Identifying the factors that contribute to customer satisfaction leads to repeat business.
The economic downturn has caused unrelenting competitive pressure, with many large companies moving into the terrain of small-and-medium-size businesses (SMBs). 'Increasing competition is forcing SMBs to focus more on caring for their existing client base' concludes a new study, Customer Care in SMBs.'
The challenge for SMBs is finding out what actions translate directly into higher customer satisfaction. 'This is something you have to do as an ongoing initiative,' says Kae Groshong Wagner, CEO of North Star Marketing, Inc. in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Here's where to start:
- Watch your A-B-Cs. Identify the annualized value of your average customer, as well as their average life-time value. With this information, you can segment customers into ABC tiers of importance, identifying the 20% who are most profitable as well as the bottom 25%. Communicate the value of the top customers to every employee, frequently. 'Too often, a company just tries to sell products and doesn't look at customers from a strategic perspective,' Wagner says. 'You need to look at customers holistically and do market segmentation to realize how much time and care they have required. It may be that you are over-servicing some people, because of their value to the company.'
- Call the 'A-listers.' Follow the 80-20 rule and put a rotation system in place where you call the 20% of your clients who generate 80% of your sales. Don't try to sell or provide profound news to them, but make this a courtesy call to convey a sense of calm, clarity, and to ask how you're doing.
- Consider your customers' priorities. 'It's really important for SMBs to understand that their priorities and initiatives are generally not the priorities of their customers,' Wagner says. 'The most important thing is to not create work for your customers, but solutions. The less the customer has to do because you are doing it for him, the greater penetration and security you have.'
- Listen and find their pain. Customers will tell you by their voices, choices, and actions what their pains are. 'They tend to be loyal (repeat purchases even though they have choices) if their pains are solved by a business,' says Chris Stiehl, co-author of Pain Killer Marketing. 'Research shows that people will respond 19 times more to relieve a pain than to reap a benefit.'
- Optimize and track interactions. After the first sale, customers provide information about their needs and behavior that allows you to begin creating a competitive advantage. Tracking interactions provides a feedback loop to measure satisfaction and uncover dissatisfaction with your products, people, or service, as well as to create new opportunities.
- Have multiple contact points. 'If you rely on one salesperson to be your only point of contact with a client, you're vulnerable,' Wagner says. 'The salesperson may give the customer a break he shouldn't give and not push the customer on certain things. By having multiple points of contact with a customer, you gather better intelligence. When I go to an account with a salesperson, I do ‘the hallway walk,' because I want to see how many people at the company the salesperson knows.'
