Service (real service) is the next BIG thing!

Whenever I talk to just about any business owner and the topic of how they deal with existing clients, even a one off sale, the answer in 99% of cases is the same. We don’t do anything, nothing, not a thing! We make the sale, they buy, they go! Opportunity gone. (Or lost!)

Just about every business, regardless of what they do, sell or make is the same. The focus is more on client attraction than on client retention. Getting them back again and again is for whatever reason, not their focus!

Why this is the case I don’t know, because when you get deeper into the conversation, most people know it’s an area they neglect but just do nothing about it.

If you get the fundamental idea behind business growth, primarily the objective would be to never lose a client ever. Not to mention the prospects, enquiries and whoever else drops by but does nothing. You could be right in assuming that if a customer buys once, there’s probably a good chance they’ll buy again and again and tell others, as long as the product, service and experience are good enough.

Followup is the most missed opportunity in business and it doesn’t matter whether your small, medium, large or multi national franchise, 99% of businesses are the same. They just don’t followup!

To me it’s all the same thing, the service experience that our clients want, that make all the difference to whether they’re coming back or not, is all based around the customer experience, energy and engagement they get, that comes as a result of simply following up! That’s it. If someone buys, followup. How was it, let me tell you more, what’s next!

It doesn’t matter what industry your in. Build a relationship with the client, give them an experience they value and they’ll be back. Don’t and there’s a fair chance they won’t! In all my experience of servicing my clients I’ve never found that over service results in less business. But the opposite is definitely true!

Surveyed clients have shown a number of common sense statistics based on improving client retention.

• A 5% improvement in client retention can improve turnover by between 25% to 125%
• Loyal repeat clients tend to spend on average between 133% and 1000% more and on average refer four others over their lifetime.
• 51% of customers are also prepared to pay more for the same product or service, if it comes with a better service experience.

Take coffee as an example. An average small coffee in any little cafe will cost around $4 but many much more and others, in petrol stations, can get you a coffee for a $1. They’re all coffee and the dollar coffee is fine but it’s the experience, the service, the ambience that people are paying for and paying as much as 400% more for it. So yes, people will pay more for the experience, otherwise coffee shops would be closing down at a fast rate.

Take another service related statistic. Of the clients that do leave you and go elsewhere, 68% do so for no other reason than a perceived lack of indifference. They just thought you didn’t care or the service experience didn’t exist!

The real challenge is getting everyone in the team to understand what the objectives are. Treat customers like they are everything because they are. Without them you have no business. Far too many businesses can have a couple of great staff that do everything to create that relationship with the client that gets them coming back, to only be destroyed by another staff member that’s having a bad day, month, or life!

There are a number of aspects of the complete customer service experience aspect that all businesses need to adopt if they want to grow. It includes the complete prospect, customer and ongoing client relationship process, that ensures that every contact never gets lost, forgotten and gets followup. Learn what they are, establish expectations and systems that the entire team perform under and business grows dramatically.

If all you did was improve the experience, energy and engagement level, that in turn had a positive effect on the turnover of a business, as I mentioned earlier at the lowest level of 25% that’s more than double what the current average SME growth rate of under 9% is currently.

Is it worth it? Yes! But businesses and their teams need skills to understand exactly what they need to do and then set expectations and manage the process. Do that even slightly better than you do or an average business does now and any business can grow.

Mybusinessnow is all about uncomplicating the growth process of just about any business. Most businesses could in fact double but most will never do that because if nothing changes, nothing changes.

We do that by giving businesses owners and their teams the skills they need, with the knowledge and confidence to do it right. We also structure and systemise those processes to make it easy to follow and continue to support the process so changes and growth happen. You don’t have to do everything at once, you just need to take one step at a time. Do that, make the 1% changes and businesses move forward.

If you’d like to join us at one of our free monthly small group workshops and see exactly what holds businesses back and then how to overcome those problems and see how businesses can get real growth, click on the link. https://form.jotform.co/90707847420863

Mybusinessnow, helping businesses grow since 1993. Uncomplicating the process of building a better business, faster, easier and simpler.