By now you should have at least started your 2011 planning cycle and engaged your customers, asking them what they need from you in 2011. What better way to show you are not like any other supplier, but a partner. As you push into new services or products it is great to connect with customers as a litmus test that you are going in the right direction If you think you need to improve in a specific area, they will tell you in the survey to make more grounded decisions and investments.

Any strategic planning book stresses that the first step is analyzing customer and marketing data to make more grounded decisions. Well, why not go out to your customers and ask them strategic questions? Position the survey as a planning tool to help you serve them better. Look at each survey as a gift and a road map for when you meet with each customer to plan together. The survey results and trends will help you have more meaningful, focused planning meetings with your customers and staff.

A well designed annual strategic survey typically yields 30% response rates for B2B clients or high end B2C customers. This information is invaluable to connect at an individual level as well as uncover trends when planning for 2011. Here are a few areas to consider:

* Improvement areas for next year.
* Services to consider rolling out.
* Consideration for other services you offer.
* Sourcing for different services.
* Percentage of business awarded to you.
* Awareness of different services you offer.
* Quality of products and services.
* Budget or spending trends for 2011.
* Supplier decision making process.
* Marketing communications effectiveness.

Customers will share with you if you ask in a thoughtful way. Take the time to do it right. Customers will appreciate this. Connect with your customers early, change the game and position yourself above the competition as you approach 2011. It starts with putting your house in order, so consider running an annual survey to get that foundation. Good luck in 2011.

We should praise those companies that go above and beyond. A couple weeks ago I went to Kent’s Alignment in Newport, RI and was amazed at the level of service, flexibility, and honesty. They fixed the car and when I pulled out the plastic they explained that they did not accept credit cards to keep prices down, but I could just leave to go down the road to get money and come back. Trust. They explained what was wrong and did not rotate my tires since it would be a waste of money since one of them was bald. Cool, that is honest service.

Check out this comment that came in today from a fishing listserv I am active on. WOW, this guy is one of the few that goes out of the way to promote a business. You can’t pay enough to get this kind of positive marketing done. It went out to thousands of New England fisherman. Check out what Brian said on the Southern New England Angler’s listserv a few minutes ago.

“Yesterday for the first time I went to Jamestown Distributors in Bristol to buy some parts for my boat. The staff there went out of their way to make sure what I was buying would work for the project I was doing. If you’ve never done business with them, check them out, they have a huge online catalog.

Another company I had a recent experience with was Attwood Marine. I needed a new scupper flap on the boat. I had seen a posting in the Seaswirl owner’s forum to contact Attwood for the replacement. I followed the email link, it was answered promptly asking for the size etc. The rep then mails out two flaps to me free of charge. Brian”

Thank you Brian for sharing a positive experience. 1,000s of people reading this from a trusted source. Nice referral without doing anything. Attwood and Jamestown Distributors just did the right thing and treated him with respect and he was “WOWed” and compelled to tell everyone.

Back in the 80s an HP study shoed that for every dissatisfied customer they tell 20, yet a satisfied customer only tells 3. Brian beat the stats here and maybe the internet will balance out that statistic in favor of the companies going above and beyond.

Remember that Seinfeld episode where the arrogant cook had such addicting soup that people waited in line putting up with his arrogance just to get “the soup”? Everyone called him the Soup Nazi. I met the Banana Nazi last week while vacationing on Block Island, RI. My son was excited to go on a banana boat ride which is water tubing on steroids where 10 people hold on for dear life! My son was eager so I sucked it up.

The Encounter

The Banana Nazi starting barking out orders right from the start.

Banana Nazi: “You need to shower before you get on the boat, give me your glasses, hat, and anything else you have.” (No smile. Stone cold.)

I started thinking this lady must have had a rough summer and couldn’t wait for it to be over. She acted like the owner so I let her slide on this one. Maybe she was having a bad day.

I went on to say, “I can’t see without my prescription sun glasses so do you think I can wear them as we drive out to the tubing area? Also, I am a little light in the hair department so can I wear my hat to avoid sunburn of the head?” All said while chuckling a little to loosen things up and maybe brightening her day.

Banana Nazi: “Well, you are better off leaving your glasses here and being able to see the rest of the day than losing them aren’t you? The hat needs to go. I will do you a favor and put your stuff in my car so nothing happens.”

Again she was stone cold looking at me like I said something offensive or idiotic! I starting boiling a bit and thinking “She didn’t really say that?”. I couldn’t go on that boat blind no matter how she felt about it. I handed the Banana Nazi my stuff while white knuckling my glasses before she left me blind!

Banana Nazi: (No reaction as she took my stuff).

I was thinking “I don’t need this abuse and arrogance. I’m leaving.” Then looking at my son I had a change of heart. For my son’s sake I sucked it up and said “Thank you.” With a smile of course!

At that point we met two other people working the boat. They were great! Very polite and made the trip a memorable one. The driver with dread locks was awesome and fit the part perfectly, looking like he grew up water skiing and knew how to throw people! They explained to me right out of the gate why I could not wear my glasses on the boat. It made perfect sense since I was getting dragged out on the tube from the dock! Why didn’t she say that?

Customer service people make or break the deal. They got lucky this time.

Lessons learned:

1) Be careful with who works directly with customers. They may be blowing deals before you have a chance to know about it. The best customer service people are other-centered, patient, and listen to customers. What employees work directly with customers, but are not trained in customer service skills? Be careful.

2) Don’t assume prospects and customers know the reasons you do what you do. I now know why I could not bring my glasses and hat, but she did not listen to me, explain and communicate the reasons! Do customers know why you do what you do?

3) Customer Service people must start with communicating before we can show what your product or service does. It all starts with connecting and communicating the way your customers prefer. Be flexible and change your communication approach to fit your customer.

4) No product or service is so good that customers will put up with arrogance to get the goods. The Soup Nazi found this out the hard way and hopefully the Banana Nazi figures this out before it is too late.
Is your business just pumping out product? Are you in the customer service business? The end product is important, but customers want to buy from those they can connect with.

I like to believe that most people in sales and service try hard to help customers and prospects make good decisions, but sometimes the people serving me use the same approach they do with everyone else. Why? Because they are not communicating with me the way I want and have a one size fits all mentality. They are not conscious of the other person. We all do it at one time or another, but the answer to this problem is “Style flexing”. I learned this in a leadership training back 20 years go and it really helped me with managing my team.

Style flexing is an easy concept to grasp, but difficult to do. Style flexing is not manipulative, but other centered. You need to concentrate on the other person’s needs and how they want to be communicated with when making decisions. One way to break this down is to look at each person’s leadership style. We are all leaders in some way and leaders make decisions. We all make decisions. There are four types of leaders; Peer Oriented, System Oriented, Boss Oriented, and Goal Oriented. We all know people who lead with one of these styles, but the best leaders are able to style flex when working with others and don’t get stuck in one leadership style all the time. By the way, we all use each of these orientations at some point, but have a predominant style. When we are under stress, one of our predominant styles jumps out in front and it is beautiful or ugly. Let’s see how this helps in selling and servicing customers and prospect.

Peer Orientation. These people for the most part need support and love badly. They need support, need others to make decisions for them, and decisions are made by committee. They love to chat and know how you are doing, they hate getting right down to business, and they want to get to know you extremely well. The problem is they have difficulty making decisions especially if it could hurt anyone or leave someone out of the decision process. Let’s have a group hug! A few things to consider when working with this group:

• They need assurance that this is the right decision.
• Don’t stress alternatives and variables. Simplify
• Help make the decision easy.
• Be friendly and polite
• Slow down
• You need to help or make the decision for them.

System Orientation. This group is very set on what has proven to work in the past. They are very conservative and systematic about decision making and are risk averse. At one point some of the major defense contractors got caught off-guard by new, more nimble competitors. They kept the management philosophy that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. You would hear things like “We always did it that way”. In the computer industry names like Data General, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Wang found out the hard way that being conservative can put you out of business. The motto of this group is “Let’s go find the play book”. A few things to consider when working with this group:

• Answer all questions they have and get into the details
• Provide more facts than you would think necessary
• Encourage evaluation time
• Don’t let their skepticism get you down
• To close on an idea, be patient, but firmly by presenting facts

Boss Orientation. This group is great at making decisions and feel that everyone likes that they take control. Sometimes that is the case, but after the 20th time hearing “Just do what I say” can beat you down. The early 1900’s was big into this style of decision making. Entrepreneurs are typically this way since they don’t have time to think before making decisions since they are blazing the trail. They want control and it must be their decision. OK Boss, whatever you say! Here are a few pointers.

• Don’t let ego get in the way. Give in.
• Be prepared for a tough contest, don’t be sensitive, and no touching!
• You must provide facts, but let them develop the answer and make the decision.
• Give bottom-line answers and concentrate on high points
• Let their ego come through, let them feel important.
• Don’t feel rejected by their bluntness and don’t apologize.
• They will make decisions quickly which is great. Don’t close, they will close for you.

Goal Orientation. Everyone says they are goal oriented, but this group feels that you are OK and they are OK, but we have that mountain to climb. They understand compassion, but don’t let that get in the way of the big picture. They are long term thinkers and are able to balance priorities with decision making. They will get input from others, but not let them drive the ship like a peer oriented person. And they won’t get stuck looking at how things have been in hopes it gives them answers to the future. They will balance the approach with the end in mind. Here is how to work with this group.

• Be open and take time to explain the objective or hear it from them.
• Appeal to team involvement to make the best decision.
• Communicate vision and long term benefits. They will get it.
• Return on investment is always in the discussion. Be prepared.
• Share excitement. They are very positive and love driving goals.
• Have a well defined plan of action with appeal to future needs.
• The two of you will collaborate on the best solution.

In summary, a challenging aspects of Style Flexing is consciously analyzing the situation and how the person wants to make decisions. One size does not fit all. The second and most challenging part of this is that they are not going to change their style for you. You must change yours for them! Sound tough and uncomfortable? You may be reading and thinking you are more of a boss style person. Well, then if you are working with a high peer person you can’t get right down to business the way you love to operate. You will alienate them, they will feel they haven’t been served, and you will lose a customer or prospect. Style Flex to give others what they need to comfortably work with you and feel good about it. It is all about serving others and truly understanding them.

ABBRA or the American Boat Builders and Repairers Association is now featuring articles on customer service. Here is the July issue of the ABBRA Newsletter for Boatyards and Marinas. We wrote an article to help boatyards drive their customer service, loyalty and retention. July, 2010 ABBRA Newsletter

Trust, Credibility, and Rapport. Customers don’t care if you have the best technology, have the best location, or hang out with movie stars. You won’t survive if your foundation is weak. If a customer catches you lying just once they question everything you say in the future. If your advice is out of date, they ask your competitor. If you just don’t quite gel with them and talk their language, they rather not spend time with you. Establish trust, credibility, and rapport to create your network of great customers.

Over the past two weeks while attending the MFSA(Mail & Fulfillment Services Association) and IPMA(In –Plant Printing & Mailing) Annual Conferences I noticed sessions were focused more on customer relations and less on technology. Keynote speaker, John Foley, President of InterlinkOne, presented at the MFSA Conference in Charleston, SC and stressed the importance of social networking to share knowledge, help others, and stay connected. John is successful because he lives by the three foundational principles of trust, credibility, and rapport. Next stop was IPMA’s annual conference in Albuquerque, NM where the keynote, Bill Farquaharson, President of Aspire, explained why customer loyalty isn’t dead, unless you do it to yourself. He stressed the importance of you showing customers how much YOU care. Show them the love!

Yes, you are only as good as their last experience with you, but build up an “emotional bank account” or reserve with your customers. You make a deposit in this emotional bank account every time you go the extra mile, give great advice, connect with a customer in special ways, or whenever they feel unique and special. You withdraw from your account every time you stretch the truth, miss commitments, give poor advice, have awkward communications, or ask them to jump through hoops.

Trust:
Trust involves your honesty and integrity. Trust takes much time to earn and little time to lose. Just ask Tiger Woods. Compare Tiger Woods to John Wooden. Both sports super stars, yet in my opinion, complete opposites. Today while flying back from IPMA I am reading all the John Wooden testimonials and stories in USA Today. During his 99 years with us he touched so many lives in special ways. Tiger is incredible to watch on the course, but John Wooden had such integrity and honor. What a remarkable person. What an emotional bank account he established with so many! What are you doing to build trust? Are you ALWAYS honest with your customers and employees, leading by example under ALL instances, both personal and in business. Trust goes a long way toward building that emotional bank account. Sounds simple, yet how many of us are challenged to remain trustworthy when under stress to perform? Don’t waiver on this core principle. Stay strong!
How can you build trust?
* If you mess up, claim it.
* Always explain facts and don’t stretch it
* Respect confidentiality under all conditions
* Don’t gossip or others will wonder if you will gossip about them

Credibility:
Credibility is a proficiency issue or how good you are. This involves being proficient at your craft, is measured through performance, and expressed by the company you keep. Pick your friends wisely and do things right. Know your customer’s business or industry to help add credibility and be more helpful. Roll out services and products only after you perfect them or have piloted first. Tell the guinea pigs that they are just that. Show honesty and set expectations upfront. Credibility is conveyed to customers by offering great advice, and delivering quality products and service. How can you drive credibility with your customers?
* Continue to learn. Never stop.
* Invest in education and show them what you are doing.
* Hang out with people who are credible
* Offer advice in areas you are proficient.
* Get to know your customer’s business and internal processes

Rapport:
This is extremely challenging and what is called the soft stuff. You want customers to like you and want to be around you. Most know what trustworthiness is and how to be credible, but rapport building doesn’t come natural to most. Rapport is how you connect with your customers and communicate on their wave length. Style flexing is changing your communication style to meet the needs of each customer. Not easy. Don’t show sensitivity toward George Steinbrenner when the Yankees are losing, or don’t get right down to business with Woody Allen. What can you do to build rapport with customers?
* Get good at style flexing. Practice.
* Get good at reading people and adjusting your communication style
* Change your mindset from one of “customers just need to get to know me better” to “I need to know how my customer is wired to be effective”.
* If you can’t style flex, then pick customers who appreciate your one size fits all
mentality.
* Don’t expect customers to change their communication style to fit yours.
* Get psyched about your customer’s business and get personal.

In summary, deliberately watch your emotional bank account with customers. You must earn their trust, prove you know your stuff, and be someone they connect with. Get all three in line and everything else falls into place. Don’t forget the best way to monitor these foundational principles is to ask customers through an effective, ongoing survey process.

You may survey customers regularly, but how frequently do you analyze the results? Even more importantly, have you implemented any changes based on the feedback?

Bottom line is that you must take action on the results or don’t bother surveying. Surveying should be conducted for process improvement and expansion. It shouldn’t be to get that ISO auditor out your door and do it just to say you do something! Surveying is not an event, but an ongoing process.” Below are the top 5 questions we are asked when printers are setting up a print buyer feedback process.

Should I survey customers with every print order?

For repeat buyers we suggest surveying no more than every 90 days. If surveyed too often, regular repeat buyers will become annoyed and you will drive down loyalty. Also, in your email message state something like “You won’t get this survey more often than every 90 days if you buy from us regularly.” Tell customers upfront so they won’t assume the survey process is going to turn into a spam issue. If you are correctly managing the frequency of surveys to repeat buyers, you can anticipate a 20% to 35% response rate on a continuous basis. Let the feedback flow and let customers know that the survey is just another way to stay connected and responsive.

How many questions should I ask?

Keep the survey to less than 30 seconds (5-7 questions maximum). State In the email invitation that it will take less than a minute of their time and stick to that promise. Don’t say that it will take 30 seconds and then ask 30 questions. You may want to change the questions regularly and the invitation email to keep it fresh and inviting.

When considering the number of questions, be aware that there are two types of surveys. A strategic survey helps to map out necessary investments during the upcoming year. Customers appreciate this type of survey. If it’s positioned correctly and you promise to share the results with them, they will give you 5 minutes and answer around 20 questions. The second type of survey is the post-job survey or the 90-day pulse type survey to keep connected in an ongoing fashion. We suggest doing both because one is strategic and one tactical, but if budget and time is a constraint, go for the tactical survey asking customers for 1 minute to answer 5 or 6 questions and keep communication open all the time.

If I can only ask one question, what should it be?

“How likely are you to recommend us to colleagues and friends?” This is the ultimate question and there is an entire book dedicated to this question called “The Ultimate Question.”

What are the biggest mistakes I should avoid when surveying customers?

1. Waiting too long between surveys. I spoke to a printer last week that hadn’t surveyed customers in 10 years. He got good results, but when I asked why he waited 10 years he said it took too much time. Using today’s technology, surveying should not be that time consuming. Just read Lori Fuller’s case study from University of Nebraska at www.surveyadvantage.com/printers
2. Making the survey too long.
3. Making the process too complicated so it isn’t done continuously.
4. Assigning the wrong person to manage the process. I have seen “gaming” of the system where an internal person doesn’t survey certain customers because they don’t want to hear complaints. That’s a bad reason not to survey. You need to hear from everyone.
5. Not continually monitoring the process. If management doesn’t watch the process and the person assigned looks at surveying as an optional task, it might not get done regularly. Or it may stop and management never realizes that it has stopped. Gathering and monitoring customer feedback starts at the top and must be part of the culture of the operation — not just another task thrown out there.

Once the information is gathered, what should I do?

The best, most successful printers contact every customer who responds to the survey. That is right, every one. There is a story behind every survey even the glowing ones. Thanking those customers with great comments shows you listened and appreciate their comments. If you get a referral call, thank them so you get more referrals. Thankfulness breeds more good work. Those who are neutral about the experience should be asked how you can change to get top marks. Comments that are positive should be acknowledged and once again respondents should be thanked for their time and candidness. Negative survey results are typically the ones that gain the most attention, but there is usually more opportunity to sell to those customers who are happy and will share with you other services that they buy elsewhere or provide a referral. Remember contacting respondents builds loyalty, and they are more likely to fill out the survey once again later in the year.

The best, most successful printers also share the glowing comments with their teams to build moral. Post it on the lunchroom bulletin board. Managers can tell an employee that their efforts are appreciated, but it means so much more to get it from the customer directly. Approximately 95% of survey comments are positive. Don’t bury them in the customer feedback database. Share them. In addition, the best printers put questions on the survey that probe for other selling opportunities. Keep the survey to around 5 questions, but build one question in to learn what services they are buying elsewhere or to ask for a referral.

Don’t just look at surveying as a reactive, passive process. It can be a selling process as well.
Take the compiled information and do something with it. Just today I spoke with a printer who had 30% of his customers share what they bought elsewhere. Sadly, he hadn’t followed up on any of them because he was so busy in production. He did say over the next few months he is going to make a conscious effort to pursue those leads to expand client share. The good news was that he followed up on every referral and closed two new accounts.

Another great strategy is to print out the survey results weekly and review them with your team. Discuss what customers are saying and together come up with a game plan. One printer does an annual survey and then goes through all the nearly 300 responses, does his own SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), and delegates at the account level and strategic execution level. This printer has done this for 4 years now and has had tremendous success even in a weak Michigan economy.

If sending out a survey is the first and last step, you are dropping the ball at the most important time. Put the information to work for your business. If conducted properly, surveys are indispensable tools for growing your business, enhancing performance and making informed decisions about the allocation of resources.
For more information, read printer case studies at http://www.surveyadvantage.com/printers

Recently there was a discussion between business owners who were concerned with surveying their customers and causing a negative reaction. They shared how much they hate getting surveys. In a Business to Consumer relationship many times we get pounded with surveys and get numb to them hitting “delete” as quick as we can. But, I would warn you not to generalize. Know thy customer!

Depends on the relationship one has with the specific supplier, how important that supplier is to their business, how long the survey it, and most importantly if the company responses quickly the first time the customer shares their thoughts. If I have a good ongoing relationship with the supplier as a partner, they are important to my well being, the survey is short and covers points most interesting to me and not you, and the company responds quickly maybe even call me, then I feel it is a way to get things changed and get a reaction. I will fill out surveys for them.

Example, if I have a partnership type relationship with my printer, rely on them to perform to drive marketing efforts, the survey takes a minute, and they call to discuss, then I DO NOT get survey burn-out.

If you are just another printer, who puts out average work with no skin in my game, the survey doesn’t respect my time, and you do nothing when I gave feedback of any kind in the past, then I hate to get your survey, wouldn’t take it, and WOULD get survey burnt out quickly. I would be burnt out the first time I got a survey and maybe even use it as an excuse to stop using you because I was thinking of moving on anyway and needed a reason.

We get so many surveys, but the ones I take are the ones where I respect their business, enjoy working with them, they know me, or I know they will do something with my information.

I would argue that burnout is an indication that the supplier is missing something in their relationship with the customer or they lack an understanding of how frequently to go to the well for feedback or how to approach customers for feedback.

In the September 25th issue of the On-Demand E-Newsletter issue, Survey Advantage President, Michael Casey, shares with the community effective ways of implementing best practice surveying processes to stay connected with print buyers.

Read the article

Recently an association executive was trying to learn how to approach a membership award program for their conference.  Below are a few things to consider.  Granted this is a professional organization so take what you would like from it.   Here is the response.

Hopefully the ideas below helps as you decide how to approach.

1) You may want to start off with maybe a few awards that focus on the key, most important awards. I have seen members dread going to their big dinner / award dinner because they state “I see more firewood being handed out and I never go to them”. Firewood meaning plagues. Be careful and pick your battle. Members will appreciate it and you can test the waters and expand from there.

2) Depending on your membership a plague is a nice gesture and something visible. Certificates may work if in a nice frame and something they would hang in their office or out in front. I noticed you are a teacher association so maybe the certificates would be nice right next to their degree. Also, academia may be more open to recognition versus trade associations so you may be onto something.

3) I don’t think the money is the thing. A nice plague or certificate should be fine. It is the recognition more than the money in most cases with professional organizations.

4) Definitely would give them a little token or money to come out and stay.Again, nothing crazy, but maybe the flight and motel room.

You know your membership and what gets them jazzed more than anyone so I suggest going with your first instinct or go out to members and ask, but start small if you can and then grow from there if possible. First year maybe 5 awards, and then increase as feedback comes back and you see the response from members and winners.

Also, promoting the awards is important and giving PR to those winning members. Maybe a short case study posted on your website explaining what they did to win and why they are a star peer.