Maximize Results

The Power Of Customer Retention As Marketing

In SUCCESS MAGAZINE, telemarketing consultant George Walther described how U.S. West Cellular's "retention group" had turned keeping customers into an important profit center. It then cost the company about $700.00 to get a new customer, then about 7 months to recover that investment before beginning to reap profits from the relationship. But half of all new customers were dropping out before that "magic" 7th month. Analysis revealed that cutting the monthly cancellation rate by just 1/10th-of-1% would add one million dollars to the bottom-line. An elite taskforce, "The Retention Team", was created to place Welcome Calls to new customers, to explain their first bills to them, and respond to customers who wanted to cancel service. Retention group soldiers are paid bonuses on 'saves'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com

The Power Of Congruent Customer Service

As I'm writing this, I'm particularly peeved about a jewelry store in Phoenix (Weisfields). Last year, for Christmas, I bought matching Tag Huer watches for Carla and myself there. Not a cheap purchase. On my last trip, I dropped mine on the carpet and the band broke. Carla took it in and was treated as a nuisance.....told it'll take 4 to 6 weeks to get it repaired and that she'd probably do better handling it with the manufacturer herself. If you buy a Timex at Walgreens, that kind of non-customer service would be expected and accepted. But when you buy two very expensive watches from a jeweler, that is NOT the kind of service that should exist. (It's also incredibly dumb to tee off a customer like this right before the holiday shopping season.)

The result is that I'll spend money elsewhere this year and every year thereafter, will never spend another dime there, and will give them lots of negative word-of-mouth advertising, just as I'm doing here.

Different levels of customer service are required for different businesses, different clientele, and the differing expectations established through a business' positioning, advertising, marketing and pricing. Lots of advertising dollars are wasted if not supported by congruent customer service.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com

The Negative Power Of The

Sales Prevention Department
In every business, small or large, there is an inherent struggle between "operations" and "sales", and far too often "operations" win.
the correct process is, all operational issues and staff preferences aside, what is the best thing to do to maximize sales - then it is "operations"' job to figure out how to support that approach.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com

The Power Of Checking On Yourself

Periodically call your own office phone, your order-taking service, your stores, etc. and "play customer/prospect".
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com

The Power Of Being In Touch With The Customer

As a business grows, it's easy (and hazardous) for you to get distanced from the customers. I think you should read your "white mail" (customer correspondence) at least a few times every month, get on the phone or face-to-face with customers at least several times a month, and work on the front lines of your business at least one out of every 90 days.

The CEO of a restaurant chain, for example, ought to get into one of those restaurants and seat people, wait on tables, and bus tables every once in a while.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com

The Power Of Direct Contact With End Users

If you have salespeople, distributors, franchisees, retail locations, etc., you should still devise means of obtaining the end users-customers' names and addresses and communicating directly with them. About 5 years ago or so, Mary Kay cosmetics convinced their independent distributors to turn over 5-million customer names and addresses so that the company could periodically mail them sales literature. Why? Because they could not rely on the distributors to do the job. I believe there should always be a direct relationship maintained between company and customer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com

The Power Of A Vacuum

Over the years, I have "fired" a number of clients - even when I couldn't afford to do so - confident that Nature so abhors a vacuum that it will quickly be filled with better clients than the ones I vaporized.

The longer you "hang on" to something/situation/person with which you are unhappy, the longer it'll be before you can be happy. A void has to be created first. You have to make room for something better.

A metaphysical example of this in action comes from my friend, Foster Hibbard: a woman at one of Foster's 6-week courses told him she desperately needed new and better clothes but had no money or credit to get them with. (She had just landed a new, good job but needed to dress sharp everyday.) Foster told her to go home, pack up at least half of everything in her closet that wasn't appropriate or that she didn't like, and take it to a charitry immediately. She feared that would double her problem; he insisted it would solve it.

Two weeks later at class she told Foster of the "amazing things" happening since she had emptied her closet. An old friend of considerable wealth had, without provocation, called her up and offered her some hardly-ever used clothes, mostly business suits and fine dresses, that no longer fit her as a gift. A credit card arrived in her mail without her having applied for it. She got lost driving somewhere, pulled over to the side of the street to get her bearings, and found herself parked in front of a very exclusive women's dress shop that was running a Going Out Of Business - Owner Retiring Sale with discounts as high as 80%. And so on. The vacuum she intentionally created filled.

The same principle applies in business. In hiring/firing, it is "hire slow, fire fast" - when you fire appropriately, as quickly as you know it is inevitable, you create a vacuum to be filled by a better person for that job. In marketing, when you "fire" a slow moving product line, a minimally profitable but very time consuming client, etc., you deliberately create a vacuum certain to be filled with something better.

You might say that we "clean out our closets" too infrequently.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
To view all of the profit producing and wealth creation resources go to
www.glazerkennedywebstore.com