Author: JoAnna Brandi
How often are you taking the pulse on your customer relationships? Could you be using the time to really understand your customer's needs and what they value? How might you find innovative ways to get involved in a dialog with your customers
Relationships by their very nature are always changing. They are fluid, flowing and organic. They don't remain the same very long. Good relationships involve give and take, assessment and re-assessment, the ability to step back and look at how we're doing, and then, to correct our course when needed. How often are you taking the pulse on your customer relationships? Could you be using the time to really understand your customer's needs and what they value? How might you find innovative ways to get involved in a dialog with your customers? Relationships, after all thrive on trust, respect and good two-way communication.
Long-term customer relationships evolve as the customers come to know they can trust us to have their needs at heart and respond accordingly. But with their needs changing often, how is it we can keep up? Here are a few suggestions…
Pick up the phone and call. (The old fashioned way.) "Hello Sally, I'm calling today because I am interested in knowing the challenges that you are facing in today’s economy, would you have a few moments to chat?" Or "Sam, I'm calling to tell you that we really appreciate your business and to find out if there are other ways that we might help you be more successful."
Set up a conference call with a group of "like" customers. Invite 10 of your customers from a similar customer segment and ask them to be the "experts" and let you know what are the most pressing needs in their world right now. You might ask what constitutes "value" for them and ask them to rate you at delivering it. (That is ... ask them if you are brave.) Make it even more fun – call a local Domino’s or Subway in their neighborhoods and have lunch sent to them and make it a lunch and learn!
Do an Internet based survey. Send an email to customers who have given you permission to use their names for your promotional purposes and ask a few of the questions you want answers to. You might offer an incentive to reply or a "prize" to be awarded randomly among those who participate.
Send a postcard (or email) after a transaction. I know an HMO call center who routinely sends 75 postcards a day to people that have called. The postcard asks the client to rate them on a number of different factors. Employees find out how well they are doing in the eyes of the customer, Customers have a mechanism for sending feedback and if there is ever a problem the HMO can pick it up quickly!
Send a postcard just to say “Hi.” It’s less expensive than a letter, prettier than an email (and we have them for sale 2 for the price of 1 in our store.) I still use them on a regular basis to make one additional “touch” in the process of relationship building. http://customercarecoach.com/store/dept-905302.htm Please use coupon code: postcards We’ll send you two packages for the price of one!
Create customer dialogs. Set up a formal dialog program and let your customers know they are part of it. Bring members of your team - customer service, finance, production, engineering to meet members of theirs. Have a set agenda and practice being non-defensive before going! Or hire an outside facilitator to ask the questions and keep the conversation flowing. Your objective - find out what constitutes value for the customer and find out how well you are delivering it.
If you keep quiet and really LISTEN (pretty hard for some companies) you might hear some amazing things. The most amazing thing we heard once while facilitating a customer dialog is that a certain individual in the customer service department (we'll call him Bob Michaels) was the absolute favorite of our client's second best customer. Bob did miraculous things for the client and always got the job done. Good job Bob!
Too bad Bob's manager was thinking of firing Bob because he didn't fit so well with the rest of the reps. He was kind of quiet and sorta nerdy and didn't always join in. The young, infinitely more hip manager didn't "get" Bob, who'd been around for a while. After that meeting we hope they keep Bob around for a long while - seems this quiet person is the "favorite" of a few of the top customers! (By the way, if you need a facilitator for the dialog process, email me at joanna@customercarecoach.com
Send an "Ed Koch" kit. My friend Don Libey created this sophisticated methodology (which works!) after the famous New York Mayor who used to wander through the streets of New York asking "How'm I doin?" Take two blank pieces of paper and pen and put them in an envelope with a note that asks "How're we doing?" and send them to your customers. Yep. Some will write back.
It’s a slower time of the year, and a great time to plan how to enrich and deepen the relationships you have with your customers. All of life is a cycle. Use this part of the cycle to focus on relationships, and make your plans for collecting information you can use in the future. And know that if you use this time to gain wisdom, and use that wisdom to make your customers' lives better, the rewards will come back to you as we cycle round again.
Take good care,
JoAnna
Copyright 2006 by JoAnna Brandi. Used with permission.