April 29th, 2007
Business Reviews
If your customers buy disposable products on a regular basis and you want to keep their business, there are 2 keys. One is your ability to understand their need for your product and how it benefits them. Two is a relationship based upon trust and respect. We all have pressure to find new business but no business is more valuable than that of your current loyal customers. Often times the strategy for customer satisfaction includes, a rushed salesman asking, is all ok, is there anything I can do?
We use to arrange formal business reviews with our top revenue and profit customers, a minimun of 2 times per year. For very large customers quarterly reviews are recommended. We would have our contacts arrange for a conference room, a projector screen and their top mangement. We would have our sales person bring his manager and often times the service organization would be represented.
Items reviewed, included year over year billings by products, savings provided, cost of service provided, regarding services we provided for free we would asign a dollar value, to demostrate our investment. We would discuss any burning issues and have stats to show the reliability of our service or product. We would talk about any unsolved needs and our solution. We would provide insights on future trends and make recommendations that may benefit our cilents.
The first few of these meetings may start of formal and stiff but over time the trust and rerspect leads to rapport and more business. This is a very professional way to communicate.
Blogging provides another communication tool to use in between face to face meetings.It is a simple way to keep in touch with your most valuable customers. Business reviews combined with effective blogging can keep surprising business loss to a minimun. What are some of the things you use to ensure customer satisfaction? Let us know.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:09 am
As we have a small business and are in constant contact with customers, we receive feedback from clients all along the way and it really does help us check satisfaction in real time.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Tisha, nice to hear from you, constant contact and communication is key. You are doing it the right way. what is your small business?
April 30th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Doing stuff online is a surefire way to get into a seemingly endless loop of technical problems, I always dread contacting support to report bugs and glitches as they can sometimes take days to reply, and oftentimes big companies just mail out impersonal terse random replies that doesn’t solve the problem. This increases frustration and makes for lost time doing actual work.
Out of the dozens companies out there with email support, I can count with one hand which ones have the most helpful, comprehensive replies and upbeat attitude.
In the cold electronic interwebs, the warm personal touch is a very decisive element in making customers stay, and it’s a sad thing that a lot of companies don’t give this seemingly simple aspect of their customer experience cycle more attention and priority.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:49 am
My partner and I when creating websites with our customers we always do a semi-annually follow-up with customers and discuss any concerns at that point. It is also important that business always have a plan in tact for disaster recovery. Now that can be a wide range of problems that may arise.
Alot times if you respond and resolve mistakes early that makes for great customer experience and can also be a springboard for revolving business.
Alot of times business drop the ball on responding to their clients problems with their product and having an angry client who then refers their contacts to your competition is like a death penalty for a small business
May 1st, 2007 at 9:49 am
Jo, thank you for your profound comment. The business world is too impersonal and can leave feeling like their business is not valued. When I call, I want to speak with a person, I want my salesman to visit,and i want the web sites I visit to allow for my comments. It should not be that hard.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:02 am
LDW, I am glad you guys do the business reviews. Communication is the key.Problems are going to happen, customers want you to acknowledge the issue,understand their pain, apologize and communicate an action plan to resolve.Many times we get defensive and miss many of the steps involved in communicating a fix;which leads to loss trust and respect, and utimatly business to a competitor.