Page 312 - Duct Tape Marketing

296 Part V: Winning and Keeping Customers

Keeping good customers

Ask yourself

ߜ Why do our customers leave?
ߜ What would it take to get them to stay?

Throw out the names of a couple recent departures to help focus the discus-
sion. Write down every reason you can come up with for why they moved
their business elsewhere. What will emerge is information that will help as
you analyze your competitive arena, your pricing policies, your customer
service, and your product offerings.

Be prepared for your first response to be, We’re too expensive, but don’t
allow your thinking to stop there. Price alone is rarely the reason that good
customers move their business. More often, service is the issue.

In a sentence: Customers leave because of mediocre service.

A widely-cited Rockefeller Foundation study concluded the following facts:

ߜ 14 percent of customers leave because their complaints aren’t handled.
ߜ 9 percent are baited away by competition.
ߜ 9 percent move away.
ߜ 68 percent leave because they are treated with indifference.

Other research helps define what customers mean by indifference. Among the
findings: Customers feel they are served with indifference if they have to return
to a business repeatedly with the same problem, or if they have to wait longer
than they think necessary to be served. And as soon as they think they are
being treated with indifference — in the way they are greeted, in the time it
takes to serve them, in the way their complaint is handled, or in the quality of
the product they receive — they begin the defection process.

Eliminating service indifference

Eliminate service indifference — and the dissatisfaction that follows — with
these tips:

ߜ Fill special requests.
ߜ Go beyond the ordinary.