Never Let A Customer Come Up for Air
When it comes to retaining your “BRAIN” oriented or analytical customers who represent the largest single portion of all of your customers in almost every circumstance, the process is straightforward and simple, but not easy to accomplish. You need to have a “conversation” with these people in order to address their concerns and provide them with the “strokes” necessary to convince them to stay.
But (a) you need to be very careful not to push or overstep their boundaries because they want to decide, not be convinced, in most cases; and (b) these kinds of “conversations” are almost always indirect and conducted passively rather than actively. It’s not like sending someone a coupon in the mail or online or calling them up and telling them your dealership desperately needs used cars and how about trading in their car and getting a new one. And the job is much harder in industries where comparisons with alternatives are relatively easy and readily accessible and also where there aren’t strong brand positions or attachments.
Keep in mind also that we’re not talking here about unhappy customers (with or without a good reason) and we’re not talking about customers whose changed conditions or circumstances have changed their requirements which in turn causes them to consider alternatives regardless of your efforts to anticipate and preempt such actions. Those cases require different approaches and typically aren’t worth the incremental effort since the likelihood of a turn-around is small.
We’re talking about generally smart, informed customers who try to act rationally and make the best and most cost-effective choices based on their view of the price/value equation which your products or services offer from time to time. And in most cases, they don’t tell you if and/or when this process and the calculations are going on – they just do their thing. You’ve got to be your own best advocate and give them the tools, ammunition and ability to assess the situation and hopefully decide to stay.
Basically, there are 3 large buckets of benefits which you can manage and adjust to try to reach and convince these target customers. I call the buckets:
(1) Where’s the Beef?
To borrow from Clay Christensen, the question here is how well does the product or service do its job? You need to determine how well you are doing relative to two metrics: the price/value equation (is it worth it?) and the cost of alternative solutions which may be readily available to your customers (where else can I find it?). Remember the old line that customers want ¼” holes, not ¼” drills. Whatever you can do to bolster and improve the customer’s impressions in these two areas, you should do as quickly and as often as possible. The more benefits; the tighter connection; and the higher degree of “locking in” the customers and his or her peers to your service, the greater the likelihood that they will stay and not even consider switching.
(2) Where’s the Heat?
The “heat” or, more accurately, the more friction that is built into your systems and processes, the more likely that there will be direct and negative customer reactions. Anything that takes too much time, requires repetition or seems to serve only your interests and not the customers’ will be a problem going forward and a risk to your business. Remember that customers’ buy for their reasons, not ours. Radio Shack has a pretty strong and flexible automatic return policy (even for cash purchases), but (for internal fraud prevention purposes), if you want a cash refund, they require that you supply them with your phone number. Turns out that for a lot of folks, this seems like gross overreaching and defeats the whole salutary basis of the general policy. The customer doesn’t work for us.
Sometimes, businesses don’t even really understand the “job” that the customer wants done and inadvertently make things harder or more expensive than necessary to meet the real requirements of both the customers and the businesses themselves. Customer loyalty punch cards are a well-intentioned retention device that (up until the advent of the new start-up Belly) was a literal pain-in-the-wallet (or purse) solution that was more often frustrating to customers instead of rewarding. How many half-punched cards can we jam in our wallet or forget to carry with us when we need them without bagging the whole bunch? Encouraging customers to consolidate their spending with you and return often is the holy grail, but only if the process is as painless as possible.
(3) Who’s your Mama?
At the end of the day, everything in business and especially in successful selling is about relationships. The greater the connection and relationship that you can build with each and every one of these customers, the longer you’ll keep them and the stronger they will be. Save me time or money or make me more productive and it’s gonna take a very substantial and persuasive argument to make me walk away. And 9 times out of 10, price alone won’t do it. The impression of “belonging”; being a special or top-tier customer; and/or receiving special perks and preferences are all methods that need to be continually expanded and built upon so that you constantly improve the connection to the customer.
No one sells a product anymore today – everything is a service in the sense that every sale should trigger a life-long customer maintenance program and strategy to maximize the long-term value of every customer and to help amortize their acquisition cost over the largest possible set of revenue streams and follow-on sales.
The best customers are those that “never come up for air” and then start to look elsewhere in the competitive marketplace because you’ve satisfied their past needs and their present requirements and you’ve anticipated their future desires.
PP: “You Get What You Work for, Not What You Wish for”
