By Donna Marrin
Use the first of six tips to attract customer loyalty to your business:
1. Get to know everything you can possibly learn about your customers. What are their likes? What are their dislikes? What are their major concerns and how can your products or services resolve them? Ask your customers to participate in helping you make your existing products or services better, as well as developing new ideas. People are happy to purchase goods touched by their contributions.
People like to feel needed. People like to be asked their opinions and they like to talk about themselves. The talk-show industry would have been history a long time ago if this wasn’t so. By asking your customers for input, you are letting them know that you really care what they think and at the same time, you are harnessing a great deal of market research—free. Making your customers feel valued enough to be involved in your business decisions buys you instant brand recognition and loyalty. In return, they will be happy to “spread the word” to friends and associates. You get a domino effect called “viral marketing”—there’s no better way to advertise without having to invest a dime!
Need an inventive way of harvesting customer feedback? Try creating your own “Customer Advisory Board.” Plan round-table lunch meetings on a quarterly basis (stick to no more than three or four meetings per year). Choose four or five of your best customers and invite them to become members of “the panel.” Find out what their issues are. Ask them to list all the ways in which your products or services help them solve their issues. What do they need to help improve current solutions? What are you doing that you should continue to do? What should you discontinue? What haven’t you done that you should start doing? When your panel provides the answers, work hard to give them what they want. You can bet that whatever these four or five customers want will mirror the rest of your target market. Replace your customer panel every year with new people to receive fresh ideas. The feedback that you get will be invaluable.
2. People love a good story. Especially when it’s interesting and informative, even better when no strings are attached. Design a monthly or quarterly newsletter—it doesn’t have to be fancy—and fill it with interesting news and tips that relate to your products or services. Make it information-based, purely for the interest of your customers, but incorporate a section near the end to focus on your company details. Once in a while, include a coupon or an offer that would appeal to them. It doesn’t have to be costly: “Come by on Saturday, May 3rd and share a cup of coffee with us! Balloons for the kids!” The simplest things are often every bit as pleasing to customers.
3. Do your research and do it constantly. Study your competitors. What can you do for your customers that your competitors aren’t doing? What steps have you taken to make your target audience aware of this? If you run a landscaping business, is there one more thing you can do for your customers that not one other landscaper has offered to do? Perhaps the gift of a free window-box container of flowers, fully installed, at the beginning of the season, to every customer?
Make the effort to go one mile further than everyone else. It will be appreciated and remembered.
Visit tomorrow for Part IV of this four-part series, where I’ll share the last of six valuable tips for winning customers and influencing loyalty.
Donna Marrin is a freelance Senior Writer/Editor specializing in corporate communications and advertising. She also founded and runs the Markham Village Writers. You can visit their website at www.markhamvillagewriters.com