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Archive for Customer Loyalty

First sales are always more difficult than repeat sales.  Therefore, owners of small businesses are constantly on the lookout for ways to create loyal customers.  Regardless of what you sell, there are a lot of ways you can maintain a loyal customer base.  Below are a few tips:

Stay Professional by Keeping Your Training Up to Date 

Never stop learning about what you are selling.  It is important to always be perceived as the expert in your field.  With the Internet making it easy to do research, customers are becoming more and more informed.  And no customer wants to know more than the “expert”.  So read the updates and take the courses you need to always be up to date on what’s going on in your industry.  Customers will stay loyal if you stay committed to lifelong learning. 

Make It A Priority To Resolve Customer Issues 

It is rare that you will hear about a customer problem up front, so you need to use your intuition in many cases.  It would be well worth it to ask your customers directly on occasion how the relationship is going, and what you might be able to do to improve the experience for your customer. 

The most important advice is to never point blame when you hear of a problem and use the SODDI defense (some other dude did it).  It’s your business, so everything that goes wrong is your fault – take the blame with grace.  Then, take action to fix it fast.  Customers are used to the SODDI defense and rarely encounter vendors who work fast to solve their problems.  Instead of focusing on the problem, they will recall a positive resolution of the situation and that will keep them coming back for more.  In fact, it is often that case that those “problem” customers often end up referring new business your way because of their satisfaction with your service. 

Remind the Customer Why They Chose You in the First Place 

Now is not the time for modesty; it is important to remind your customers why you excel over your competition and congratulate them for making the right choice in you.  There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t like to be praised, and its the perfect opportunity to help them recall your competitive advantages at the same time. 

Creating loyal customers is no more than treating them so well that no one else could compare.  When great service comes naturally, customers begin to expect it year after year.  That’s a loyal customer. 

Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year”  to learn about an online accounting program that makes it easy to track repeat customer profitability.

Categories : People
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It’s always easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one.  For this reason, owners of small businesses constantly look for ways to keep their customers happy.  No matter what you sell, there are a number of strategies you can employ to maintain customer loyalty.  Below are a few tips:

Stay Professional by Keeping Your Training Up to Date 

Keep up to date on the news and innovations that affect your industry.  It’s critical for your customers to think of you as an expert in your industry.  With easy accessibility to information on the Internet, customers do their research and are more informed than ever.  You don’t want a situation where your customer knows more than you, the perceived expert.  So read the updates and take the courses you need to always be up to date on what’s going on in your industry.  Your commitment to lifelong growth will be rewarded by loyal customers. 

Solve the Problems Fast 

It’s important to stay perceptive to your customer’s needs as they will rarely tell you up front if they have a problem.  You could learn a lot by asking your customers periodically how their experience with your and your company has been and request suggestions for improvement that might make their situation even more enjoyable. 

Most important, when you hear of a problem never give in to the SODDI defense (some other dude did it).  Take the blame gracefully, after all it’s your company and therefall anything that goes wrong ultimately stops with you.  Then rapidly solve the problem.  Customers are used to the SODDI defense and rarely encounter vendors who work fast to solve their problems.  Instead of the error being foremost in their minds, the amiable resolution will keep them returning as repeat customers.  In fact, it is often that case that those “problem” customers often end up referring new business your way because of their satisfaction with your service. 

Help Your Customer Recall the Reasons They Picked You 

Now is not the time for modesty; it is important to remind your customers why you excel over your competition and congratulate them for making the right choice in you.  Everyone loves to receive praise and why not drive home your good qualities at the same time. 

Creating loyal customers is no more than treating them so well that no one else could compare.  When great service comes naturally, customers begin to expect it year after year.  That’s customer loyalty. 

Get more small business success strategies and claim your free white paper: “7 Ways Your Stone-Age Accounting System is Stealing Money From You Every Day … And, How to Get it Back This Year”  to learn about an online accounting program that makes it easy to track repeat customer profitability.

Categories : Business
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Irrespective of what you buy, emotions have a huge role to play. More importantly it is a crucial factor in customer retention, loyalty and Relationship Marketing.

Loyalty comes from an experience that the customer find really good. Its all about the customer feeling happy and satisfied.

While purchasing has a rational side to it, there is also a very strong emotional side as well. Buying is often an intuitive process.

How a customer feels is linked to how well an organization is geared to how the organization deals with them. Customer experience doesn’t end in keeping a smiley face or having a soft tone while communicating with an irate customer. It ends when customers become raving fans.

All the really matters is that the customer must feel like they are heard and the organization really cares. Addressing a fickle customer who is like “I want it now and can’t wait” and their emotions is not easy and cannot be handled by an individual manager. Reaching this emotional goal requires an entire company’s effort which should exceed beyond product quality and protocols.

A company has to know what the reaction they want from their customers before they decide the best way to achieve customer satisfaction. That will be helped by data from customer satisfaction and market research survey. But sadly enough, these kind of data do not help much, and especially at an emotional level.

What drives loyalty and satisfaction must be well explored. The many different factors that drives loyalty and satisfaction must be explored. How the customer reacts as well as their needs and desires would be some of them.

The basic requirement for customer satisfaction then shifts from product, service quality, value-for-money, hygiene factors. The emotional, personal and psychological connections that keep customers satisfied and loyal are consistent for everyone.

To respond to the emotional approach of the customers the company must have a consistent, differentiated, valued and completely intentional outlook towards customers. It the best way to deal gets the customers true decision making. It is what builds your Relationship Marketing.

 

Categories : Marketing Tips
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