Last month we discussed responding to customer complaints and using a complaint as an opportunity to build customer loyalty. A business should not wait for an opportunity to garner customer loyalty. It must be an every day goal that is built into how you do business. Here are a few tips for reaching that goal.
Strive to Give Consistently Good Service
Most businesses these days know that being consistent in your service offerings and pricing is one of the reasons that Flat Rate Price Books make sense. Providing consistently good service is critical to maintaining and growing your customer base. Having a customer who does not feel that he got the same level of service from you as a friend or neighbor did, jeopardizes your relationship with both customers.
Show your Customers that You Know Who They Are
Simple things like knowing when their last service call was, and what the problem was can mean a lot to your customers. Remembering their names, and the names of other people in their lives can turn your business relationship a bit more personal. You become the one they call first when they need help.
An easy way to promote this type of connection when you have thousands of customers, is to keep notes about the customer in your database. When you transmit the dispatch ticket, include a couple of personal details. This makes it easy to remember names and dates, and can make the customer more at ease with your business.
Implement a Referral Program
Word of mouth is often the most effective form of advertising for small businesses. Leaving a card with a small percentage or dollar discount can spur your loyal customers bring in new customers for your business. Make it easy for your customers to give referrals, so they have no excuse not to do it.
Treat Your Employees Right
Happy employees who feel engaged in your business are much more likely to treat your customers right. An employee who views his role as simply an employee, and not a valued part of a team, is more likely to view interacting with your customers as a nuisance than an opportunity.
Everyone Can Become a Frequent Flyer
Getting current customers to call again is often much less expensive than finding new customers. Pass along some of those savings to your repeat customers to keep them coming back. Giving a small discount or free gift to frequent customers can make them feel good about doing business with your company, and can help cement the relationship.
In most markets, you have a large number of competitors. Offering a high quality, reliable service experience is not enough to keep your customer base growing unless you can spread the word. Why not have you customers help? Making a coordinated effort to establish and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction can be just what you need to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, and build a stronger customer base.
If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.
Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com
Mike Conroy of NSPG is a flat rate implementation expert.
Give Mike Conroy a call. He can quickly walk you through the business basics that you need to help make your company more consistently profitable, and increase the value of your business. Mike has years of experience helping companies set their own profitable prices, respond to price complaints, track performance, implement and fine tune Flat Rate systems, and improve profitability.
Take advantage of Mike’s experience working with hundreds of companies like yours to help you achieve your own business success.
One of the issues that every service business has to deal with is the customer who thinks he paid too much, and demands to see a complete breakdown of the costs for the job. This infrequent annoyance inevitably leads to the dilemma of revealing your costs to a customer, or alienating the customer and risking the loss of business or worse.
The most likely reason that the customer asks for the breakdown is that they think you overcharged them. Your response should combine the detailed cost breakdown with an explanation of the value your company brings to the job. Highlight the quality of your work, the warranties you provide, the value of your insurance in case someone is injured on the job, the reliability of your service, and the many other benefits that running a quality, profitable business includes. Once the “hidden” costs of your service are revealed, the customer has a legitimate reason to cool off and accept the value that your business offers.
As anyone who reads this newsletter knows, NSPG is a Flat Rate Price Book software and printed books company. We know what people want in their books and how they want to set up those books. What they actually put in their books is often very different. The fear that business people have in charging a profitable price is apparent to us every day.
They just notice that they had a choice that saved them money and gave them what they wanted.They choose Task B because it saves them some money over Task A, and offers better benefits than Task C. They don’t even notice the price change. They don’t notice that the new price books give the business the few dollars more that it needs to keep running efficiently. They just notice that they had a choice that saved them money and gave them what they wanted.
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