Ever work with a supplier, business partner, or vendor when your relationship was virtually dead and you were actively searching for someone else to supply that service or product to you?  You were walking or still buying from them, but trying like mad to get out from under them.  They made life so miserable for you, were very difficult to do business with, were rigid in their policies, did not come through for you when you needed them.   You felt liberated when you could finally tell them to go pound sand.   You then went on to tell everyone you could how aweful it was and now how good it was. 

Now as a business owner or manager, we all need to look in the mirror.  I will be the first to confess that I have at times made life miserable for customers, but not on purpose.  Maybe you are now saying “Boy, that business is messed up”.  Well, if you have been in business more than 20 years and haven’t had a dissatisfied customer I want to hang out with you.  Things happen, but we need to own up to it, fix the issue quickly and stay on top of it.  Process breakdowns, lack of proper resources, miscommunications can cause train wrecks, but typically the problems start small and if left uncorrected come to a head.  When we hear of these problems we apologize and can’t believe it happened.

Does your business know when customers are so frustrated with you that they are trying to leave?   The larger the enterprise, the trickier it is to know.  The smaller the enterprise, the easier for the customer to gently walk away without telling the truth to your face.  Here are a true story from a recent survey we conducted.  A printer recieved a loyalty rating, those who say they would recommend you to others, of 53%.  Average printers run in the 92% range here.  Nearly 100 years ago they carved out their niche and owned the market by locking out competition, but now things changed and their ex-customers were telling them why they left and really gave it to them.   The “Walking Dead” or those still buying, but feeling hostage explained their efforts to find someone else.  I felt aweful for the business because it was slowing dying and management continued to blame the economy and the shift to the internet as the reason.  There is some truth in that, but customers were also walking to other printers.  It was not the quality of the product as much as the level of service that caused the walking dead.

Lesson learned:  keep the pulse of your customers over time, react quickly, and don’t become complacent.     

Here are a few things to consider when you look at customer loyalty and keeping the pulse.  Think of the critical satisfiers for your customer base.  Assuming your product is solid, think of the things such as responsiveness to e-mail and voicemails,  shipping product on time, having clear invoices, estimating properly, estimating timely, communicating project status on a continuous basis, issuing credits timely, shipping the right products,  having product in stock for quick delivery.  Pick the top 4 or 5 things that if done well will put you in the best position.  But, don’t neglect the little things that can drive people crazy.   

Great Customer Loyalty is driven by treating each customer in a unique and special way while doing the basics well.

A quick post today to close out the week on Customer Database Management.

I cannot stress the importance of maintaining an accurate and reliable customer database. Of course this should include contact, company, mailing address, email, etc. Most importantly – the information in the database must be clean. That means names and companies spelled and punctuated correctly, and not in the dreaded all caps format.

If you aren’t email marketing to your current customer database, you are missing out on an extremely easy, fast, and cost effective medium. If your contact list isn’t up to date however, you can throw easy and fast out the window. By taking the time today to make sure the information goes into your CRM correctly, you can save yourself hours later cleaning bad data out of an excel sheet.

Think of your best suppliers, vendors, partnerships. These are busineses that make you feel special and unique. They do the little things that don’t cost a lot of money, but show flexibilty, responsiveness and you connect with them. For printers this means asking your customers what you can do to make life easier and then delivering on that. If they want proofs picked up, then you pick them up. If they want a call when you drop the mailer, then you personally call their cell phone to let them know. Here are a few easy things to do to make the customer feel special.

1) Give your best customers your cell phone and maybe even your home phone. They won’t call unless it is an emergency, but it shows you care.
2) Invest in a robust CRM system. Be able to track key dates, events, personal information, notes from past meetings. Takethe time to review this before your visits or phone calls.
3)Communicate the way the customer wants. Some love e-mail and others hate it. Ask customers and use the appropriate methods. Respect “Opt Outs” from your communications, but be careful managing this. Most customers don’t want to be “Opted out” of everything, but maybe just one e-communication piece. Manage this to keep communications open.
4)Don’t assume they are doing well. Ask them face to face, survey them once a year, do a short simple survey once a month. Keep those lines open. Some customers will tell you face to face if something is up, but some rather think and type up their thoughts in a comments box of a survey. One size doesn’t fit all.
5) Think of chemistry and don’t be afraid to move or assign CSRs and sales people who match the chemistry of the customer. Many people will buy based on rapport as well as how well you do.
6) Always tell the truth. I know this sounds obvious, but customers respect if you tell them if you made a mistake. Of course you can’t have too many of those, but owning up to it is respected and honorable.

Referrals have been a hot button issue around the office this week. Perhaps by chance, but more likely due to economic uncertainty, a number of printers I have spoken to over the past few days are looking for ways to get a referral or two out of their customers. Specifically, a few users of our CustomerPulse program are preparing to add an entire section to their survey devoted to collecting referrals from their happiest customers.

While I haven’t been able to promise an avalanche of leads, we are certainly going to try for some flurries. Here is how it will work:

1. All of our CustomerPulse surveys have a “Would you recommend us to your colleagues and friends?” question. Anyone answering Very Likely to this question will now see an additional page once they hit submit.
2. This page asks if the respondent knows anyone who could use help with their printing needs, and offers an incentive to submit a name
3. If the respondent offers a referral, the next page will print a coupon for some sort of incentive, be it 5% off, or a gift card to Starbucks, etc.

To date, we have only tried such a question out in a very limited fashion. One customer has had a similar question on their CustomerPulse survey since late September. In about 75 survey responses since then, there have been no referrals offered. Other surveys under different programs have seen similar results.

However, the new referral program that we will begin testing in the next week is different in a couple of ways:

• We are only asking the happiest customers(ie those who are Very Likely to recommend) for referrals. Don’t underestimate the importance of this step. Could you imagine how frustrated you’d be if you just ripped into a company on a survey, and they asked you for a referral?
• We are offering a incentive for giving said referral

Over the next few months I look forward to seeing how this pans out. I know an incentive can bolster a response rate. Just last week we launched a survey to two subsets of a list, with the only difference being the promise of a $5 gift card to Starbucks for filling out the survey. The response rate without the incentive was 6%, while with the incentive was 10%. Not too shabby of a jump. Time will tell if the same holds true for a referral. I will periodically share how this works out over the next few months. I encourage you to check back regularly, as well as share your own experiences in the comments below.

One of the most commonly questions we hear at Survey Advantage when working on a survey project is “how many will I get?”  Of course this is in reference to survey responses, but the question is easier asked than answered.  In hundreds of surveys ran in the past few years, I have seen response rates range from 1%, all the way to 80%.  There are a couple of key factors that will drive response rates:

1.  Your relationship with your customers.  Would you fill out a survey for a fast food order?  Doubtful.  Would you fill out a survey from a supplier you order from regularly?  Possibly.  Would you fill out a survey for your son or daughter’s daycare?  Absolutely. The value of the relationship is crucial in how many will respond.

2.  Past performance.  Have you surveyed before and done nothing with it?  Maybe you have a history of poor customer service.  If a customer has it in their head that they are just a number, and you don’t care about them, they are much less likely to take time out of their day to tell you how you are doing.  In our eyes the most important part of running a survey is telling the customers what you learned, and then doing something tangible with it.  If you can prove over time that you are listening to customers concerns, and trying to improve, then they will be candid with you.

3.  Contact Database.  Your database needs to have both CURRENT customers, and their CORRECT contact information.  Often a customer comes to us with an email database of customers that has everyone they’ve done business with in the past five years (or longer even.)  Just because 25% of your current customers will respond to a survey, does not mean that 25% of customers who haven’t done business with you in 3 or 4 years will.  Aside from that fact, large, unmaintained lists may have 25%-35% undeliverable rate, compared to 5% to 10% for a properly maintained list.  They can’t respond to it if they don’t get it.

So like I said, easier asked than answered.  But let me try anyway.  Generally in some of the industries we are working in we see the following: Printers 20% – 35%, Marinas/Boatyards: 35%-50%, Childcare/Educations: 60%-75%, Airport Parking/Car Rental: 5%-10%, Association Membership: 5%-20%, Franchisor Membership: 15%-35%.  Of course all these numbers can vary greatly, depending on where you fall in 1,2 and 3 above.  I encourage you to share your experience with survey response rates in the comments section below.