Page 22 - Sonoma County Gazette - January 2018

Keep Customers Coming Back
Most business people have heard about a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and, of course that is important. Though equally important is a URP (Unique Retention Proposition) and many business people do not have that in place.
AND the World
Wouldn’t it be great if our sales for each month equaled what you sell during the holiday season? Having the processes and policies in place for customer retention can make this happen.
By Tish Levee
As always I looked forward to Daily Acts annual “Ripple the World”
Customers coming back is important...here’s why:
• A 5% increase in customer retention can improve company profitability by 7.5% • Engaged customers buy more frequently and spend more per transaction
• Your business benefits from more word-of-mouth promotion
• Regular customers bring their friends to meet you
• A loyal customer is less likely to be lured away to other companies by discounts • It gives you an edge over competitors
By providing an individual experience for each person who visits. For that you need to create a plan, which will be your blueprint to design, deliver, manage and measure the results. Your procedures and policies should be created with the view of making life easy for the customers.
• Understand that your customers need to be more than satisfied
• Put processes in place
• Hire people who value customer service (remember that they are your
ambassadors on and off the job)
• Create an employee handbook with an in-depth section on customer service
standards and guidelines
• Implement customer interactions that will meet and exceed expectations • Review the people, products, services interface and and interactions with
breakfast October 12th at the Santa Rosa Veteran’s Memorial Building. With more than 600 environmentally engaged people—“the movers and shakers of the world being born,” this event is always a high point of my year as well as Daily Acts’ primary fundraiser. But this year, it had to be canceled, because of the fires, and all the food planned was donated to feed evacuees.
How do you keep customers coming back?
Less than two months later, staff and volunteers were able to pull the event together on November 30th. Renamed “Ripple the Recovery” for this year, the breakfast—free and delicious as always—took place in a Vets’ Hall transformed for the event into a forest of living bamboo with small cloth banners, hand painted with messages about how to make change happen, flying across
customers.
Every employee who interacts with customers in any way, shape or form
Since Trathen, whose enthusiasm is absolutely contagious, started Daily Acts in 2002, it has educated and inspired nearly 50,000 people to take daily action in simple, easy, transformative ways. One highly visible program has mobilized volunteers to transform lawns to “food forests,” converting nearly 235,00 square feet of lawn as of 2015. Water conservation programs, including sheet mulching and “laundry to landscaping,” or grey water system installation, are also offered.
should be genuinely interested in customers as individual.
Train staff on all facets of customer service: If, as an owner or manager training is not what you excel at, hire someone to do it. In addition to customer service, the staff should be schooled in how to uncover what customers want and need from them. This starts by asking questions of the customers. Before you try to sell customers anything, start by asking them questions about what they are looking for, what their preferences are and what their budget is.
Their most successful and accessible program is the “Community Resiliency Challenge,” that coincides with Earth Day every Spring. Individuals and groups pledge to take one or more actions to create a more resilient community.
When you ask a question, patiently wait for the answer. Even if it take a few seconds don’t jump in immediately. Once you have found out customers’ wants and needs, start to wrinkle out what any objections might be.
Over the past eight years, nearly 35,000 local actions have been registered, with more than 46,000 total across the country, as other localities accept
the challenge. It’s easy to take the Challenge; the Daily Acts website lists 25 suggestions for Saving Water, Growing Food, Conserving Energy, Reducing
Sales people should think about speaking with customers rather than speaking to customers. When speaking with someone, the customer has more time to answer questions, and you more time to offer them information.
Waste, and Building Community atdailyacts.org/action-ideas/.
Many are quite simple, often ones that I have advocated over the years in my
It’s also helpful if we understand why people buy: Customers buy for many different reasons, though they won’t buy if they don’t see the benefit or value of the product in their lives. When I talk about value I am not talking about the cost; I am talking about how the product enhances the customer’s life. The salesperson is there to help connect the dots so that the customers can justify the purchase.
Gazette column, “For the Planet.” While I’ve dealt with the impact we can have when we take a minute to make a difference, Daily Acts magnifies the daily actions of many people to create tremendous accomplishments.
Additionally, what other customers think and say is influential on why people buy. So bringing other people into a sales conversation can also help someone make a decision.
We were then introduced to the Just and Resilient Future Fund, which Daily Acts helped found after the fires to help fire victims who are underserved or already living on the margins and to support initiatives to build more just, healthy, and resilient communities that better prepare us for future catastrophes. This example of grassroots recovery in action has already made significant donations to organizations such as The UndocFund.
When the customer has opted to purchase, instead of saying, “Can I get you anything else?”, which usually leads to a “No” answer, say, “And what else may I get you?” By using this phrasing you are more likely to get the customer to think about what else they need or want.
The program concluded with Cathryn Couch, Executive Director of Ceres Community Project, urging us all to invest in Daily Acts. Each table captain had pledge cards so that we could pledge whatever felt comfortable, on a monthly or annual basis. Over $50,000 was pledged. Although the organization met its goal for the breakfast, the event usually raises $200,000, a substantial portion of Daily Acts $600,000 budget. If you want to invest in Daily Acts and contribute to their year-end goal to spread these vital solutions you can do so at
Follow Up: If customers have questions or problems, or you need to speak with them about an order, make sure that you have a system to follow up. If it is a problem, the staff member who first speaks with the customer should be responsible for making sure that the problem is resolved or the question is answered and should double check as to the resolution.
http://dailyacts.org/support/. You can also volunteer there.
Finally, I am going to say something that you have heard many times, though I think it is worth saying again: Attracting new customers costs more than retaining the customers you have.
After breakfast 130 people stayed and met in community conversations on Earth Care, People Care, and Rebuilding Resilient Communities, working on formulating actions in these areas that they could undertake. I took part in a group looking to improve media coverage of these actions. We will continue working on implementing the ideas that grew out of these conversations.
22 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 1/18
the ceiling. At each place we found the Daily Acts’ characteristic packet of heirloom seeds wrapped with a card urging us to
“Take Heart, Take Part, Take Action.”
State Senator Mark McGuire’s welcome was followed by Hanna Chort, a “Daily Actor Extraordinaire,” who spoke on “The Power of What We Love.” Then, after a moment of silence for all those we had lost, Trathen Heckman, Daily Acts founder and Executive Director, spoke on the event’s theme—“A Connected Community Flourishes,” now more true than ever.
While we continued eating our delicious spinach and sun-dried tomato quiche (with a gluten-free polenta crust!) and apple, cinnamon, and honey baked oatmeal, we watched a great video—“10 Years of Rippling the World,” by filmmaker Alejandro Torres.