Printers should measure loyalty and referrals
How do you know if your customers are promoting you? The best way is measuring sources of incoming business. Recently one printer measured that 17% of their customers came from referrals while another was over 40%. What a difference. What a great way to save marketing dollars by having prospects knocking on your door. It is not surprising that the printer with 40% is growing during the recession while the 17% printer is hanging on.
How do you measure the customer referral factor in your business? There are two ways. First, any good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system has fields to flag the source of new customers. Measure both internal referrals within your larger shared accounts and external referrals or new business relationships. Second, printers should ask after orders are delivered if the customer will recommend you to colleagues and friends. Do this on a continual basis, but respect your high volume customers. Surveying once a month is acceptable if the survey is short and done professionally. Only the highest ratings should be considered promoters of your business. Based on our print buyer surveying the average printer receives an 82%. This means that 82% of their customers are very likely to recommend. The best printers are above 90% and the lower tier is just north of 70%. The fascinating thing about the concept of creating raving fans or delighted customers is that major corporations such as Enterprise Rent-a-car, Southwest Airlines, and Intuit continue to grow profitably by viewing the long term value of a customer and measuring their referral scores.
In the printing industry we offer printers a program, CustomerPulse, which calculates the industry referral index on a monthly basis. Frankly the bar is higher for the printing industry than just about any industry out there. The ability to move to another printer is easy in many instances and most print buyers already buy from multiple printers. Also, the Business to Business dynamic needs to be taken into account.
Be truthful with yourself when measuring customer loyalty or tendency for customers to refer you. One printer shared that their score was over 90%, but it was based on 50 surveys a month out of the 4,000 individual businesses buying from them monthly.
Start measuring referral sources and measure your customer loyalty and referral index on a continual basis. It will help your long term profitability.
Tags: Print Buyer Opinions, Printer, Printer Loyalty Programs, Printer Referral Programs, Printing