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Twenty-twenty was a stressful year for many of us. With the arrival of 2021, everyone has seen the need and desire for empathy, compassion, and connection. Now is the time to project optimism and lead with compassion and approach our customers with empathy.
Your customers become your greatest assets and ambassadors when they see you genuinely care about them. Compassionate businesses grow a passionate and loyal community of partners. Here are some key positions for your business to introduce:
Remember, passionate customers are loyal customers. Loyal customers are consistent customers. And consistent customers get us through inconsistent times.
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How will you market correctly if you do not know to whom you are addressing?
Nothing is worse than the assumption that “anyone” can be your client. Or, that all marketing will work for every audience. Secondary to new clients, keeping your current ones satisfied and happy can be hard work too. This is where demographics come in. An upper-income mother in her 30’s is going to have completely different expectations than a small business owner in his 50’s. There are five main areas you need to consider when defining the demographics of your audience (s):
Research All the Opportunities for Marketing Your Business One of the smartest things a small business owner can do for his or her business is take the time to develop a small business marketing plan that will set them apart from the competition. A marketing plan clearly outlines how you will reach your ideal customers by effectively implementing your marketing strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so planning is so important. Creating a small business marketing strategy is a crucial first step in starting a business. In truth, understanding small business marketing in one fell swoop is a tall order, and new marketing tactics emerge every day. Depending on your goals, customer base, market niche, branding, and simple preference, a marketing tactic that works for one small business may not work at all for yours. There are thousands of ways you can promote your small business. With the right mix of activities, you can identify and focus on the most effective marketing tactics for your small business. Honestly Define All Audience(s) You are Addressing You must seriously think about defining the audience to whom you’re actually marketing. Because you can’t truly achieve goals, like converting more leads into paying customers, if your message simply isn’t resonating with your potential consumers. One of the ways to conduct this research is simply to reach out to existing customers, friends, or business associates with whom you have a good relationship. Ask them: what is it about my company you like? Do the services/products I supply alleviate issues for you? Why would they choose your business over your competitors? How would they describe your brand? More importantly, gather data on your target audience’s demographics, like their average age, gender, spending capabilities and habits, profession, and geographical location. Listen to Your Customers You need to listen to what they say and what they don’t say. Customers may say they want one thing and really mean something else. For example, if you customers are begging for lower prices, you may find out their real priority is value for their money. Also, listen to your “silent” customers. These are the customers that don’t bother to complain because the service is so bad they’ve just given up and don’t feel like their voice matters. They feel unwanted and when a competitor shows up, they’ll be gone. Lastly, you need to listen to customers who only reply with “fine.” These customers are usually either unhappy and just answering monosyllabic or they feel that their response just won’t matter to anyone. Sincerely Ask Your Customers What They Want If you aren’t sincere when you ask their opinion, they are going to see right through you. You may be thinking, “What about the customers who aren’t saying anything?” You need to ask them sincere questions that get them thinking about their experiences. Make them feel like you really care, and you should! Know When to Ignore Them You may think this goes beyond providing good customer service, but in reality you can’t give them everything and some people you can never make happy. You have to set limits and stick to them. If your vision and company don’t meet the needs of the customer, they will be best suited somewhere else. Conclusion When you finally have your plan in place and have done your demographic research, it is time to break down your audience but don't break down your target too far! Remember, you can have more than one niche market. Consider if your marketing message should be different for each niche. If you can reach all niches effectively with the same message, then maybe you have broken down your market too far. Also, if you find there are only 50 people that fit all your criteria, maybe you should reevaluate your target. The trick is to find the perfect balance.
Of course, "good” customer service is often up for interpretation. It's only normal for small mistakes to happen or to encounter customers that are impossible. These are generally small bumps in the road and don't constitute bad customer service.
These situations, however, are usually considered universally unacceptable:
Companies who are guilty of these bad customer service traits often face negative consequences - many of which are difficult to overcome and can lead to the company's failure. The good news is that even the worst customer service habits can be corrected without detrimental damage to your brand, assuming you take action quickly. 1. A Damaged Reputation Your brand's reputation is incredibly valuable. However, especially with the internet, your reputation is the first thing to take a hit when you have an extended streak of bad customer service. Customers today are quick to write negative reviews online when they have a bad experience with a company. In addition to leaving critical reviews, customers also vent their frustrations on social media for their friends, family, colleagues, and the entire world to see. In a recent study, 95% of respondents said they usually tell at least one other person about a bad customer experience with a company, while 54% said they share it with at least 5 other people. Just in case you think people aren't reading reviews or searching for discussions about brands on social media, that same study found 88% of respondents have been influenced by an online review when making a buying decision. What this adds up to is a decrease in overall sales, but more importantly, a major decrease in word of mouth marketing - arguably the most valuable marketing outlet a brand can have. How to Repair the Damage Have a key figure in your company reach out to those who have received bad customer service to make amends. Responding publicly to negative reviews, accepting responsibility for the wrongdoing, and informing people that you're making strides to permanently solve the issue can do wonders for negative perspectives people may have of your brand. Always, however, make it a point to move this conversation to a private discussion. Don't go back and forth publicly because you risk doing more damage than good. After you've reached out to the consumer, based on the negative feedback, address the problems internally. Set a higher standard for customer service and make it a top priority until it has become a permanent fixture in your operations. 2. Leads Don't Convert Bad customer service kills conversions. Although the term customer service implies current customers, all interactions with prospects, leads, and anyone else can fall into this realm. How many times have you reached out to a business and never heard back? How frustrated were you? Now, imagine what your leads are thinking when they request a consultation and never hear back, when they have to wait on hold forever, or when sales reps are slow to respond. Customer service departments already have a negative stigma associated with them as a whole, so why not surprise people with a positive experience? Great customer service upfront leaves an awesome first impression and gets leads excited about doing business with your company. How to Repair the Damage Train your representatives early. There should be an initial onboarding process that teaches your new employees the proper ways to address both current & prospective clients. This way, there can be no misunderstandings or miscommunications. Also, make sure your strategy aligns marketing and sales goals. Having this makes it easier for sales reps to deliver the best customer service, while also using marketing to deliver more value to leads before they interact with sales reps. 3. Your Customer Lifetime Value Drops By now you're aware that acquiring new customers is usually more expensive than keeping your current customers. That is one of the primary reasons delivering great customer service is so important. Did you know 9 out of 10 customers say they're willing to pay more to ensure a good customer experience and as much as 70% will continue to do business with you if you resolve a complaint? How to Repair the Damage Develop a customer retention strategy that builds brand loyalty. Inbound marketing can be used effectively to retain customers by providing: Webinars, How-to and Educational articles, FAQ pages, Special/exclusive deals, and Newsletters. Marketers often get caught up in focusing solely on customer acquisition when customer retention generally has a higher ROI. 4. You Lose Your Best Employees Bad customer service has negative side effects in all areas of business. Not only do you lose customers, but you run the risk of losing your best employees. When your company has a customer service problem, your best employees are forced to pick up the slack for bad employees. This leads to burnout and dissatisfaction from the people you rely on most. If your company develops a bad reputation, your top performers may also leave when they realize things are going south. How to Repair the Damage Reward your best employees and don't keep bad employees around. Great customer service starts with a great company culture. Average employees will perform to the level that's considered "normal" in your company culture. When bad customer service is the norm, they don't feel incentivized to improve. However, a company culture where quick, friendly, and professional customer service is expected sets the bar higher for average employees. The positive side effect of a great company culture is that it attracts better employees and gives them a reason to stick around, which ultimately improves all areas of business. Address problems with customer service early and often. Regularly survey customers and chat with them when you can. The best way to solve bad customer service is to prevent it, but the second-best way is to get it corrected before it gets out of hand. What should you do when your client asks you to do something that's illegal or unethical? Have you ever been asked by an employer or client to do something that seems odd or possibly even illegal? I have.
As professionals, we need to maintain the highest level of integrity as we are serving our clients. That doesn’t always mean just going along with whatever they ask of us. Sometimes it means doing just the opposite…running away. For those situations where the project, the customer, the request, or the business opportunity seems wrong or just too good to be true, think twice before moving forward. A bad client is a bad client. An organization that seems like they may be doing something criminal probably is doing something criminal. Trust your gut. You could be wrong. But who’s going to help you if you are right, and yet you proceed? If you see warning signs like clients asking you to fill out liability documents that you’ve never had to fill out before, or asking you for financial information that doesn’t seem to fit the purpose, or asking you to do something on their behalf that makes you want to run 100 mph in the other direction, don’t go through with it. For every bad client or bad project, there are 100 more out there that are good. It’s not worth the career and reputation risk – no matter what the price. If you are doing wrong, know that you will get caught. What percent of wrongdoers do you really think evade the law? They may get away with something for a while, but most eventually pay the price. Do you think you’re smart enough and stealthy enough and slimy enough to find yourself living the high life (and on the run forever)? Probably not. And that price you will end up paying is never going to get your reputation back, your old life back, and your felony conviction fully (and I mean fully) erased. You will suffer, your career or business will tank, and most of all your family will suffer. Be selfish – protect your career and family. If your client asks you to do something that you are concerned may be illegal, pause. Likewise, if you are acting as an employee and your employer asks you to do something that seems to contradict good, legal practices for doing business, pause. Consider the situation and consider the consequences. I know of an individual who recently went to jail for several years for continuing business with and for an organization conducting illegal and fraudulent practices. It doesn’t matter whether he knowingly did this or was just duped, that’s not my area to judge. The bottom line is this – his family has been put in peril and he’s locked away for months or possibly years. Put yourself in that position. You don’t want to go there. Summary When we are working for our clients, we have a responsibility to act to the best of our ability on their behalf. We want their repeat business and that often happens if we make them happy. But making them happy, satisfied customers should not come at the price of our reputation, our employment, our family or our freedom. Be aware of every next step you take. People are sometimes thinking of their own monetary gain and they don’t care who or what they take down with them. It could be you and your career.  Not all clients are created equal. Nor should you be compelled to treat them equally. There’s no law stating you must sell to everyone or keep servicing clients that are the wrong fit for your business.
It’s as fair to say that your business has outgrown certain types of customers as it is to say that you have some customers you should have never brought on in the first place. (You know who they are.) If you’re miserable working with a client that you know isn’t profitable for your company, you won’t be motivated to serve them well. And, if that client isn’t receiving the best treatment, they won’t hit their desired goals. By virtue of this predicament, you’ve created a lose-lose situation: You’re not helping the client reach their objectives and they’re not helping you reach yours. Besides the ones that are clearly not profitable for you, here are four other types of clients that must go immediately:
Remember, when dismissing a client, be respectful. Thank them for their business to date and explain that you’re not the best fit for them moving forward. Try, “Thanks for considering us. At this point, I don’t think we are the right fit for helping you meet your goals.” Always keep the focus on their interests. Firing a client may mean a short-term hit to an organization’s profits, but it’s critical for the long-term emotional health of the company and the team. Firing a client now not only frees up time for you to spend on more profitable clients - it also provides a boost of morale internally. When you step up and fire a bad customer, you win everyone’s trust, loyalty, and respect. Especially your own.  I’m often asked, “Why did my salespeople fail?” or “Why do I fail at selling?” (or other words I choose not to print.) And the answer is usually: It’s not necessarily sales failure, but failure to do your best or be your best, or failure to take the best actions to help succeed.
There are signs that allow a sales leader to recognize failure is on its way. Most salespeople and some business owners blame circumstances rather than take responsibility. Blame is its own form of failure. But that’s a story for another day. I want to talk about the person who’s out there every day, trying to reach his or her goals, trying to achieve their sales plan. Add to that, most people are inadequately supporting their sales with realistic and applicable marketing tools. Even if you’re reaching your goals, even if you believe you’re well prepared, here are some signs showing how many people have reached a plateau and then never rise above: 1. Your inability to set an initial appointment with the real decision maker. 2. Beyond price, your inability to uncover the real buying motive of the customer. 3. Believing that competition forces price reduction. 4. Poor social media participation that results in low or no personal branding and low or no personal reputation. 5. Poor follow-up after the initial meeting. 6. Long sales cycle based on presentations to low-level decision makers. 7. Prospects disappearing after the first presentation. 8. Prospects not returning your phone calls. 9. Blaming customers and prospects for the loss of a sale. 10. Failure to take responsibility for the circumstances you create. I find it interesting that when businesspeople face one of these above situations, they rarely (if ever) take responsibility for creating them. If customers are not returning calls, there has to be a pretty good reason. Rather than blame the customer, find out why the customer isn't returning your call. If you are continually fighting price, it's obvious you haven't proven value. It's obvious that the customer perceives little or no difference between you and a competitive product or service. Businesspeople, in general, need to take more control of the selling situation by creating definitive next steps. If you give a proposal, and you don't have a firm appointment at a given time to reconnect, then you will chase that prospect and almost seem desperate to get the next meeting. Here are a few things you can do to help your prospective customers decide to buy: 1. Prepare in terms of them, not just you. The customer must perceive that there is value in doing business with you rather than your competition. Customers only want to know how they win. Focus on ownership and focus on outcome. Too many people focus on what it “is” rather than what it “does” after the customer takes possession. 2. Prove it, don't just say it. It amazes me how many people do not use testimonials. Prove everything you claim so that a prospect can feel comfortable and justify value over price – all based on the words of other customers. 3. Be there after the sale to prove your worth. The biggest lost opportunity in any relationship is the absence of the business after the sale has taken place. Help the customer get started. Help the customer understand and take advantage of “best uses.” Transfer your wisdom, transfer your experience, transfer all your help, and the result will be continued successes. Stop worrying about failing and start offering value
You’re in a new business meeting, a closing situation with a late-stage prospect, and the client is enthusiastic. “Great, I’d like to do this. Get me a proposal.” You write up your proposal, send it over and follow up by telephone. Voicemail. You leave a message and promise to follow-up the next day. Again, voicemail. You send an enthusiastic email. Nothing. Days slip by. Then weeks. What was once a highly responsive, easy to reach prospect has turned into a ghost. What happened?
One of two things likely caused the prospect to disappear. Either they shopped the proposal around and found a better price, or in the time between when they said they were going to act and when they received your proposal, buyers’ remorse kicked in and they slipped from a late-stage prospect (one very close to buying) back to an early-stage prospect (one without intent, and therefore a long way from buying). What happened – what went wrong – was the proposal. The prospect had made up his mind to proceed with you and then in asking you for a proposal they actually requested time to reconsider. And you granted it. Presenting Proposals Proposals are the words that come out of your mouth. The document is the contract. The paper is the place to sign; it is not the place for convincing. Business owners looking for services are conditioned to ask for proposals, and ask they do. A late-stage prospect that is engaged in a consultative process to determine whether or not it makes sense to do business with you does not need a written proposal. They need to know that you understand their problem and know how to help. They need an understanding of how you are going to proceed, and knowledge of how much it will cost and how long it will take. Then they need to commit. The document’s job is not to convince them to agree – that’s your job and it’s a job that needs to be done first, before the document even hits the table. The role of the document – a contract – is to increase the level of commitment. Now, however, be aware that I am not dismissing the written proposal as a necessary evil sometimes. There are situations where a client just “needs it in writing” or you know that personally you cannot just quote a price right there on the spot. In that situation, the proposal should still be an afterthought and the client should still have at least verbalized a commitment. BUT the written proposal should never be used for convincing the client to use your services. Levels of Gaining Commitment First get a verbal commitment. “Shall we do this?” Only once you get a verbal commitment do you request the next, the written commitment. In other words, the paper comes out only after an agreement has been reached. “Great. Sign here,” you say after you’ve received a verbal commitment. In truth it’s a little more than sign here. Take a few minutes to review the details of the contract, including the services being offered, the budget, timeline, and your terms and conditions. Buyers’ remorse sets in even before the prospect buys, and then it reappears shortly after they’ve committed. Your prospect is never more vulnerable to feelings of doubt than between the moment they decide to take action and the moment they part with money. Momentum is everything and time is your enemy. You want to ensure there is as little time as possible between proposal and commitment. Conversations Instead of Proposals Remember that your objective in putting the contract on the table is to get a written commitment, which is an important psychological step in helping the prospect progress toward solving their problem. Your contract should be short and should not be intimidating in its level of detail. If you need the assistance of a lawyer to write your contract, then your client will likely need a lawyer to sign it. Keep the contract as short as possible so that you can get a signature in the closing meeting. If you need to reposition the initial signed agreement as a simpler letter of intent or memorandum of understanding and follow-up afterward with a more comprehensive agreement that will involve lawyers and purchasing departments, that’s fine. Know your audience and know the level of agreement and detail they’ll be able to commit to and then prepare accordingly. A New Dialogue Now that you are considering getting out of the proposal writing business you’re probably imagining what those get me a proposal conversations sound like. “Get me a proposal.” “Okay, here’s my proposal. I propose to (fill in the blank)” “Great. Write it up.” “I’d be happy to write up a contract for your signature if you’re telling me that we have an agreement. Do we?” “No, we don’t. I need something to show my boss.” “I want you to understand that we’re not in the proposal writing business. Here’s what I’m willing to do. I’ll agree to invest in the presentation of a proposal to you and your boss. In exchange all I ask is that at the end of the meeting we agree on whether or not to move forward on my proposal.” Expert businesses write contracts that get signed, order-taker businesses write proposals that sit on shelves. Let your competition write the proposals. You get the signature! Do you have a specific plan for addressing loyalty to your current customers and clients?
Did you know that if you improve your customer retention by just 5 percent, you are also adding 5 percent to your growth rate? That is due to the high costs of closing new business vs. the profitability of loyal customers spending more money and/or referring you new business. Once you close a sale, is it part of your normal routine to offer additional products or services that complement the original sale? What about being a resource for your customers? What about previous clients? It is less costly to reach out to those who have used you in the past than it is to close a new sale. Remember to keep all the information you can on your customers and don't hesitate to ask for the next sale. Use Complaints to Build Business When customers aren't happy with your business they usually won't complain to you. Instead, they'll probably complain to just about everyone else they know and take their business to your competition. That's why it is so important to make follow-up calls or email satisfaction surveys. If prompt follow up resolves a customer's complaint, the customer will be more likely to do additional business than the average customer who didn't have a complaint. Why? Because they know that their issue was handled quickly and efficiently and, oftentimes, content customers just go about their routines never thinking about increasing business with you. Reach Out to Your Customers Contact . . . contact . . . contact! The more the customer sees or hears from you, the more likely you'll get the next order. Send holiday greetings, see them at trade shows, stop by to make sure everything's okay, or just send them your monthly newsletters and important updates and specials. Sending a simple newsletter to your customers telling them about the great things that are happening and including some educational information lets them know that they are still important. Send them copies of any media about your firm. Invite them to seminars and networking events. The more they know about you, the more they see you as a resource, and the more they know about your accomplishments, the more loyal a customer they will be. Customer Service The increasing trend today is to send customer service and technical support calls into queue for the next available person. This builds no personal loyalty. Before you go this route, be sure this is what your customers prefer. Otherwise you should assign a specific support person to every customer and make sure they understand the response time on voice mails. Sometimes it is not just about answering the phone but more about the response time if they leave a message. Remember, building customer loyalty will require your hard work and thoughtfulness, but it is under your control. While so many aspects of business are out of your control — technology changes, competition, tax rates, etc. — the single most important process, creating loyal customers, is in your own hands. |
Boost Your BusinessMaria NovakI have over 35 years' experience in Marketing Small Businesses. Categories
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