photo credit: Zigar

When your store is out of stock on an item…what does your staff do and say?

When I was out of state not long ago, I looked around for a pair of light hikers for everyday wear. I knew exactly what I wanted right down to the model name.

I visited a locally owned store, but they didn’t have my size in stock. A few days later, I visited a box store. They had the shoe on the wall (which is never my size), but they didn’t have any others. They didn’t even have the match to the one on the wall.

As I got into the car in the box store parking lot, I called the locally owned store again just in case they had some new arrivals. Nope.

They offered to order a pair for me, but I told them I was visiting from elsewhere and wouldn’t be around when they arrived.

At this point, they had choices:  Focus on the sale, focus on the customer or try harder.

What’s your focus?

If your sales people are trained to focus on the sale, they might say “Nope, we don’t have any” and be disappointed that they didn’t get a sale. If that’s the end of the conversation, your customer might go elsewhere – losing the sale and the customer.

If your sales people are trained to focus on the customer, they might say “Nope, we don’t have any. Have you looked at (competitor number one) or (competitor number two)? They both carry that brand.”

If your sales people are trained to focus on keeping your customers happy, they might say ”Nope, we don’t have any. If you come by and let us fit you in a similar shoe in that brand, I can order that model in your size and have it shipped to you. If it doesn’t fit like you want, we’ll take care of you until you’re happy or we’ll give your money back.”

What they did was refer me to two of their competitors (one was the store whose parking lot I was in). The second one had my size in stock, so 20 minutes later, I had my shoes and was heading for the in-laws place.

The “try harder” choice might not have been what I wanted, but I wasn’t given a choice. Keep in mind that you can always fall back from the “try harder” position if the customer isn’t interested in or cannot use that kind of help.

The important thing

You might think that the locally owned retailer lost a sale, but that isn’t as important as keeping the customer over the long term.

While I wasn’t able to buy the shoes from the place I wanted, they were able to help me find them.

They could’ve run me off quickly by saying “We don’t have that size.”

They didn’t do that. I suspect their handling of the call was the result of training driven by a management decision.

I wasn’t a familiar voice calling them on the phone. While I’ve bought from their store on and off for 20 years, they don’t know that because they keep paper sales tickets. I’m not there often enough to be a familiar face / voice and had not been in their town for two years.

Yet they treated me like someone they want to come back.

Do you treat your customers that way? Do your online competitors?

Competition from tomorrow?

Sometimes business owners complain about online competition.

Yet online stores can rarely provide instant gratification. It’s difficult for them to help you buy something you need today for a meal, event, dinner, date, meeting or presentation happening later today.

They can rarely deliver the kind of service a local, customer-focused business can offer.

Online often gets a foothold when local service and/or selection are poor and focused on the wrong thing. Even with online pricing, a product isn’t delivered until tomorrow.

When you aren’t competing strongly against tomorrow, you really aren’t even competing against today.

Focus on helping them get what they want and need. Whether they are local or remote, customers just want to be well taken care of and get what they came for.

photo credit: Délirante bestiole [la poésie des goupils]

Our clients are so stupid!

Is that your company’s vibe?

If you aren’t sure, ask the people who staff your front desk, sales department and/or customer support/service positions.

At one time, the majority of my software customers were studio photographers.

Their industry was making the massive shift from film to digital. Prior to that, many (if not most) of them had a love/hate relationship with computers. Digital *forced* them to deal with computers and business growth pushed them there as well.

It wasn’t at all unusual for a photographer to apologize for being “stupid” (their words) when asking for help, because they weren’t “experts on computers”.

I reminded them that we’re all stupid about something, noting that I’d look pretty stupid if they started asking me questions about posing, lighting and other technical things about their business. Photographers back then (late 1990s – early 2000s) usually weren’t computer experts and didn’t need to be. Today, technical expertise is a necessity in their business thanks to digital photography and videography.

Unicorns and Clouds

One of my first duties in the technology business was “dealing with users”. I was trained early on that the people on the other end of the phone paid the bills.

Fast forward a few years… A small handful of people are discussing various technology topics and one says “How does one explain to a customer that there is no ‘cloud’? There is only someone else’s remote server. There are also no unicorns.”

Naturally, the wiseguys call this person out for claiming that there are no unicorns, but soon the conversation resumes in technoworld.

At first, this person was reminded that, technically at least, a remote server isn’t the same thing as a cloud.

One tried to keep the conversation civil, wondering aloud if the easiest way to explain it was to ask the customer to “define the word ‘cloud’ as if you could find it in Webster’s dictionary.” He continued noting that a cloud is a group of servers and that the number and location of those servers could vary.

The original questioner remained in “my customer is stupid” mode by commenting that the customer’s data “lives” somewhere and that it isn’t just floating in space, following that with a comment that perhaps a cloud is a “server with blue spray paint and cotton balls.”

It was noted to this person that a cloud and a server are far from the same thing, offering that “a cloud is multiple redundant servers with the ability to fail over, load balance, etc. not just one box in granny’s house out of state”.

That got nowhere and was quickly rebuked by “This customer isn’t that smart. Says he doesn’t want his data on a server, he wants it “in the cloud”. I think he’s watching too many television commercials.” followed by “As I sit here at home backing up my entire website via FTP before updating our shopping cart software, bored silly while it takes forever. Considering how long it’s taking me to back up my website, I can’t imagine why this guy wants ‘cloud’ storage”

Enough!

At this point, I’d heard enough and said this situation shows why he needed to have established a position as the “expert” in his market. His response: “That’s what I like about my other business. The customers don’t presume to know anything about it.”

It was painfully clear at that point that he wasn’t interested in hearing legitimate reasons on his customer’s behalf. He just wanted to whine about a customer others would be glad to have, but I wasn’t done. I noted that his customer’s business might require travel and thus need access from anywhere.

He didn’t care.

I then suggested (with a touch of sarcasm) that his customers might have picked up an airline magazine (which often discuss business topics, given their market) and that he could have defused the whole thing by educating his customers with a pre-emptive “This is a cloud and why you might (or might not) want to use one” blog post.

Your customers want your leadership, not your disdainful, disrespectful scorn. Be their expert, but never underestimate them.

photo credit: Caveman Chuck Coker

Ever walked out of a store, or ended a phone call with a business and thought “Man, what a hassle. Why do they make it so hard for me to give them my money?”

For example, I mostly read the news online but I like an old school Sunday paper. Problem is, I can’t get the Sunday paper delivered locally because the company that publishes it won’t sell Sunday-only subscriptions – not even at a premium.

To be sure, that’s a choice they have the right to make, but… it’s a hassle.

As a result, I either:

1) Stumble out the door in my robe at 6 am, shuffle to the end of the driveway, grab the Sunday paper, walk back inside and park myself in the recliner to enjoy a hot cuppa Joe and read the paper. Except that my house isn’t on a route that gets a paper by 6am, at least not the last time I subscribed. I mean, the paper guy doesn’t beam them to me, so *someone* has to be at 6am and someone else has to be at 6:05am so that really isn’t a complaint. Oh and I have to subscribe to everyday delivery to do that, even though I just want the paper on Sunday.

or

2) Get dressed (which would probably make the neighbors happier), warm up the car, drive to a convenience store, get some change at the register, go outside to the machine to grab a paper, drive home and *then* park myself in the recliner, etc.

As I said, it’s a hassle. So much so that I lose the habit of doing it.

Thought to avoid: I suspect their sales department thinks this situation will somehow encourage me to include “Subscribe seven days a week” as my third choice, but it really doesn’t. Instead, the hassle breaks the habit. I also don’t want to create a big pile of paper to recycle. It’s a hassle.

Picky? Me?

Like many of yours, I can be a picky customer. This isn’t a rant against a newspaper – that would be rather ironic given that a version of this blog is published in a, uh, newspaper. I’m just setting the context so you have an idea what you need to watch out for.

Hassles are what causes great businesses to be started. It’s why Blockbuster started. Ironically enough, hassle is what also killed Blockbuster (because Netflix cured those hassles). Of course, recently Netflix created their own hassles. It’s the circle of life, I guess.

The other day I read a tweet that said “when you focus on the numbers, you forget the customer.”  That’s a little extreme, but if you know the context, it’s right on. Take care of the customer and they’ll take care of you.

What about you?

I’ve mentioned here before that one of my local banks years ago eliminated a long-standing hassle – that deposits made today but after some arbitrary now-irrelevant time (like 3:00 pm) are not credited till the next day. That’s a change that makes it obvious they understand at least one of the challenges business owners face. It’s a bank you *want* to do business with.

Now you can check the mail, grab the checks and head to the bank at the end of the day, not at mid-afternoon prime work time. That’s how you get rid of a hassle.

If you look around, you may find that you create a few hassles for your customers. Rather than waste a lot of time staring at things – you could just ask them.

“Is it a hassle doing business with us?”, “If it ever a pain to deal with us? When?”, “What’s more trouble than it’s worth when it comes to working with us?” or something like that is all it will take.

Hassles mean lost sales

Before long I’ll have to get the wood stove and snowblower serviced. If the guys who do that work really wanted to remove a hassle, they’d send me a postcard, an email or call me to schedule that work. In the case of the snowblower, maybe even offer to pick it up for an extra $15 or so.

Some customers might not have trailers, or would be happy to borrow one just long enough to run home, grab the machine and bring it back. No worries about getting it there and back = One less hassle. Or maybe two.

How can you make it easier for them to give you their money?

For that matter, how can you make everything easier?

photo credit: nandadevieast

One of the things I help business owners understand is how to tell their story (and why they should bother).

Sometimes, business owners don’t have a story, or at least, they think they don’t. Yet when you ask them, it’s a rare person who doesn’t have a tale that answers “How’d you get into this business?”

Many times, the work people do is a means to an end, or at least it seems that way on the surface because they just haven’t thought about it as their story.

Sometimes they got there by happenstance or by being in the right place at the right time. A family tradition leads others into a line of work after a parent sells or leaves them a business they didn’t even consider being in. Some folks “grow up” in the business and follow in their parents’ footsteps – even if that requires years of college.

For others, a business might have come out of something they’d done forever and decided to turn that activity into their way of making a living – say, a serious fly fisher starting a fly shop or a fishing guide service business.

More often than not the story is rooted in their passion for the work, for solving the problem their business solves, or the people they work with while doing so.

Your story is what sets the stage for a well-worn quote: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.“  (Attributed to everyone from FDR to a soccer coach from UNC to John Maxwell)

It does that because how you got to where you are today says a lot of about the “how much you care” thing.

But sometimes, the answer isn’t so exciting. Or so it seems.

At Our Company, we strive to stay current with the latest products and techniques. We consider ourselves experts in our field and we invite you to take advantage of our expertise so that you can be assured to have the equipment, accessories and service that meets your needs.

Please take a look around our website. You’ll find information about the comprehensive line of cycling products and services we offer to maximize the fun factor in your outdoor activities. And be sure to check out our Resources & Links page where you can access all sorts of valuable information for cycling enthusiasts.

Stop by and visit us at Our Company … we’d love to get to know you better.

Check out Our Company online and add your ‘Like’ on facebook.com/ourcompany

Only 2 things in all of that give you any idea what they do: “cycling” and “outdoor activities”.

Why you?

I can buy cycling gear in a lot of places, including WalMart and Amazon.

I buy it from locally-owned stores for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that I want access to someone who can do more than just hand me the bag with my stuff in it. I want access to an expert who will base their answers to my newbie questions on their 27,438 miles of riding.

I have a lot of wants, just like people who play Warcraft, brew their own beer, restore mid-1950 Chevys or manicure Bonsai trees.

People who do those things don’t want to buy stuff from someone who doesn’t know anything about those things – and they sure don’t want to buy them from someone who doesn’t care about those things.

Something like this (which I just tossed together) tells people why you care:

We’re cyclists. The finest moments of our lives are memories of eating dust on single tracks only we and the bears know about, getting air at BMX events, leading the Tour de Hometown (even if only for a moment), riding in the kiddie seat on the back of our parents’ bikes during a trip to France and sharing the same memory with our kids right here at home.

Every bike, component, accessory gear and clothing in our shop is tested and personally approved by our staff. We don’t just hire salespeople or mechanics. We hire cyclists. We know you want help from someone who’s been where you’re going – or wants to ride along.

When we aren’t on our bikes, we love to use our combined 74 years of road racing, BMX, trail riding and cross-country touring experience to help you get the most out of your ride. We can’t wait to meet you and talk bikes.

If they know your story, they’ll know why you care.

photo credit: Andrew Morrell Photography

Earning, retaining and regaining the trust of your customers has been central to this blog from the beginning.

We talk about a lot of different things that all come down to creating an atmosphere of trust with your clientele. That trust will build a relationship and that relationship, even if impersonal, is what makes business personal to your customers.

A few questions came out of recent conversations on these topics and the best ones were these:

• How can an impersonal business relationship truly be personal?
• How does a vendor recover from a massive loss of trust?

Come on, Steeeeve

How can an impersonal business relationship truly be personal?

Easy…it starts with trust.

For example, I have a relationship with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Do we know each other personally, like I do some of my readers? No.

Despite that, I know enough about him from his behavior and the behavior of his company to trust him – at least enough to invest in his company’s products and recommend them to others who trust me.

His behavior and the behavior of his company over time tell me a few things:

I trust that when he walks on stage to speak about new products:

• He is going to announce things will often seem as if they were designed specifically for my use. Not because he has me on speed dial, but because his company has habitually built products which do just that.
• He is going to announce products that will be publicly available today or very soon.

How is that different from others?

Some companies build something not to fill a need their customers have expressed,  or a need that they’ve discovered through vision and research, but because (for example) they compete with Apple in some other way and perhaps feel obligated to compete there too.

Those conversations seem to start with “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” or “Well, if so-and-so did it, so can we…”

When you come to market with a product with that much R&D behind it and no one blinks… somewhere, somehow, your company simply isn’t listening well.

Example, HP just cancelled WebOS and their TouchPad tablet one day after Best Buy publicly complained they’d only managed to sell 25,000 of the 270,000 devices they ordered. While it seems to me that this is a strategic buying error on Best Buy’s part, it isn’t as if HP can’t be held accountable for making a product that can’t compete in the marketplace. No question that the iPad and other devices hurt them badly, but they’ve known about the iPad since at least January 2010.

Again…listen well.

Some vendors announce new products years before they plan to ship – and in some cases they never deliver them. In the most extreme cases, they pre-sell them and then fail to deliver. Some repeatedly toss out anticipated release dates and never meet any of them. Try recovering from a misstep like that, even if it wasn’t intentional.

Trust starts in the mirror

How does a vendor recover from a massive loss of trust?

At the risk of being Mr. Obvious, you start recovering by earning back the trust you lost (or earning what you never had).

Start with this: Say what you’ll do, then do what you said. If you stumble, own up to it. Seem too simple? Laugh it off if you like, but as Tom Peters says “There’s not much traffic on the extra mile.”

Some of you will point to Jerry over there and you’ll say “He’ll never come back no matter what we do.”

You might be right, but more Jerrys will leave if you keep acting the way you do now. If you don’t change, how can you expect them to? Even if you don’t get Jerry back, there are others who will recognize your efforts with each bit of trust you earn.

Each customer you lose because of something you did to lose the trust of that customer. You delivered late. You didn’t deliver at all. Your quality was poor. You treated them poorly.

These problems can be repaired. Just like trust.

Puit d’Amour from St. Honoré Boulangerie

This past week, I had the pleasure of visiting the still somewhat chilly seaside of Oregon thanks to a handful of out of town appointments.

In between the productive parts of the week, we managed to visit a couple of western Oregon wineries.

While a good time was had by all, I found it interesting how different each winery’s tasting room experience was designed to sell.

The Fancy One

This winery, created originally as a farm by a Montanan from Butte, was a bit upscale, sizable and very clean. It was a long-established place, noting that “long established” means “since 1980 or so”.

They’re that new because ash from Mount St. Helens’ eruption killed most crops in the area, changing the soil for decades to come.

The room said “old money” (dark, massive woods). While there were a few sweatshirts available, the retail portion of the room was all about the wine. Lots of it. Information from two inconsistently dressed but very sharp wine servers was on target, friendly and as detailed as you wanted. They clearly loved talking wine.

The Spartan One

This tasting room had a simple, fuss-free entry off of their gravel parking lot behind the wine production area. There’s a bar, a few barstools and an area clearly used for packing shipments. All in the tasting room. The lone wine steward was reasonably well-educated about the wine but didn’t really provoke the conversation.

The Homey One

This one was very new, expecting to bottle their own wine from their own grapes for the very first time this year. Previously, they’ve made wine using grapes from nearby vineyards.

The tasting room was homey, if not a bit cluttered with every wine accessory and kitsch you could think of. A yellow lab was chilled out on the floor. A guitarist was just outside the tasting room’s open door, playing in shaded patio seating area. Unfortunately the wine at this place wasn’t very good. The staff was right at home, downright friendly and maybe even too at home if that’s possible.

The Experienced One

This winery was almost 20 years old. Their marketing materials (online) referenced comments by a well-known reviewer. The tasting room was small, uncluttered and while it had wine accessories, they include only those focused on a better wine experience (vs. coasters and talking corkscrews).

Staff was knowledgeable and friendly in an average sort of way. Nothing bad, but nothing outstanding.

What struck me

While we didn’t visit all of the wineries (there are quite a few), the ones we did visit took very different approaches to their goal – presumably that of selling wine.

In every tasting room, there was little to take home other than wine that would bring you back to them to buy more. Few items had a website address on them – at least those that you could take with you.

No one asked us for contact information, not even those who sold us a bottle of wine.

In some cases, there were Oregon wine country brochures and/or county-specific winery marketing association brochures, rather than winery-specific info.

Every winery but the “Fancy One” was out of “wine menus”. These are descriptive sheets about each of their wines that left you room to take notes and perhaps note which one you prefer over another and why. In two different places, the only one they had was leftover from a Memorial Day special event – in both situations, it was the last one they had.

Why is this important?

How will they choose?

Out of the 40+ wineries in that Oregon county, during our visit they often have but ONE chance to get a visitor to fall in love with their place, their wine, their mystique, and the grapes that only they know how to nurture.

These small facilities (small in the wine world) sell at most one wine in retail locations. Some sell only at the winery. That’s right – they have no retail presence.

Ordinarily, you’d want these visitors to ask their local store for your wine, but they often can’t. Their small production (number of cases produced annually) prevents widespread distribution. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you’ve got to get them loving your stuff quickly in that situation.

Think about trying to penetrate (much less stand out in) mainstream retail wine shelf space the next time you walk into a grocery that carries wine (or a wine center store). It’s like looking at the salad dressing bottle shelves at WalMart. Your eyes glaze over at all the choices.

When the mind is presented with a zillion choices, one of two things tends to happen. People take the default choice (Gallo?, Wishbone?) or they make no choice at all. Next time you’re in your local grocery, watch people look at the wine shelves. They’ll look and look and in many cases, they’ll give up and take a Gallo (or whatever they saw on TV recently, or whatever is on sale).

Why? Because no one stands out in that environment. That’s why you see more and more outlandish labels and wine names. They know their bottles are on a shelf with 200 others so they’ll do A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G to catch your eye.

What do you want me to do next?

Knowing that the competition (where you might not be stocked) often caters to “How much?”, why wouldn’t you try to hook folks while they’re in your tasting room? It’s the best possible situation for the winery. They can’t grab a Gallo. They can shop by price, but they still get to taste before they buy. They have experts to help them choose what fits their taste buds and their budget.

There’s something else critical about that the tasting room visitor: She walks in the front door with a sign over her head that says “I like wine and I’m willing to drive all the way here to try YOURS.”  Think about how often you get the opportunity to make a first impression on someone who has tipped their hand that strongly.

What does the winery want them to do next? Beyond taking home a case (or even a single bottle), they want these visitors to go home and order more of their wines online (if they can). They want them to ask their local store to stock or custom order them. They want their visitors want them to go to the DailyGrape and watch Gary‘s reviews of their wines and then order from him.

If that’s what you want them to do, you have to make it easy.

And now, it’s your turn.

Now…think about the “browsers” who enter your business. Think about the first time buyers and, where appropriate, the tourists who enter your business.

How do you “stick” in their minds? How do you help them return, even if all they can do is return to your website?

Wineries have to deal with customers in states (like Montana) who cannot (easily) have wine shipped to them due to arcane laws put in place (and kept there) by fear-driven trade associations.

In one way or another, we all have situations like that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take every step possible to make it easy to buy. How are you making it “easy to buy” even for your customers who have to exert effort to do so?

Let’s simplify that a bit: How are you making your stuff easy to buy?

What do you want them (your visitors) to do next?

photo credit: Peter Gorges

Feedback-wise…

• A great client is one who asks tough questions incessantly, almost always in a polite manner.
• A good client is one who asks tough questions regularly, sometimes politely.
• A bad customer is one who asks poor questions, regardless of how they ask them.

Tough questions are your friend. They’re like competitors because they make you better. Or at least, they should.

As for those that aren’t yet great? Your job is to help them achieve it.

photo credit: antaean

If you look at the path a prospect follows on the way to becoming a customer and then, at their path as a new customer; you’ll see plenty of places where it would be valuable for them to receive an occasional tap on the shoulder.

With that tap comes just a little bit of info, but it won’t/shouldn’t always be a sales message, at least not explicitly.

Consider these 3 little words: “Did you know?”

They start sentences like these:

• Did you know… that if you get stuck, we have 24 x 7 customer support lines?
• Did you know… that 90% of businesses fail after a fire destroys their business – and much of that is because they are underinsured. Those who might have made it often don’t because they don’t have their current customer/order data backed up, which means that on fire day + 1, they have no idea who needs a follow up, who placed an order yesterday, etc. Using the automated backup feature in our software can save your business. We’ll be happy to show you how it works.
• Did you know… that many of our customers find our software’s dashboard feature motivational to them and their staff? Here’s a link to a video showing you how to turn it on.
• Did you know… that we offer a 180 day money back guarantee? There’s simply no risk to putting our product/service to work for you.
• Did you know… that we offer free online training videos that are broken down by function and only last 2-3 minutes? You can take a brief break, learn what you need to know right now and get back to work.

You get the idea.

Look at the typical timeline for a prospect.

Where do YOUR prospects need a little bit of assistance, a hand on the shoulder or a Did You Know?

After they’ve bought, when do they need a little help? For customers you’ve had for months or years, are there new features or new things you do for your customers? Put each of these items in your follow up system and let them know when it is appropriate for each customer.

They can be emailed and blogged, but they should also go out in your printed newsletter.

You *do* have a printed monthly customers-only newsletter, right? 4 pages is enough. Seems like a little thing but it’ll never get ignored if it’s good.

All of these things put together will start to build a follow up system that no competitor will duplicate. And that’s exactly what we want.

photo credit: soapylovedeb

Even if you aren’t a venture capitalist or someone seeking the help of one, the concept of lines and dots is important to understand.

For you, today’s guest post from VC Mark Suster is all about the relationship you have with clients.

More accurately, it’s about the relationship they feel they have with you.

If they trust you, there’s little they won’t do.

What are you doing to support their trust in you? What are you doing to undermine it?

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

One of the lessons my dad impressed on me when I was old enough to begin to “get it” (or so I thought) was “Be a good listener.”

Naturally, the meaning of that phrase changed for me over the years.

• As a teenager, it had a rather obvious meaning, “Pay attention and you might learn something.”
• As a college student, the meaning changed a bit, but the fundamentals were the same.
• As a newly married guy and later as a dad, I fine-tuned it a bit for the roles I found myself in.

Ultimately, it was about listening before speaking or acting. A handy business lesson if there ever was one.

At work, it became far more complex as it became about listening…really listening to customers (including other people’s customers) about the detective work necessary to create and retain customer loyalty, and sometimes, about figuring out what wasn’t being said while the words still flowed.

Sometimes the most important words from a customer are the ones they fail to say.

Despite the complexity that lesson has taken on at times, the core message is still the important one – a message of listening to learn, one of the most valuable lessons my father taught me.

What level of care do you deliver?

My current context for the most personal level of service was set by Hospice of Cumberland County (Tenn.), but the who and what isn’t really the context I’m trying to get at. The level itself is what I want you to arrive at, regardless of what you do.

Consider the level of care that you’d give to a sick family member. It’s likely to always exceed that given during the course of business, but it’s a standard of care that you can consider when designing different levels of service in your business.

A level of care we’re speaking of is very personal. It isn’t suited for just any business and perhaps not for just any customer, but that isn’t my decision to make about your business. Fact is, it might be perfect for a subset of your customers…or perhaps all of them.

As personal as the end of life care you’d provide for a family member? Isn’t that a bit much? Sure it is.

I suggest that because it brings a level of personal touch to what you deliver that you might not ever have considered. While you still might not deliver something that’s of the same class as end of life care for a family member, it might just provoke a thought that transforms your high end business. That which transforms your high end business quite often transforms the rest of it as well.

What level of care have you failed to offer to your clients? Beyond levels of care, what care itself are you failing to deliver to your clientele?

Doing it right

The other lesson I remember most is “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” The unspoken second part of that is “That doesn’t mean that you should do less.”

You might wonder if there is a conflict there, but I don’t believe so. Doing the job the best you can, each time, doesn’t mean perfect. It just means best for you given the skills you possess at that time *and* with a commitment to continuous improvement.

Not starting a project (or a piece of work) because the outcome can’t be perfect is far worse than finishing it with your best, yet imperfect effort. What have you not started because you felt you couldn’t deliver perfect?

Oh and the third part…focus. Doing things right requires focus on those things. Doing 100 things poorly serves no one well, least of all you. What efforts are you making to get and stay focused? To deflect, destroy or defer distractions?

The undercurrent

Over the last seven weeks, I had many opportunities to learn while caring for my dad. Whether from him, my mom or their friends, the lessons were almost always about taking care.

Are you truly taking care of your clientele? Is there a level of care that you’ve neglected, ignored or simply failed to design?

photo credit: timlewisnm

In almost every market, there’s someone who seemingly owns that market’s customers and prospects.

They’re the household name in that marketplace.

A common assumption is that they get so many customers that they may as well get them all.

To be sure, doing things that make you that household name is something I strongly encourage you to do. So what do you do if the market you want to enter already has a household name?

You’ve heard me suggest that you: Do more. Do it better. Do it more often. Do it differently.

The owner never has 100% of the market. If it’s a market you’re truly interested in, you need to figure out if there is enough left to make a business of it.

“Enough to make a business of it” has to last at least long enough to get a foothold so you can start to chip away at the leader and/or create new markets for what you do.

Can’t Get No…

For example, every single market includes customers who are dissatisfied.

They might not be that way because the market leader treated them poorly or failed to meet their expectations – though that’s certainly possible.

Every market has people who aren’t aware of the market “owner”, people who will intentionally choose someone other than the market leader just because that business is the leader, people who want something more/better/faster than what the leader does, people who want something different, people who have had a run in with the leader, and so on.

No matter what the reason is that you have them, the expectations thing is a big deal.

In the absence of someone setting expectations for them, people assume their personal expectations will be met – at whatever level they have them. Failing to set expectations almost guarantees dissatisfaction among some portion of the population you serve because their assumptions will be higher than yours.

Different levels are OK. Disappointment is not.

Because you’ll find different levels of expectations, you have an opportunity to create good, better, best, unbelievable, and rock-star class tiers of products and services. Still, your job is to set those expectations as appropriate so that even the lowest tier of service gets *at the very least* exactly what they expect.

How often do you get *exactly what you expect* from a business?

Think hard about that.

Now the hard question: How often do your customers get exactly what they expect from your business?

photo credit: A. Strakey

Ever considered “The Difference” businesses sometimes create between different types of customers in the same market?

It’s the difference between “them” and “the other them”.

Let me back up a bit and set a little context.

On numerous occasions, I’ve urged you to add premium services to your product and services mix.

One reason for doing this is that these premium services add higher profit margin services and attract more loyal customers. That doesn’t mean they are better people than the entry-level spenders. They’re higher loyalty customers because when price is a primary decision point for buyers, it’s natural (and proven) that loyalty to the vendor suffers.

That’s also the hopefully obvious reason why I nag you not to compete solely/primarily on price. No one ever sent their kids to college, bought a boat or went on a dream vacation using the profits made competing with WalMart on price.

Another reason I’ve suggested this is that these “higher rung” products and services provide a bigger profit margin per transaction, making it easier to afford to serve entry-level and/or more price-sensitive customers whose profit-per-transaction is smaller.

SIDEBAR: This is yet another reason to know your numbers for each product, each service and each customer type/tier that you serve. If you want to hire someone new, you can figure out how many “whatevers” you need to sell (or how many upsells you need) in order to fund that position.

Mister Flip Flop?

Now wait a minute. I just spent all that time talking about higher loyalty customers and bigger profit margins and then I justify it by talking about it making it easier to afford to do business with entry-level customers? Isn’t that a bit of a flip-flop?

Not really.

As you know, some entry-level customers will eventually climb your product/service ladder and transform themselves (perhaps with a little help from you) into the high-value, frequent buyer customers that I repeatedly suggest you court. Get enough of them and they will help your business hit its break-even point a bit earlier each month.

You should know (back to that sidebar) how many of these entry-level customers become a premium customer. That lets you predict future business more accurately. I suspect it’s obvious where that gets you.

One key to growing the premium customer part of your business is doing an ever-improving job of identifying what’s different about the customers who make that step up from entry-level. Work hard to identify these differences so that you can offer those customers timely opportunities to become premium customers.

Finally, after all that, we’re back to a difference, but not “The Difference”. You should be able to list these differences on command if I called you at 2:37am.

If you can’t, you need to get to know them a LOT better.

Fast, Cheap or Good

The most often seen characteristic in my recent observation of “The Difference” is about time. Premium customers tend to buy products that arrive on their schedule and use services that let them dictate the when. This usually comes at a premium price.

For example, when traveling from San Francisco to NYC, you can fly, take a bus or a train. If you fly, there’s a chance you’ll be late, but you’re more likely to be late on the train or bus. The premium/entry line in U.S. air travel has been smudged to the extent that it often feels a bit like third world bus travel.

“The Difference” also appears in how customers are treated when products/services aren’t delivered in the time promised. It reminds me of the old programmer’s joke: “Fast, Cheap, Good – Choose any two.”

Entry level services tend to dictate the when to the customer, and if the when is late or otherwise fails to at least meet common expectations, it’s likely that the vendor will apologize, yet do little or nothing to improve and move on to repeat the cycle. To quote a friend in Spokane, “And we wonder why they leave.”

Customers treated in this way get frustrated by the late, uncaring appearance of the services they use, but the price often has them.

Where “The Difference” again crops up is how these vendors treat those folks: Like a “them”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen entry-level customers treated horribly.

It’s a mistake that can cost you an incredible amount of sales, both short and long-term.

Shrink The Difference

Where you can intervene is simple: Stop treating everyone “in coach” (so to speak) as if they are at worst, criminals, and at best, a bother to you.

Result: You’ll move more to “First Class” and see the results in your bottom line.

photo credit: Furryscaly

During some recent travel to deal with some family stuff, I’ve had a chance to see how business is going elsewhere in the U.S.

One thing caught my eye over the weekend and I think it merits some discussion.

It illustrates how much room there is for a coherent, attentive business in the marketplace…even in today’s economy.

Billboards

If I look, did it work? Nevermind, that was a few weeks ago…

Seriously, I saw a billboard that stated a HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) company’s unique sales position (USP) and / or differentiating factor.

It was “We’ll be on time.”

If they aren’t on time, the service is free.

They didn’t advertise the quality of their service or the highly trained nature of their service people.

They simply said “Unlike everyone else, we’ll be on time and if we aren’t, our work will be free.”

One of the biggest time-wasters foisted upon consumers these days is the “We’ll be there between 8 and 5 or noon and 5″ etc. People are unwilling to commit an entire day to deal with your inability to manage your work schedule, but they have no choice in many cases.

This HVAC company has a much smaller window of “we’ll be there”, but they’ve decided to accept responsibility when they mismanage their time.

I think it’s an effective sales tool that speaks directly to consumers’ pet peeves, but it begs the question “How much lower can businesses lower the bar?”

Are you lowering the bar or raising it? Which benefits you and frustrates your competition? Which makes it easier for consumers to choose you?

What are you doing that your competition is unable or unwilling to do? Are you leading your market or simply showing up?

Raise the bar.

photo credit: peasap

The process of returning my son’s iPod for warranty replacement has been interesting.

I talk to Costco customer service, now called “concierge service”. That experience was outstanding.

By the way, just calling it concierge service sets the expectation for a good experience, doesn’t it? It also means that you have to deliver.

The Costco guy connects me with Apple service and stays on the phone with me until I’m done, then confirms that I’m happy with the result.

The Apple customer service guy is just as good, and takes care of things quickly. He tells me that he will email me instructions and that I can just take the box to any UPS Store and they will pack and ship it at no charge.

Later, I go into the UPS Store and mention that I have an Apple return. I’m the only one in the store.

Before saying “Hello” or “So….UConn or Butler?”, the UPS store lady hears me say “Apple return” and says “Crrrrraaaaaaaaaap”.

After making a call, she took the box and said it’d be taken care of the next day, but the last impression I have for the moment – which also reflects on Costco and Apple – is….”crappy”.

I tweet something brief about it before leaving the parking lot and head for home. I’m not annoyed about it, mostly because I’ve come to expect stuff like this from retail businesses. I am a little surprised to hear that come from a woman – particularly one that I think is a generation older than me.

Rebound

By the time I get home and settled at my desk, Lindsay with UPS Store care corporate (or a fairly smart automated bot) is on top of it and sends me a Twitter message asking me to email her with details.

12 minutes later, I get a personal reply saying they’ll take care of it.

I didn’t tweet to get support from UPS. That just happened.

The point is that they were paying attention.

Paying attention

The result of paying attention means that Lindsay’s tweet and the email that followed the detailed reply she requested turned a less-than-positive last impression into a good one.

Never forget that every interaction gives you an opportunity to either reinforce/strengthen your relationship or lose a customer.

Every. Single. One.

Stuff like this is a form of marketing that’s the most expensive you’ll ever invest in: Employees.

Sometimes the "security questions" on websites bring up bad memories for me #fb

March 26, 2011 9:16 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@elijahmanor

Elijah Manor

I had an experience at our Scout meeting this past week that reminded me once again that the smallest things can really change someone’s experience or perception of your business.

A young Scout took me aside near the end of our meeting and asked me to tell one of our older boys not put his hand on the Scout’s shoulder.

The older boy wasn’t hurting the young Scout, was doing this in full view of everyone at the meeting and was just being friendly as he asked the younger boy to help with a task during a meeting. For reasons I won’t discuss here (other than to assure you that it was not sexual abuse related), the older boy’s actions bothered the young man. He assured me that the older boy didn’t hurt or scare him and that there were no other issues between them.

As I told the older boy later, you just never know what the smallest thing means to someone, or what memory it brings back, and as such he needed to make a point of not using that technique in conversation with that particular boy.

Elijah brings it home with the tweet shown above.

Think really hard about the things you introduce into your customers’ experience. You never know what you are reminding someone of.

“What is your mother’s maiden name?” could be an incredibly difficult subject for someone.

photo credit: sarahsampsel

In the process of elliptical-ing across some wide open (virtual) spaces recently, I thought to myself, “What would I change if I owned this place?”

I might warm up the pool a couple of degrees, but that really isn’t the kind of change I meant.

The things that came to mind were in the spirit of “Be indispensable“.

So what would make that place the ONLY place to be a member?

When I have these conversations with a client, the first thing we often talk about are their clients.

We start simple. Who are they? What do they need?

A Day in the Life

To answer the “Who are they?” question, let’s look around at a day in the life of a fitness center and see how we can segment the members (customers) into groups based on gender, age, level of fitness, “Why they are there”, and so on.

I don’t mean a group like “People who need/want to work out.” Obviously, most people who join qualify for either need to or want to.

I’m thinking about a list like this, and I’m sure it’s far from complete:

• Professional or semi-pro athletes, such as people who regularly marathon, triathlon and/or Ironman. You might include players for the local semi-pro teams. Around here, the Glacier Twins and/or Glacier Knights would be included.
• Bodybuilders.
• Post-partum moms who want to get their “pre-pregnancy body” back.
• Pregnant women.
• Men recovering from heart surgery.
• Anyone newly diagnosed with diabetes.
• People who are new to working out.
• “Formerly disciplined workout people” who haven’t worked out in five, ten or more years.
• People recovering from an injury, possibly under the direction of a physical therapist.

Within these groups, you’ll find breakdowns for gender and/or age group. Don’t underestimate those.

Everyone should be considering the sizable wave of Baby Boomers heading into their 60s-70s-80s might impact their business and what opportunities they suggest. Likewise, research has repeatedly shown that women control or influence 80% or more of household spending.

Is your business catering to these groups? If not, is your business even passingly friendly to these groups?

I Have Needs

The second question on my list was “What do they need?”

Until you create the list above, your needs list might be simpler than it should be because you might just be thinking “What do my members need?”.

Once we’ve gone through the customer (and prospect) identification and segmentation process, we’ll find more needs.

That’s why we go through this probably tedious, sometimes eye-rolling process that almost always helps you find new things that your customers need. The result should be obvious.

What do they need?

Now look back at that list of customer types from a “wants and needs” perspective. Consider the needs of body builders, post-partum moms, heart patients, and semi-pro athletes, for example. In some ways, they’re similar. In others, they have wildly different expectations.

They all need machines/weights, steam room, hot tub, pool, showers, restrooms and so on.

After that, the needs among the groups vary quite a bit:

• Some would benefit most from instruction and/or working in groups.
• Some prefer private facilities.
• Some prefer gender-specific workout times/rooms.
• Some prefer age-specific.
• Some work evening or night shift.
• Some would prefer to find a workout partner for motivation, spotting weights and/or accountability.
• Some would like to be gently nagged if they don’t show up 3 times a week.

One example of many obvious ones: You wouldn’t necessarily have 20-somethings in a Yoga class with 60-somethings. Not because they can’t enjoy each other’s company, but because the instruction and goals for one group probably don’t parallel the other. That might drive you to have separate Yoga classes for singles, post-partums, “retirees”, physical therapy patients and so on. In each case, the instructor could be matched with attendees.

“What about me?”

If you don’t own a fitness center, you might be thinking this discussion isn’t much help.

Use what you can after adjusting it for your business. Can you take any idea here and make it work for you?

Finally, take a hard look at the thought process itself (“Who are my customers, what are their unique needs”) and see what you can come up with for your business. Even if you’ve done this five, ten or fifteen years back, I suggest doing it again. You might find yourself in new markets, focusing on a particular type of customer that you’d previously ignored, etc.

photo credit: Keng Susumpow

A friend told me recently that his family filed a homeowner’s insurance claim for slightly under $600.

After filing no claims in over 20 years of keeping their insurance with this company, this was the 3rd claim in 5 years.

During that 5 years, their annual insurance rate went from $1300 a year to $4000.

After the 3rd claim was paid, their insurance was cancelled without warning.

Do the math

Somewhere, a bad piece of software or a misguided underwriter just killed a 20+ year customer relationship.

That aside, let’s do the math.

Even if a family had no other insurance with this agent/company (highly unusual, I suspect), they’ve been worth well over $20,000 to this insurance company.

In this case, ALL their insurance is at that company. Think they’ll move it? If they fired this customer over a $600 claim against a $4000 per year policy, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the family move their coverage elsewhere. All of it.

At $4000 a year, the recent claim is nothing.

Yet because they didn’t really look at the math the right way, they just discarded a customer with 20 years of loyalty over $600.

If this family keeps their home another ten years, that’s a loss of $40,000 in premium revenue, not counting the other insurance policies they have.

Who does the math at *your* business?

Are you throwing away thousands of dollars by not paying attention to the Lifetime Customer Value generated by recurring revenue?

Please do the math.

If you live in Northwest Montana, you know that one of the things we “cling to” is high school sports.

I live in Columbia Falls, a town of about 4500 people. Our arch rival is Whitefish, a town of about 6000 people.

While our towns are changing, Columbia Falls has historically been the blue collar industrial hub of Northwest Montana, with several lumber mills and a large aluminum plant (now closed). Whitefish, on the other hand, started off as a lumber and railroad town and transformed itself over the last 70 years into a ski resort town that has become known for the ski mountain, palatial lake homes – as well as the railroad depot.

Both towns are changing as the economy (and our country) has changed over the last 20 years. Today, both towns are homes to technology, public relations, marketing and/or internet-related firms with national and/or international markets.

But one thing hasn’t changed. The rivalry between the high school teams.

Making a connection

All of this sets up the story for an email I received yesterday.

Due to a setting in Google Calendar, I was having a problem with syncing Google calendars with calendar software on my Mac, which is called “BusyCal”.

I emailed the company and thanks to a handy option in the software they provide, some diagnostic info about my calendar was sent to their support staff.

A short time later, I received an email with instructions to check a few things.

The email closed with this comment:

It could also be that you are from Columbia Falls and we’ve designed the product to specifically notice that and cause issues. Moving to Whitefish will solve all your problems… (Whitefish, Class of ’83…)

Regards,

-Kirk
support@busymac.com

With this brief comment at the end of an already helpful email, Kirk has taken our connection from a brief, distant tech support relationship to a friendly rivalry.

It’s a great illustration of how simple it is to create a real connection with a client.

Business is Personal.

Think about how you and your staff can create personal connections with your clients.

UPDATE: 3 days after posting this column, the Columbia Falls Wildcats won their 4th state boys basketball title in 9 years. A month earlier, the Columbia Falls Wildcat Speech/Debate team won their 11th state title since 1991 and their 6th in a row. While it’s “only sports”, there are important lessons being learned in Columbia Falls about what it takes to succeed – even outside the classroom.

photo credit: Anonymous Account

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that there were some “numbers you might care about“.

Examples we talked about included figuring out the costs to obtain both a new prospect/lead and a new customer.

In prior discussions, I’ve also suggested that you need to be thanking your customers, following up with them, tracking referrals that customers (and others) make, checking to see that more time than usual hasn’t passed since their last purchase, and so on.

And then…I get emails.

Many of them tell me I’m nuts because no one has time to do all that and that I must be making it up. Others get it and they ask HOW to get all that stuff done.

GETTING STUFF DONE

Here’s part one of a primer on getting this stuff done.

What I mean by “primer” is that it’s simple and you don’t have to buy anything fancy or expensive, nor do you need to do anything geeky. You *can*, of course, but it’s not a requirement.

Start with these tools:

• A free calendar (banks, insurance agents and others hand them out all the time). A large one-month-per-page desk calendar will help if you feel the need to splurge.
• a free pen/pencil (ditto)
• a $0.99 yellow pad

We’ll keep it simple for now and create a process for each of these events:

• A new prospect contacts you
• A new customer buys for the first time.
• An existing customer buys again.
• Someone calls to make an appointment.
• You communicate with a prospect or customer.

DIRTY WORK

Now it’s time for the real work.

Use the yellow pad for these tasks:

• When a prospect contacts you, write their name on one of the yellow pad sheets. Write the date they first contacted you at the top of the sheet. Below or next to that, write “Last contact date” and keep it updated (yes, it’ll get a little messy, but this is a paper system). Ask them who to thank for sending them to you. Write down the answer as “Source”. It might be a person, an ad or something else.
• Keep a separate sheet for each prospect. Keep the sheets sorted by last name, unless you have a different way that works better for you.
• When a prospect becomes a customer by buying something, write a C in one of the upper corners of the page so you know they’re a customer. In addition, write the first date of purchase at the top of the page. Write “Last purchase date” next to or below it. Keep it updated each time they purchase. Use a calendar on the internet to figure how out many days since they last bought. Write that down too.
• When contacting (or contacted by) a customer or prospect, write a summary of each contact on their sheet. Indicate briefly their satisfaction level.

Use the calendar to remind you to perform these tasks:

• Record appointments. Make note of them on the prospect/customer sheet so you can follow up as well as thank them.
• Follow up with a note a few days (if that’s the right timing) after a new customer buys for the first time. Write the follow up on the appropriate date as soon as they buy.
• Follow up with a customer after an on-site delivery or service to make sure all is well. If a staff member or contractor is doing the work, use the follow up to make sure that they were on-time, clean, courteous and took care of the customer’s needs.

Do these every day:

• Check the calendar for follow ups, appointments, thank yous and such. Make them that day. Don’t get behind or you’ll never do them.
• Check the contact sheets to make sure that customers are being properly taken care of. Your “satisfaction level” comments should feed this process.
• Check the contact sheets for customers who haven’t bought in at least a month (or whatever time frame makes sense). Follow up to see why they haven’t been back  and include that on the sheet. If a particular competitor is involved, make note of that.

BOOOOOOORINNNNNNG!

Yes, this is mundane stuff.

It’s also exactly the same stuff that *so many businesses* fail at day-in and day-out. If you can’t get the basics right, you need to fix them.

Disclaimer: The computer guy half of my head insists that I remind you that manual processes and yellow pads don’t scale well (and eventually not at all), meaning that what works for 20 or 100 customers doesn’t work worth a darn for 500, 1000 or 10000.

Because paper doesn’t scale, I know what happens next. You get busy and eventually, you just won’t do the work. This happens despite the realization that doing all that stuff is at least part of the reason you got so busy.

If you do realize there’s a connection there, then you’ll either decide to introduce some technology or you’ll get some help. This kind of work is ideal for a stay-at-home parent, retiree or similar.

Crude? Perhaps. Understanding the value of these tasks – and of a tool that automates much this labor – is easier after doing it the hard way. This effort is just as valid for a four-star restaurant as for an oil change shop.

photo credit: the half-blood prince

Last week a Flathead Beacon reader sent me a nice note about a column that he liked, and while doing so, posed a question.

He said “One thing I am dying to read from you, is how do you get rid of a pain in the butt client — or a pathological recreational shopper — or the perfectionist from hell — without him or her poisoning your other customers?”

He’s not in for what he probably expected.

In my experience, few clients really, truly need to be fired (aka “gotten rid of”).

Why not just fire them?

Three reasons:

• If they really, truly are worth firing, it’s often easier to get them to fire themselves without any negative consequences for you. Raise the bar on what it takes to become/remain a customer. The benefits of doing this are substantial.
• If they aren’t worth firing but are simply a thorn in your side, it’s the person in the mirror (you and your business) that needs to make changes. Once the thorny customer is satisfied, they usually become one of your biggest fans. I’ve seen it time and time again.
• How hard is it to get a new customer? What does it cost in time, effort and money?

As I said, if they really need to go, I prefer to work things out so that they fire themselves. But that isn’t the question he asked, so let’s address it.

Back to the question

Let’s do the easy one first – The “pathological recreational customer”.

Some things to consider:

• Are they coming into your store just to get warm? Obvious…maybe, but be careful. More on that soon.
• Are they shopping for someone else?
• Are they a mystery shopper?
• Are they investigating but not personally planning to buy? The smart ones aren’t going to tip their hand until price comes up and the business is ready to buy.
• Did they randomly walk into your store?
• Are they doing price comparisons on your store for a competitor? Note: anyone with a smart phone can do this. Get over it. In fact, get over price as the ONLY competitive edge. Part of your edge, fine. All of your edge? Not so fine.
• Is their recreational shopping a burden to your business?

Have you talked to them? “I notice that you like to browse through our store but you haven’t become a customer. Is there something you need that we don’t offer?” and take the conversation from there. Again, be careful. You gain nothing from embarrassing a (potential) customer, but there is plenty to lose.

Keester pain

The next easiest one is the “Pain in the Butt customer”.

Let’s consider the reason they’re a pain. It could be one or more of these:

• The customer is just one of those angry-at-the-world kinds of people.
• The customer is not being treated in a manner that meets or exceeds their expectations.
• The customer is not being treated well by anyone’s definition.
• The customer bought a product or service that doesn’t meet or exceed the expectations you set, which again could mean that you didn’t set any. Sometimes called “merchantability”, we ask the question “Is the product/service reasonably able to solve the problem or fill the need it was being sold for?”
• The customer has unreasonable expectations.

Note the operative word? Expectations. Do a better job of setting them.

The pain in the butt can most often be turned into your best reference by simply becoming their advocate.

Boy, it’s hot in here

The “perfectionist from hell” is the one you’ll be most tempted to get rid of. Problem is, they often fit into the “keester pain” category.

More often than not, they’re really an indicator that your product line or services are missing one or more tiers of service at the high end. Yep. It’s probably an opportunity. Isn’t that cool?

People like this often have high personal accountability standards and (right or not) hold others to those same standards. Your regular products and services at their regular prices aren’t a good fit for them and their appearance of perfectionism is a good indicator of that.

Add another level.

A higher quality product with a greater level of service attracts a customer who might be a perfectionist and is also willing to pay more for that level of quality.

It’s also a great way of defining expectations for the customer BEFORE they make the purchase and allowing them to choose how they’re served.

It’s Chevy Suburban vs. Cadillac Escalade. Both have a market.