because they think that is what everyone else is doing.  They see their so-called competitor’s ads in the newspaper or hear their voices on the radio, so they think they need to be in those spaces as well.

What I propose is that the small business owner focus on their current clients.  One strategy, and he most cost effective method, is to simply pick up the phone and call.  Just “check in” with the client.  Let them know that you were thinking of them and just dialed them up.  No pressure, nothing to sell, just reach out and touch someone.

Then, take it one step further.  After you hang up, follow up your conversation with a card.  It does not have to be long, just something like, “Hey, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.  I really appreciate your business!”  That’s all, or maybe you want to include a coupon or small discount for their next transaction with you.  I send my cards through a great, low cost, very personalized card sending system, SendOutCards, you can learn more about this system and send two free cards on me (!) at www.mykeepintouchstrategy.com.

So, in these trying economic times, think about starting to spend to “keep” your current clients, rather than spending to “get” new clients. 

Have a great day!

Published on Wednesday November 12, 2008 in Customer Retention, Keep-in-Touch and Send Out Cards. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Voting is like buying, right?

My wife got up early today and headed to the polls while I stayed home with the kids.  She texted me shortly thereafter and said, “Oh My God, you should see the line!” (of course she didn’t use punctuation, after all, she was just texting).  She left, got her free cup of coffee from Starbucks (give away to everyone who voted) and I went about two hours later and there was still a line out the door.  I thought that was pretty cool and here’s why:  In our small town in Illinois, a state that is going to vote Democrat, in a county that always votes Republican, there is still massive voter turnout.  Why?  We already pretty much know how it is all going to come out, right?  As I said, the state will go Democrat and the county will go Republican.  It has been that way for years.  But still, there is a line.  Why?

I think people want to be a part of this election.  I think people want to have “ownership” in this election.  I think people are “buying” whatever the candidates are selling, regardless of who the candidate is.  Both sides, on the national level anyway, are selling “change” and we, as a country are “buying” by showing up in droves to vote.  The morning talk shows showed lines everywhere, especially in the so called “battleground” states.  So, the business of this election has succeeded, we will have more buyers than we can handle today at the polls.  Like I said, I think that’s pretty cool.

So, how does this all relate to sales and marketing?  Well, I think that too many of us take our customers and clients for granted sometimes.  When was the last time you reached out to your clients?  Do you have a “keep in touch” strategy that continues to add value to your relationships with your customers?  Are your customers so excited about you and your business that they are out there selling for you?  If not, maybe you can take some cues from the candidates and their campaigns. 

Let me know your thoughts on this by leaving me a comment!

Published on Tuesday November 4, 2008 in Customer Retention, How to Talk About What You Do, Keep-in-Touch, Personal Brand, Who Knows You & Do They Like You? and Why People Buy. 0 Comments

Customer Service?

This is a personal story about less than ideal customer service I experienced this past Saturday night.  I need to give you some background first to paint the picture.

I hired my favorite local BBQ “joint” to cater my family’s reunion this past summer.  They did a great job.  Realy, really good sauce.  The chicken rocked.  A couple days later, I received a nice thank you letter from the owner (cool!), along with a “$20 off your next food purchase” coupon (even cooler!), which brings me to my story.

We wanted take-out on Saturday night, I worked all day, plus my son had a friend over and we were taking care of my wife’s friend’s little girl.  “Let’s get chicken!”, I said.  Logged on to my the website of my friend’s BBQ place and ordered the “bucket of chicken (includes fries or beans, plus coleslaw)”.  $26.95 is what the online menu said.  Added a bowl of their awesome chili for $3.95. 

Off I go to the “joint” and am greeted by the person at the counter shaking her head at me, looking down at the coupon in my hand.   She gets off the phone and says, “That’s for dine-in only, and besides you can’t use it on Saturdays”.  Now, it did indeed say “Dine-in only” in the small print, my fault.  Nothing on the coupon about not being able to use it on Saturdays.  She then rings me up, and says $41.56.  Wait a minute I said, doing the math in my head, it should only be around $32.  I asked why it was so high, she said, “We raised our prices”.  I said, “Well, the menu on the website said $26.95 for the chicken and $3.95 for the chili”.  Her response was, “We raised our prices”.  My response was, “Well, you should have updated the website”.  Her response was, “We raised the prices”.

So, there I was, not being able to use my coupon, and facing a 37% price increase(the bucket of chicken is now $36.95), and a employee who couldn’t care less.  No offer to do something to accomodate me, no offer to honor the internet price, nothing, just a blank stare. 

I kindly told her she could keep her chicken, watched her cancel my credit card transaction and left.

Was it the right thing to do for me?  I am not sure.  How about for her?  Should the owner have uploaded the new menu to the website?  For sure.  Should the employee have been empowered to accomodate me?  For sure.  But, instead, I now no longer consider this place my favorite BBQ “joint”.  Too bad, because their sauce is to die for!

I did follow-up on Monday with a letter to the owner outlining what happened.  We will see what happens. 

What would you have done?  Is there a customer service lesson to be learned here?  I think so and it looks like this:  Empower your employees to please the customer, no matter what.  Keep your website updated, people like me use it.  Don’t send out coupons that have lots of restrictions.  Most of all, do whatever you can to keep me as a customer.  And don’t ever forget Mr. BBQ Joint owner, there is a brand new Famous Dave’s that opened just down the street from you, their sauce is almost as good.

Published on Wednesday October 29, 2008 in Customer Retention, Web Strategy and Why People Buy. 0 Comments