Customer Loyalty

Lack of communication is the biggest problem that plagues most doomed relationships whether they are personal or professional. Identifying when a lack of communication is occurring can save problems from escalating. If you use your cell phone as your primary phone, SkyDeck.com can help you identify people you haven’t connected with in some time.

Another good practice is to keep notes of your conversations & activities relating to someone in your CRM system. These systems can sometimes help you identify which contacts haven’t been touched in 30 days, which may be a red flag.

CALL TO ACTION

• Identify 10 people you haven’t spoken with in a month. Call them just to say hello.
• Figure out a way to automatically alert you when you’re loosing touch with your friends & clients. I introduced a couple ways in above.

{ 0 comments }

When you make a change based on a complaint or a suggestion, tell them you made changes. This gets them to feel like they are in control. This will encourage them start to emotionally take ownership of your brand and what it stands for.

CALL TO ACTION

• Identify one thing that you improved in your business based on customer feedback. (If you cannot identify one thing you’ve improve by listening to your customers, you’re not listening hard enough.)
• Find a way to communicate that you’ve made this change. Email is a good way. If you’re able to pin point who all suggested this improvement, find a way to recognize and thank them.

{ 0 comments }

No one is perfect. Sometimes we’ll mess up… we’ll drop the ball. In these cases, as my friend Greg Roeszler says, try just walking into the lion’s den and apologizing… and try to figure out how to make it right.

Often, the problem isn’t as big as you’re making it out to be in your head. And if you messed up a while back, they probably don’t even remember why they were mad at you… a benefit of the great eraser. This is a great way to win back lost clients.

CALL TO ACTION

• Identify 10 clients/friends that you’ve lost in the last 3 years because you dropped the ball or messed up somehow.
• Decide what the best way to communicate with them is (call vs personal meetup) and go own up to your part of what when wrong. Humility is true demonstration of personal strength.
• Track how many clients you’re able to win back.

{ 0 comments }

What’s the easiest way to identify problems early? Ask! Ask early & ask often.

While at Rex Moore, Rod Weckworth asked for feedback soon after a project got started. In the beginning he focused on how the paperwork process went, how they were doing so far, etc. The client feels involved with your company and it’s decision making process. And if there was a problem, it was caught early and fixed before it escalated into a serious relationship-killer.

CALL TO ACTION

• How soon can you ask your client for feedback? Look at your project cycle and identify logical places to ask whether things are going as the clients expected it.
• Systematize feedback gathering. Make it part of the official procedures so it’s done consistently. There various ways to ask. Here are a few ways you can use:
  • Phone call
  • Email survey via ListenUp component of ConstantContant
  • Fax
  • Snail Mail
• For non-client relationships, routinely asking if everything is okay could quickly get annoying. So instead of asking, you should consider being tuned in to changes in behavior and language. These can usually clue you in when things are not going right.

{ 0 comments }

In the past few lesson’s we’ve discussed various ways we cause people to remember & recognize us by giving them what they they find valuable. But sometimes, all your efforts and energy can go to waste if a problems comes in an damages/kills your connection.

That’s what we’ll be talking about in the next few lessons: How to prevent long-term damage to your relationships.

Relationships are prone to damage. The usual culprits are time & sleep, both of which are connected.

Time & The Procrastination Effect

Time is like fire. As the saying goes: “You can use it to cook food or burn down your house.”

If a customer has a problem and you handle it promptly with grace & make them happy, you’ll probably have a customer for life. If a customer has a problem and you put off dealing with it for a week, you’ll have an unhappy customer who will tell 20 people about their regretful decision of doing business with you.

What’s worse is that as time passes, the gravity around problem seem to grow exponentially. If a company hasn’t responded to a problem within a couple weeks, the phone will seem awfully heavy to the people in the company. Chances are strong that they won’t respond to the customer with the problem and will hope that the problem goes away. The same happens with non-client relationships. If someone calls, and you don’t respond within a reasonable amount of time, you’ll mostly like not respond at all as more time passes on.

I call this the procrastination effect: More time delay between when a problem arises & when it is resolved = decreased likelihood of a positive outcome + decreased likelihood that the problem will ever be resolved.

We’ll look at how to not let the procrastination effect kill your valuable relationships in a minute, but first, let’s explore the second main culprit: Sleep!

Sleep, The Great Eraser

Sleep is often called the great eraser because it’s natures way of repairing our brain. In the process, it causes memories to fade, which is why you don’t remember everything that you learned in the 5th grade.

Here’s a scenario for you: You have a client or friend that you have a really good time working with or hanging out with. For some odd reason (maybe the project finished up or they moved out of town) you two stop talking for a few months or years. When you meet them again, you can feel that things are not the same anymore. Has this ever happened with you? What changed? The good memories of working together / having fun together are not as fresh as they used to be. The Great Eraser has dulled the vibrant memories of the past.

CALL TO ACTION

In today’s lesson, I want you to reflect on the relationships/clients you’ve lost in the last 2-3 years, how you might have caught problems early and how you might have fixed it once you realized that the relationship was in trouble.

These will help you implement the second major lesson Rod Weckworth taught me: “Make (client) your boss and show them they are very important to you.”

So go ahead, take out your notebook and write out your thoughts on the friends/clients you lost, how you might have caught problems early and how you might have fixed/prevent them.

Here’s a few ideas to seed your list of how to fix/prevent them:

• Solicit complaints regularly
• Apologizing
• Show the changes you’ve made
• Setup systems to alert you to problems
• Automate tasks when appropriate
• Schedule time

We’ll discuss these and expand upon the above suggestions in the next lessons. Now start on your list of how to fix/prevent damage to your relationships.

{ 0 comments }

My friend Ilya Miro invites people to events… whether it’s a skiing trip up to Lake Tahoe or an exclusive business mixer or his Black Belt test/demonstration. These types of invites show that he is thinking of you… and if you take him up on the offer, the time spent together invariably leads to strengthening the bond. It also presents a great opportunity to introduce them to other people you know.

CALL TO ACTION

When you’re going to an event where you know a few people, invite someone you want to build a better relationship with. At the event, spend time with them and introduce them to people you think they would get along with. For maximum effect, introduce them to a potential client, partner, employer or employee.

{ 0 comments }

Help them look as good as they are in front of others.

Most people don’t toot their own horn. Some because they don’t like to and some because they don’t know how. But they usually work hard, put a lot of energy into things and are emotionally committed to what they do. when you recognize this and toot their horn for them, they’ll appreciate it.

Please Note: I’m not talking about bullshitting people just to stoke their ego. I’m talking about really paying attention to how good people are and the work they are doing and recognizing it.

One of the best ways to do this is to recommend them to people who need them. Another way is to help them look good in front of their boss by show how successful a project is. Just pay attention to what it is they take pride in. When you seem something deserves a compliment or public recognition, offer it without hesitation of feeling corny. If it’s genuine, it will come across.

CALL TO ACTION:

• Look for opportunities to celebrate the successes around of people around you.
• Join LinkedIn.com and write honest letters of recommendations for people who have served you well.
• Find opportunities to help people look good in front of their bosses, employees, clients, spouses, kids, etc.

{ 0 comments }

This is another technique I learned from Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. The idea is simple: Offer you talents and resources to people who need it… without asking for anything in return.  Sometimes helping someone move over a weekend can build a relationship that creates 10 or 20 referrals over a few years.

Think of it this way: Be a good friend and you’ll find more friends.

CALL TO ACTION:

List out your talents and resources that you could lend. Here are a few things that have worked for me in the past:

• Your contacts & relationships –  which two people could you connect, even if you got nothing out of it?

• Your raw time — is someone moving & needing some muscle power? If you like kids, baby-sitting for a friend.family-member so they could take their significant other out for a special night might be an option. Picking someone from the airport in a pinch.

• Your skilled time — If you’ve got special talents or skills, you might be able to do a world of good for someone by either offering your time for free or a limited amount of your time for free. For example, my personal skill-set includes graphic design, marketing planning, business management, public speaking and more. I have been able to cultivate strong relationships with many non-profit executives by offering my talents pro-bono. In exchange, these executives have been generous is ways that I initially hadn’t considered. I’ve been invited to events I normally wouldn’t have known about, gotten press tickets to conferences, been personally introduced to potential customers and more.

• Gum — carry extra gum. It’s a small thing but when you’re in a small group of people at an event and you ask everyone if they’d like some gum, it gives you an opportunity to give something right of the bat. (Hope you’re getting the theme: giving is good.)

• Information — Knowing things first can be a great tool. This is similar to the lesson about educating others, but this is about the informal conversations that happen. What types of info might be useful?
  • Buzz words — knowing what it is and being able to explain it in terms others can easily understand while at the watercooler or conference table will earn some nice social capital.
  • Competitive intelligence
  • What to buy … ie. Being able to help people answer questions like: “Should I buy ____ or ____?”
  • NOTE: One thing Keith Ferrazzi warns against in his book is gossip. Gossip is not social capital. Trying to pass gossip as information will lead others to loose trust in you. Just don’t do it.

Next Lesson: Help Them Look Good

{ 0 comments }

You may or may not agree with Barack Obama’s policies, but no one can deny that the inspiration he sparked in people helped him win the race to the White House in a historic & decisive manner.

People are emotional creatures. Not only is our decision-making influenced by what we feel, we get an energy boost from strong emotions.

When you’re able to inspire and motivate people, particularly when they need it, you leave a mark. Want proof?

Rod Weckworth used inspiration as his secret weapon while at Rex Moore. He sent out a weekly newsletter called Rod’s Ponders. It contained 7 inspirational quote of the days that all helped the reader feel good, inspired & got them thinking. His clients thanked him for it and asked him to continue. They also asked him to send it to a few friends of theirs. By the time he retired from Rex Moore in 1999, they were sending out 15,000 copies of Rod’s Ponders every week.

Another example of providing inspiration & motivation are blogs that feature companies/people that are successful. For example, Mixergy.com is a website where Andrew Warner shares his interviews with people who have successfully built Internet businesses. In addition to educating people on how to build a good business, through his interviews, Andrew is exposing people to what success might look & feel like. When you see someone doing what you’re trying to do and you see that they did become successful, you have hope that you too might be successful.

CALL TO ACTION:

• Decide if this tactic is right for you.
• If it is, list out how you plan to inspire & motivate people.
  • I suggest looking into the services offered by Rod Weckworth’s new company, Ponders & Principles. They help companies use Rod’s secret sauce of inspiration through quotes. You can learn more about it at www.ponders.biz.
  • Could you somehow put a spotlight on success stories that could inspire & motivate others?

{ 0 comments }