| Many companies work hard
to successfully market and sell their products and services. Increasingly, they
are focusing training and resources on attracting new customers. But, if
It costs six times more to attract a new customer than
it does to keep an old one,
why, then, do so many
companies continue to lose so many of these same customers they worked so hard
to get in the first place?
More customers (42%) leave
because of 'indifference' on the part of the company
than
for any other reason-not bad product; not bad experience; just simple indifference.
"Once they got my business, they didn't care."
Who
didn't care? The salesperson? The receptionist? The
customer service people? All of them?
The Salesperson
- Many companies hire a sales 'type' that aims for 'fast-track' production-lots
of sales, constant new sales. This style of selling has an inherent weakness!
It lacks the time and the emphasis for "servicing what we sell." Ideally, that
part should be somebody else's job, but too often it is not. Other styles of salesperson
may simply lack the time management skills to manage multi-level tasks over time.
Unfortunately, the company may not provide a good enough customer-management system
to compensate for that weakness. Despite these weaknesses, other company spokespeople
have more occasion than the sales force to drive away hard-won customers.
The Receptionist
- is one of the most important yet unrecognized
positions today. It seems that many companies are willing to settle for their
receptionist's indifference to customers if the receptionist is at least competent.
Forty-two percent of your customers who leave you will turn away because of this
indifference. Being the first person that many prospective customers are exposed
to is importance enough. Making customers feel that you are sincerely glad to
hear from them is not just smart business today; it could be critical.
| . |
Customer Service
- is drawing increasing
scrutiny with today's emphasis on customer-based customer service. In recent years,
companies have done a good job using behavioral assessment tools to hire people
who are comfortable in the traditional customer service role. These same companies
need to analyze the new diverse roles involved in servicing their customers. To
oversimplify: putting happy, motivated extroverts in a situation that handles
only incoming problem calls is likely to result in customers who feel they and
their problems were taken too lightly-indifferently.
A common mistake
is to hire non-confrontational listeners who will follow policy and apply the
manual to all situations. Suppose the manual doesn't cover a particular situation?
Did you hire or appoint a troubleshooter-someone who has enough skills, knowledge
and daring to "shoot from the hip?" Seven of ten complaining customers will do
business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor.
If you resolve a complaint on the spot, 95% will do business again. How
long might it take to find out an account rep is demotivated or a customer service
rep is antagonistic to your customers? The bottom line is, you might not know
you have a problem until it is too late unless you gather customer feedback by
asking the right questions in the right way-not just once, but continuously.
Most customers will not complain. Excellent
tools are available today to survey customer and employee feedback accurately,
meaningfully and inexpensively. Libraries of validated and reliable questions
are now available. They take the guesswork out of asking the right kind of question
in the right way. Find out what you want to know. Computer data collection, compilation
and analysis is convenient and user-friendly.
Communicating regularly
is a must today. Take your pulse regularly - it could be critical. |
