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.

This past May, Survey Advantage and Marina Dockage Magazine teamed up to conduct a water access study of marina operators across North America.  The study focuses on major issues facing marinas as they relate to water access, shoreline property demand, and shoreline development.   Survey Advantage helped set goals, design the survey and questions, drive response rates, collect data, and create reports while Marina Dockage focused on what they do best; analyzing information and reporting their findings.  The corresponding article, authored by Peter Gallanis appears in the August, 2008 issue of  Marina Dock Age Magazine and is a must read for Marinas everywhere. To read the full article, download the PDF here

Survey Advantage recently published a case study in the Association of Marina Industries Advocate, their monthly publication.   The study featured Charlestown City Marina collecting real time feedback from transient boaters, to keep a pulse on day to day operations.  You can see the full newsletter here, or go directly to the case study here.

Discount boater-retention programs and benchmark studies now offered to marinas

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American Boat Builder and Repairers Association and Survey Advantage release the ABBRA Customer Satisfaction Index benchmark program to their membership of 350 marine service providers and manufacturers. ABBRA and Survey Advantage designed this program to help raise the standards in the industry and to help membership benchmark performance.

Boating Industry magazine article covering the importance of a CSI strategy and ways of implementing one.

42 Ideas for launching CSI