Great companies stay in business when customers keep coming back. Mediocre companies close shop because customers stop coming back.
Customers migrate to great companies (the competition) if you give them a chance to.
Over the next couple of posts I want to share five ways to gain customer loyalty. The premise is that when customers are loyal, they will keep coming back to you.
The five points I will share include: attitude, speed, promises kept, service recovery and listening to customers. I call them Customer Service Pillars.
Knowing how to keep customers coming back is one skill every business must know in order to stay viable. Great companies rise or fall on the strength of their customer service culture. When customers keep coming back to you, they aren’t going to your competition.
Attitude: Customers will only keep coming back if your organisation has a positive attitude. When the security guard speaks to your client in a condescending manner, it reflects on your organisation. When that cashier at the bank is rude to a customer what happens? Imagine if this customer does not have an account with the bank. How open will this customer be to coming back and opening an account?
“Your organization’s attitude (culture) is the sum total of the attitude of each member of your team” – Liz Taylor
But how does an organisation create a culture with positive attitude across each employee? Like all things, it starts from the very beginning – it starts at recruitment and selection. Never simply hire for ability; you have to hire for attitude. Find out more about hiring for attitude from my ebook ‘The Spark of Service’.
Attitude also speaks about the manner in which you prepare your physical environment. Are you careless with planning, cleaning and managing your physical environment? How an organisation presents its physical space to customers says a lot about how important that customer is to the organisation. It speaks volumes about your [true] attitude towards your customer.
Does your organisation respect its customers? Do customers feel honored and welcome when they step into your place of business? Do customers simply want to do a 180⁰ turn and go to your competition?
Attitude is not something that happens by accident; it must be strategically planned and managed. Customers must always feel appreciated, welcome and esteemed when they make contact with your organisation on any platform.
Speed: Have you ever said ‘I won’t go to that convenience store, the lines are too long and the cashiers too slow’?
Sounds really familiar, right? I know I have said this countless times. And speed is one of my major deal breakers when I have to decide on which service provider to patronize.
Most of us were brought up to believe that time is money. So it makes sense to respect customers’ time and give them the best service with alacrity. Bill Gates hit a bullseye when he said “customers want high quality at low prices and they want it now’.
When customers come to you, they come with a sense of urgency; and want to be served as fast as possible and get back to their lives. When your company fails to do this for them, it taints the entire service.
It doesn’t matter if the customer came to your shop to buy a bar of soap; if he leaves with a bar of soap 45 minutes later the entire service experience is marred. When the customer looks back, he’ll recall the 45 minutes wait before he recalls the lovely display, pretty girl at the counter or the free coupon he was given at the door. Customers want speed.
Companies like Zappos and Amazon have mastered this mindset. Do you know any companies who haven’t quite gotten this system right?
Listen to my mentor John Tschohl as he discusses ‘Speed’. He says that speed is a mindset that every organisation needs to deliberately develop and nurture in its people.
It was Peter Drucker who said ‘what gets measured gets managed’. The same is true here; from a performance management point of view. You need to create performance standards related to speed of service delivery and manage it clearly to ensure your customers come to rely on the speed of your service. Like Amazon, you make that one of your competitive advantages.
One of the best ways to build a thriving brand known for excellent service is to learn from established brands that have the reputation we wish to cultivate.
Which brands do you wish to emulate? What are they known for? How did they get there? These are questions we must all continuously ask ourselves to increase our chances of building brands not only consistently attract customers but that other businesses would want to emulate.
We will continue this discussion subsequently, but in the meantime I’d like to know what tactics and strategy you use in your business to ensure your customers keep coming back. You can send me a message or leave a comment to get the conversation going.
My name is Liz Taylor and I am passionately enthusiastic about service excellence. Please feel free to introduce yourself, I would be delighted to learn from you.
Great read Liz. One of the best ways to build a positive attitude is to see the big picture of delivering great service. Help employees see the ‘why’ behind great service. Ultimately, the level of service your team delivers will be determine by the culture you create for your team.