customers

Are You Really Listening to Your Customers?

When you travel you get the best chance to observe good customer service firsthand. A hotel is your home away from home, and you have many places to choose from. It’s the customer service that makes the difference between a great experience or a lousy one. So, on my recent trip to NY I got to see some of both.

Listening to your customers

I got to the hotel quite late and was just ready to get to sleep. I quickly found out that the heat had two settings, boiling hot or freezing cold. There was a draft so bad it blew the curtains. And the heating system was so noisy I couldn’t even hear the TV. When I checked in, the only thing I asked for was a quiet room with temperature control. I didn’t care if it was the size of a closet with no frills.

An employee came up to see if he could fix the heat and said he would have to call the maintenance guy in the morning. Really? So, I would have to freeze all night? They offered me a free breakfast and a foot rub to make up for it. Okay, so they didn’t offer a foot rub, but a free breakfast wouldn’t save me from hyperthermia and lack of sleep. They finally moved me to a bigger room which was slightly better, but still very noisy. The whole time I was there I felt like I was talking to a brick wall. No warmth or friendliness. And they definitely weren’t listening. I couldn’t help thinking that the place could have been run better by robots. [Read more…] about Are You Really Listening to Your Customers?

3 Ways to Thank Your Customers

The two most important words in the English language are “please” and “thank you”. You should be using them every single day. So on Thanksgiving weekend not only am I grateful for friends and family, but for all of the customers and clients I’ve had through the years.

It should go without saying that as a business owner you should have great customer service, but you should also make a point of thanking your customers personally. It really goes a long way. The Journal of Marketing conducted a study about the positive reinforcement of customers. They found that customers from one retail store who were called and thanked showed a 70% increase in sales. There was only a 30% increase when they were also told about a sale. [Read more…] about 3 Ways to Thank Your Customers

Are You Creating Loyal Customers?

customer loyalty

I would be willing to bet that most people are creatures of habit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, because when we find companies we like we tend to stick with them. That could be a brand of clothing or a type of car or the restaurants we frequent. And we usually tend to stick to our own neighborhood restaurants for various reasons.

So, when I found out one of my favorite restaurants had gone out of business, it was sad. This is where I spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases enjoying the holiday special of turkey and pumpkin pie. They were always creating loyal customers.

I went through the restaurant reviews and found out that I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. In fact, some of the reviews were quite interesting. [Read more…] about Are You Creating Loyal Customers?

Where There’s a Seller, There’s a Buyer

I was helping a friend clean some things out of the office the other day. He is a talent scout for musicians and had boxes of old demo tapes from the 70’s and 80’s. Just for fun I played a few of them to see what kind of musicians he turned down.

As the music played, he cringed and said it was some of the worst music he had ever heard. He never signed any of the artists and said to throw the tapes in the trash. Well, I hated to admit it, but I thought some of it was pretty good. What was I missing? I mean, I know I’m not an American Idol judge and really don’t know anything about the music industry, but I am a consumer and I did used to buy music.

I started wondering, if I liked it, I wondered how many other people in the world would have liked it too. Okay, so maybe the industry never released that music and it never made it on the radio or top 10, but surely there had to be a market for it somewhere. [Read more…] about Where There’s a Seller, There’s a Buyer

How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

How well do you know your customer? The more you know about them, the better you’ll be able to serve them.

I just got back from speaking at the California Public Information Officers Conference on the topic of “Getting Your Message Across: What Great Leaders Know About Storytelling”.

I really didn’t know what these people did, but I decided to do a lot of homework to find out. I’m glad I did because it paid off and they noticed.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because it’s important to know who your customer is. Since I was speaking at a conference, my customer was the meeting planner that hired me. But the “end user” was the people who were in the audience. So I actually had to know both for different reasons.

Let’s say, for example, you have a product or service to sell. You could sell that product directly to the end user, or you could sell it to a distributor, wholesaler, or retailer. With each one, you need to know the needs and concerns of each customer. And some of their concerns overlap. [Read more…] about How Well Do You Know Your Customer?