The Key to Gaining Loyal Customers
Published in Marketing
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day about customer service. She is buying a new home and needed to speak with her bank. She called the bank's automated line and listened for seven minutes of bank promotions only to get a message that said that the customer service number (for her particular issue) had changed. And so the process began again as she called the bank's new number and listened to minutes of promotions, departments selections, just to be put in a waiting cue.
The two of us listening to this story, just shook our head in agreement as we had both left this particular banking instruction in the past.
I don't believe customer service is dead, but it is a rarity. Sometimes it is the little things that count. My mom has been buying all her makeup and skincare from the same person in Dallas for ten years. Not unusual, except for the fact that she lives in Kansas and makes it to Dallas only twice a year.
Another friend recently made several 45 minute trips to a store for a particular product. If you ask her why, it's because the boutique sent her a personal note when she stopped in the first time and they were out of the product she was wanting to buy. They invited her back for a visit and thanked her for stopping in. Guess what she did just that, found the item on her second visit and told our entire Saturday running/breakfast group. Several ladies in the group left breakfast to head over to the store. You know the drive was never necessary, she could have just went online, but the personal touch made the difference.
While bad service drives us away, good service makes us so loyal that we'll keep coming back, even if it means being inconvenienced.
Most business owners want to have great customer service, after-all keeping a customer is less costly than getting a new one, and referrals are golden.
Here are a few things as business
owners we can do to improve customer service, and maintain loyal customers.
The two of us listening to this story, just shook our head in agreement as we had both left this particular banking instruction in the past.
I don't believe customer service is dead, but it is a rarity. Sometimes it is the little things that count. My mom has been buying all her makeup and skincare from the same person in Dallas for ten years. Not unusual, except for the fact that she lives in Kansas and makes it to Dallas only twice a year.
Another friend recently made several 45 minute trips to a store for a particular product. If you ask her why, it's because the boutique sent her a personal note when she stopped in the first time and they were out of the product she was wanting to buy. They invited her back for a visit and thanked her for stopping in. Guess what she did just that, found the item on her second visit and told our entire Saturday running/breakfast group. Several ladies in the group left breakfast to head over to the store. You know the drive was never necessary, she could have just went online, but the personal touch made the difference.
While bad service drives us away, good service makes us so loyal that we'll keep coming back, even if it means being inconvenienced.
Most business owners want to have great customer service, after-all keeping a customer is less costly than getting a new one, and referrals are golden.
Here are a few things as business
owners we can do to improve customer service, and maintain loyal customers.
I Quit
Published in Small Business Marketing
We are barely through the first month of the new year and I quit. That's right, before I get too far into the new year, I quit and you should join me. The key to living your best year and accomplishing your greatest goals is in saying, "I quit."
More and more I am convinced that success is not only based on what you do, but also powerfully connected with what you don't do. So to break through the barriers of success and joy we must courageously quit!
Quitting is not a negative thing. It is an essential part of success. This is the year we stop living an inch deep and a mile wide. This is the year we go narrow and deep and set the foundation for the years ahead.
Here are 5 things I will quit doing and you should join:
More and more I am convinced that success is not only based on what you do, but also powerfully connected with what you don't do. So to break through the barriers of success and joy we must courageously quit!
Quitting is not a negative thing. It is an essential part of success. This is the year we stop living an inch deep and a mile wide. This is the year we go narrow and deep and set the foundation for the years ahead.
Here are 5 things I will quit doing and you should join:
Every year I buy myself a new journal to keep notes from my client meetings, business ideas and new technologies I'm planning to adopt. There is something about a blank book full of opportunities and ideas to be noted and recorded that excites me. What does the future hold and what will the journal say in December 2016 about the past year?
As I start my journal this year, rather than starting with resolutions and goals on page one, I'm going to begin with the last page. Writing what has been achieved, writing what the year looked like, rather than writing what the year will look like. Here is my final chapter of an amazing 2016...
As I start my journal this year, rather than starting with resolutions and goals on page one, I'm going to begin with the last page. Writing what has been achieved, writing what the year looked like, rather than writing what the year will look like. Here is my final chapter of an amazing 2016...
