Category Archives: Best Practice

You’ve often heard me talk about the power of using surveys as lead generation and qualification tools.  Well, today, I’m going to give you some real meat and potatoes on the subject.

In this article, I’m going to give you a template that you can use to create your very own lead generation survey that will have your customers thinking that you can read their mind.

They are not respondents — they are PEOPLE

I think we’ve gotten into a sort of nasty habit in the world of research (and I’m speaking for myself here) in calling the people we survey RESPONDENTS.  I know that the word is shorthand for “people who respond or complete a survey” but using a word like “Respondent” almost makes it sound like they are objects or data points and not people.  And when you consider that we are asking them to share their attitudes and personal preferences with us — well, it seems a little too impersonal to me.  More importantly, I think that it puts you in the context of collecting data points instead of powerful preferences — which is what we’re after.

Our goal in these kinds of surveys is to get to the core of what matters most to our customers — what keeps them up at night, what nagging thoughts swirl around their heads, and what they most desire.  And if that’s the case, our surveys need to reflect that.

But first — the demographics

Of course the first three questions of our survey are going to be demographic questions.  You have lots to choose from — you’ll have to pick the ones that matter most or that you don’t already have.  Consider using demographic questions that are more “temporal” in nature that might actually change over time such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Income
• Education
• Geographic location

You pick what kind works best for you — but only pick three!

Ask questions that get you inside their heads

Your next challenge is to come up with qualitative or psychographic questions that will help you determine what they are thinking and why.

Here are some possible questions you can ask — these are all fairly open ended, unless you have a solid enough list of items that you already know:

• What is their biggest challenge?
• What are their frustrations are when it comes to the product or service you are selling?
• What is their desired outcome when they buy from you?
• What’s important to them when they are buying what you are selling?
• What are their interests, habits, hobbies?
• What kind of music do they like to listen to?
• What kind of car do they drive

Call them by name

The next thing you need to do is collect their name whenever possible – especially if these are your customers.  Think of it this way, if you owned a restaurant and a customer you knew came in — you wouldn’t call them by their email, you’d call them by name!  So, when you collect this information, make sure that you get their name.  I know, I know — not everyone is going to give you their name, but at least you’ll have that information to use in your marketing.

These are just a few tips you can use to improve the degree to which you know and understand what matters most to your customers.

How are you doing today?  Feeling good about your business or are you feeling like throwing in the towel?

Before you throw in the towel, stop and think about why it is that your business isn’t achieving the outcomes that you intended.  Research shows that the biggest reason that businesses fail is that they simply don’t have enough of the right information to make good decisions.  Most of the time, that information comes from running surveys.  And most small business owners think that running surveys is either too hard or too expensive.  Nothing could be further from the truth — especially with today’s technology.

Run these surveys first — before you bail on your business

There are really only two reasons why small businesses don’t generate the income they aspire to:

1. Not targeting the right customers
2. Not selling what customers want the way they want it

There is a survey for that.

Let’s start with targeting the right customers.  You probably have a profile of who YOU think your target customer is.  Take a moment to define them.  Start with their demographics:

• Gender
• Age
• Education
• Location/Geography
• Income
• Existing usage or consumption of the product and service that you are selling.  i.e. Do you currently own a car

Don’t stop there!  Demographics are only part of the puzzle.  Another important element in making sure you’re targeting the right customer is knowing how they think and what matters to them.

Another great question to ask your customers is about what is important to them — what matters to them when they are buying what you are selling.  For example, say you are a moving company, you might as a question like this:

When you think about hiring a moving company — what goes through your mind?

• Are you going to break my stuff?
• Are you going to be there on time?
• How do I know you won’t steal my stuff?

Remember that people purchase products and services based on event triggers.  An event trigger is something that happens that forces you to go out and purchase.  So if your computer dies — that is an event trigger to get you searching for new computers.  If you discover that you’re having a baby — that is an event trigger that forces you to start thinking about baby clothes, furniture. etc.

So your next step is to brainstorm all the possible event triggers that should get your ideal customer thinking about you.  And you can create a survey question about that:

Which of the following have you experienced in the last week?

• Gained a new customer
• Lost a big customer
• Added a new sales rep
• Launched a new product

Make sure you’re selling what they want to buy

Most marketing texts and experts will tell you that you have to STAND out and be unique.  And you probably think that means selling something that no one else is selling.  This is COMPLETELY WRONG.  Your goal is to sell something that people are buying FIRST — then look for unique ways to distinguish your product from the many others that are being sold.

Here’s an example — I love shoes — in fact, I probably have something like five different kinds of boots.  I have flat boots and high heeled boots, suede boots and leather boots, brown boots, black boots, casual boots and dressy boots — do I need to go on?  The product us BOOTS – and I like buying boots and I will keep buying boots so long as they are different from the ones that I already have.  So the next person that offers a blue suede boot – is likely to sell it to me.

Your product or service is the boot.  Your competition is selling black boots — what kind of boots will YOU sell?

And this is where an online survey can come in really handy -

Do you buy boots?

• Yes
• No

How likely are you to buy boots with your favorite NFL team’s logo on them?

See how that works?

Don’t guess or wonder — just ask

If you’ve been holding back from interacting with your customers and doing surveys — this could be killing your business.  Instead of wondering and guessing — just ask your prospects and customers what they think.

Start with some general conversations.  Then take what you’ve learned and put it into a survey that asks some very specific questions.  Share the survey via your social media channels and with your customers.  Be sure to offer an incentive or a reward of some kind to entice them to participate.  See what they say and take their opinions into consideration when you take your next step.

Bonus survey hint

Before you put your survey questions together — be sure to write down all the decisions you’re trying to make –

• Should I make red boots or blue boots
• Should I deliver in 30 minutes or less
• I need to sell at least 100 units per month to be successful

Then structure your survey so that the responses are answers to these questions and so that you can make that decision.  Here’s what I mean.  Say you need to sell 100 units per month of a specific product or service — you might ask

• Do you purchase these widgets monthly?
• If yes – how many widgets do you purchase each month?
• This is a widget that sings and dances the cha cha — would you buy this widget if it were available?
• How many cha cha dancing widgets would you buy each month?
• How much are you willing to pay for a cha cha dancing widget?

Doing this kind of survey with your customers can mean the difference between success and failure.  Don’t fail until you’ve tried this.

In his latest book To Thine Own Self: Honesty in Marketing, Romi Mahajan has combined a series of blog posts that talk about marketing ethics and authenticity into a treatise on how marketers in all industries have the opportunity to behave — with true and real authenticity.

What’s a marketers’ responsibility around authenticity?

It seems that we’ve been traveling down the slippery slope of bastardizing authenticity and integrity.  We’ve been playing with definitions and changing them around to suit our needs — and then we wonder why our customers aren’t buying what we’re selling.

As a marketer, you’ve probably said “be authentic” more than a thousand times — but what does being “authentic” look like?  The simplest definition of the word “authentic” is that it is indisputable or original.  In other words, it’s an honest representation of your product, service or opinion that isn’t colored or covered up by fancy words or terms that serve YOUR purpose of appearing smart and knowledgable instead of focusing on your ideal customer and what matters to them.

People see through this and they turn against it.

Can market research really help you be more authentic?

The short answer is — yes.  Take Domino’s pizza for example.  This is one organization that got such bad feedback from their focus groups that they took the “risky” path of putting it all out there on an entire series of commercials that showed clips from the focus groups and then they told a story of what they did about it.  This series of commercials was hailed as revolutionary.

Mahajan’s book rails against the marketing machine and it’s seeming abuse of holidays and human emotions for the sake of selling more stuff and building their brands to the point where I have to admit that it made me a little mad.  After all, the purpose of marketing is to trip your “I want that trigger” — because that’s what makes folks pull out their Visa card and that’s what keeps the brand machine going.  But have we gone too far?

I got to thinking about that and have laid out a few tips that you can bring into your own marketing practice that will get your market enrolled and connected to who you are without going past your ethical boundaries.

How to bring magnetic authenticity to your marketing

Be clear about who you are.  You can use research to get to the heart of who you think you are versus who your customers think you are.  Simply create a series of statements that reflect you YOU think you are as an organization and ask your customers to rate you on those elements.

Focus on what matters to your audience.  The simplest way to measure this is to lists what you think is important to your customers, add some elements of what your competitors are offering and then put those into an importance/satisfaction matrix question type.  This is probably my all time most powerful question type because it not only tells you what matters to your customer, but has them rate how well you are doing.  This data will help you focus on the critical few elements that make a diference to your customers.

Target the right audience.  If you find yourself stretching yourself, your fact, and features, you may be targeting the wrong audience.  Inside yourself, you’re thinking you need to impress or tell them something they want to hear.  If that’s the case, you’ve got yourself the wrong audience.  Stop. Look. Listen.  And don’t be afraid to switch your audience or your message.

I’ve made this mistake too many times to mention.  I chose an audience that I was familiar with and had relationships with and forgot to pay attention to the fact that they were simply not interested in my message or what I was selling.  They liked consuming it, but they didn’t want to pay for it.  This is obviously no way to build a profitable business. I found another audience.

Speak plainly and carry a big offer

Finally, don’t be afraid to speak in your own voice.  I know, you’ve got this little voice inside your head telling you it’s not good enough, you’re not good enough.  This is BS.  If you’ve had at least one client, you are good enough.  There is at least ONE company or person out there happy to trade dollars for your offer.  Build on that.

The next step is to have an offer that resonates with your customers.  If you’ve chosen the right customers, paid attention to what matters to them and decided to serve them — then the offer will become self-evident.

It may take some time — but that’s what it takes to build an offer.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, your house wasn’t built in a day and neither will your offer.  Give yourself the time it takes to craft an offer that your customers can’t refuse.

Don’t be afraid

Finally, don’t be afraid of who you are, what you have to offer and whether or not your audience will choose you.  You will look desperate, your prospects will smell it and you will achieve exactly the opposite of what you intended.

Focus on who you are in the world.  Decide on what you’re committed to and what people can count on you for.  Then go out there and just do it!

David Bakke is a small business owner in Atlanta and contributor for Money Crashers Personal Finance.  

Most small business owners fully understand the need for great customer service, but it is debatable whether enough realize that keeping employees happy is just as important. If you don’t focus on keeping your staff satisfied and motivated, turnover costs could do major damage to your bottom line. There are many ways to ensure that your employees are happy, and one of the best methods is to utilize employee surveys. Here are five reasons why:

1. It Provides Anonymity
If you ask your staff how they’re doing face-to-face, they’re likely to say “just fine” and not much else. Ask them for ways to improve your business in person, and you’re unlikely to get a constructive response. But if you use employee surveys in an anonymous format, you’ll open yourself up to a world of insightful feedback. Employees tend to avoid confrontation, and surveys eliminate this factor.

2. You’ll Get Honest and Unbiased Feedback
By using an employee survey, you’ll allow your employee to speak freely about your company. While what they say may be hard to swallow, it’s to your benefit to receive honest feedback. Your employees will tell you how they really feel and can also offer new ideas to improve your business. Park your ego and encourage your staff to be brutal and honest.

3. It’s a Different Platform Than a Performance Review
Let’s face it, when you sit down for a performance review with staff members, they’re often looking for only one thing: more money. Therefore, they’re highly unlikely to say much if they have a concern or complaint about your business. Using employee surveys given out at times other than performance reviews is a way to get more actionable commentary.

4. You Can Reduce Turnover
By allowing your employees to express themselves, you’ll reduce turnover at your company. When you think of all the resources that go into hiring a new staff member – including paperwork, training, and the inevitable mistakes – you’ll understand that keeping turnover at a minimum is a key to success.

5. Your Staff Will Be Engaged and More Productive
If your staff understands that you truly care about them and value their feedback, they’re much more likely to be†engaged in your company’s long-term goals, and will ultimately increase productivity.

Final Thoughts
While employee surveys are great ways to get feedback, make sure you follow up on the feedback you receive, and do your best to improve the work experience for your employees. Consider conducting employee surveys on a regular basis, and then schedule a meeting to discuss the results. Ultimately, you’ll end up with a more streamlined and focused organization, with everyone rowing in the same direction.

What are your thoughts on employee surveys for small businesses?

Every now and then I get all fired about about a specific phrase that transforms how I think and ask questions.  Lately my favorite phrase has been “What’s missing?”  

You’re probably used to saying something like “What’s wrong?”  but there is a subtle distinction between “What’s missing” and “What’s wrong.”  When you say “What’s wrong” — then the assumption is that something isn’t working and needs to be fixed.  While this might be the appropriate question if your computer is broken, it may not be the best question to ask if you’re trying to find a way to stand out from the competition.

When to use “What’s Missing” as a question in your survey

The “What’s missing” question is the ideal follow up to a rating question.  Instead of asking people to rate their overall experience on a scale and then ask them WHY they gave the rating they did, ask them “What’s missing from this product that would make your experience a “10″?

This gets the respondents’ brain thinking about the ingredients or elements that are missing from the product or service as it stands today that would take their experience over the top.

You can expect to get much more specific answers that will help you in developing your product or service in a way that will get your customers to choose you.

The hotel industry has been in the process of recovering from the economic downturn.  As I write this,I’m not sure if it’s meant as a statement of fact or as an excuse.  I think it’s ironic that the J.D. Power and Associates 2012 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study(SM) that was released in July of 2012 shows that 

Overall guest satisfaction has declined to 757 on a 1,000-point scale, down 7 index points from 2011. However, guest satisfaction with the underlying experience has deteriorated much more than this score suggests, as relatively high levels of satisfaction with cost and fees mask declines in other areas of the guest experience. Satisfaction with check-in/check-out; food and beverage; hotel services; and hotel facilities are at new lows since the 2006 study and satisfaction with guest room has declined within one point of its lowest level in the past seven years.

“As the industry continues to recover and rates increase, hoteliers need to get back to the fundamentals and improve the overall guest experience,” said Stuart Greif, vice president and general manager of the global travel and hospitality practice at J.D. Power and Associates. “Charging guests more and providing less is not a winning combination from a guest satisfaction perspective, much less a winning business strategy. In short, hoteliers are falling further behind and need to catch up.”

If there is any one industry that is “on the court” of the customer satisfaction game, it’s got to be the hospitality industry.  With few exceptions, customer satisfaction is at the heart of its offerings.  Not only that, but hospitality is at the whim of individual likes and dislikes that are unique to each customer — and that is a hard master to serve.

And yet the customer experience is at the core of their business and their offer.  I suppose you can say that this is true for any product or service, but I think with hospitality it’s a little more profound because their product and service are delivered when we are most vulnerable (in a matter of speaking) sleeping, eating, bathing, while away from home.  Hence, the experience they delver are perceived more intensely and I think the expectations tend to run a litte higher than with other products and services.  I have no scientific support for saying this – it’s just my observation,

How mobile feedback and technology can improve that experience

There really is no reason to be using paper comment cards in an age where mobile technology provides the ability to give and get immediate feedback as well as request service.  Here are just a few mobile technology strategies that you can actually put into place — right now inside your hospitality-based business.

Point of experience feedback and service.  You can place QR codes at various points of service and experience such as the bathroom, next to the bed, in the fitness center or pool area.  The QR code takes guests to a survey where they can provide feedback on their experience at that point of service.  If you’re using QuestionPro online survey tools, you can set a finish option that sends you a notification every time a question is answered in the negative and provide immediate service to that customer.

Here are some other mobile ideas that you can incorporate inside your hotel to improve your customers’ experience and your customer satisfaction rating:

• Hotel Room Keys – Technologies already exist that allow guests to safely use their mobile device as a room key by sending an encrypted signal to the guest’s cell phone that is unique to each user.
• Concierge Desk – With virtual concierges available wherever you are on the property, there will be no need to go downstairs to the lobby to have a concierge make your dinner reservations, tell you about the museums in the area or help you plan a romantic night for your date.
• Room Service – With the use of apps, you won’t be tethered to your room in order to get room service. Using the locator on your mobile device, room service is able to deliver your order to you anywhere on the property

How often have you been asked to create a survey and then been completely overwhelmed by the process?

It’s not unusual especially because so many people put their focus on the questions rather then the ultimate result they want.  Here is a quick primer on overcoming the overwhelm of putting a survey together.

BEFORE you create the survey

There are three BIG questions to answer for yourself before you sit down to design your survey:

1. What decision are you trying to make?
2. What criteria are you using to make your decision?
3. Whose opinion do you need to make that decision?

If people have already thrown you a list of questions, put them aside and answer these three questions first.

Your next step is to take any questions you’ve already been given or come up with and match them to the three questions above.  You can use the following bullet points to help you organize them:

• In what ways will the answer to this question help me make a decision?
• Does this question need to be restated or asked another way so that it will better help me make a decision?
• In what ways can I ask this question so that I can make a good decision?
• Who should answer this question?
• Whose answer to this question will be irrelevant or unnecessary?
• Does this question address any of the criteria that are critical to my making a decision?
• In what ways do I need to reword this question so that it is useful?

Where to begin

Put yourself in your recipients’ shoes. (do it now — take a moment to picture your online survey recipient) — Got it?  Great.  Let’s move on.

Write an engaging and friendly introduction.    When you start a survey on QuestionPro and click on “Introduction”, you’ll see that we’ve written one for you.  DON’T USE IT!  Use it as an inspiration, but don’t use it as is- it’s just there to show you what an introduction looks like.  You’ll want to write one in your own voice.  Here are some tips:

• Make it friendly and engaging
• Explain in the simplest terms what your survey is about and why your respondents’ opinion is important.  Don’t just tell them it’s important – tell them how their honest response will benefit THEM.
• Keep it short and simple.

Qualifying Questions FIRST

If you answered the goals and objectives questions I outlined above this sections should be easy.  The first thing you want to do is qualify your respondents – make sure that you’re not wasting people’s time in filling out the survey.

If you’re clear about your respondent profile – then just ask those questions upfront:

• Do you own your home (yes/no) — if you need people who are home owners and your respondent doesn’t own their home, you can take them directly to the “Thank You” page and save them the time in taking the survey.

These are typically closed-ended yes/no questions.  That quickly focus on on exactly the person you want to answer your survey.

If I could only know ONE thing?

The next thing you want to do is prioritize your questions.  If you can only know one thing — what is it.

If your respondent starts your survey and only gets to answer the first 3 questions — what should they be?  This is insanely important because if your survey takes longer than one minute — this is very likely to happen.  So you want to take a look at all your questions and group them in order of importance.

Every time you add a question to your survey — ask yourself again “If I could only know ONE thing…?”  then choose the next question and add it on the survey.

Most people will put demographic information at the end of the survey — you don’t have to do that.  If one of your primary objectives is to categorize your respondents and get them into groups — then put that demographic info up front.  There is no rule about what goes where.

General survey success tips

• Keep the number of questions short.  People really don’t want to spend more than 3 minutes on a survey.  Make sure your questions are easy enough and short enough to get your respondents in and out of the survey quickly.  Typically less than ten easy questions.  Ideally five.
• Keep open ended questions to a minimum.  How many times have you clicked through surveys and skipped the open ends?  EXACTLY — no one wants to write their answers out.  AND remember many of your respondents will probably be taking their surveys on a mobile device (killing time perhaps) so make it easy for them to get through the survey just clicking.
• Use the page break option after every question.  This isn’t always possible, but respondents love the feeling of moving along – as long as your survey is short.
• Use our cool finish options creatively.  QuestionPro has this very nifty feature called Finish Options — where you can literally drive your respondents wherever you like.  For example, you can show them a “Spotlight report” so that they can see how other people answered the same questions.  You can forward them to a custom URL or domain where they can download a gift or actually buy something.  You can also send them a Thank you email.  The possibilities are endless – so be creative.

The bottom line is this.  Don’t just jump into programming a survey.  How you design your survey can have a huge impact on how many people respond and answer your questions and the overall quality of your data.  So take the time to do it right and you’ll reap the rewards.

This morning’s “How to Organize Your Survey” articles is being preempted by some timely information that you may be interested in BEFORE you vote.

It’s the Monday before election day.  I live in Ohio and I’m an undecided voter.  If you live anywhere else, you can’t even begin to imagine the annoyance and imposition an election year brings to our everyday lives:

• I get anywhere from 10-15 robocalls a day – who all leave long and annoying (and mean) messages on my answering machine.
• People come to my door and try to convert me to whichever candidate they are supporting.
• My mailbox is FILLED with giant full-color printed postcards with nasty messages about the other candidate.

Can you really choose a candidate by answering survey questions?

Needless to say, I’m frustrated by the entire process – especially since I’m more interested in choosing a candidate that represents me and my views rather than choosing a candidate based on advertising or party affiliation.    Well, dear readers — there are SURVEYS for that!

The League of Women Voters is well known for their unbiased information gathering on issues and candidates.  I’ve never really taken a close look, but this year I headed over to their main site to take a peek.  All you need to do is enter your address and zip code and they will route you to a page that contains all the voting info that is relevant to you.

Now, I want to show you some of the surveys I took to help me choose a candidate — WARNING – your results may surprise you!

VoteSmart.org

This was so much fun to do!  Across the top you see a selection of issues ranging from Afghanistan to Taxes.  When you click on the tab you get asked two questions:

• How you would vote an an issues (basic yes/no)
• How important that issue is to you

As you go through the process, the candidates pictures move forward and backwards as their opinions match yours on the issues.

Pro-Con.org – 2012 Election

On the ProCon site you can select the “Find Your Match” button and go through a similar series of questions:

You’ll see your results tabulated along the way and they will look like this -

This is an interesting approach because as you answer all those questions (and there are many of them) you’ll see how each candidate answered them as well and the degree to which they agree with your own point of view.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Select a Candidate

This is MPR’s (Minnesota Public Radio) survey that also helps you select a candidate.  In this case, they give you a an issue and then give you a choice of several stances on the issue.  Your job is to pick the one that most closely matches your opinion.  In this case too, you get to choose how important that issue is to you as you consider a candidate.

Here is what the MPR Results looks like

In the MPR results, you’ll see that they list each of the issues and outline where you agree with the candidates stance (green check) and where you disagree with the candidates (red x).

What you can learn from these kinds of surveys

I’m always saying that you should use online surveys to help you make decisions.  yet, when it comes to structuring the survey, we often get lost in the weeds of it all.  When you think about why that is — it’s often because we aren’t as EMOTIONAL about many of our corporate decisions.

Using the examples I’ve shared with you today – you will begin to see some examples of surveys that are purely designed to help you decide.  If you take the time to complete them, you can see where some are weak and where others are strong.  Using those insights, you can start structuring your survey in a way that will be most useful to you and to your audience.

It may be a little cliché or obvious, and admittedly sounds a little like the thematic line from the movie Elf (one of my favorite comedies), “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” Nevertheless, I think it’s vital to continually re-evaluate your customer service approach to ensure its effectiveness, and to remind business leaders and all employees of the following:

If you want to retain customers who are loyal to and advocates for your company and your brand, then you need to elevate your customer service to “royalty” level, befitting of nobility. Your customers want and need to feel that they are the most important aspect of your business—that your ultimate goal is to serve them and provide them with what they need to be successful.

Are you really doing it?

According to the 2012 Brand Loyalty Survey by ClickFox:

72% of consumers indicated customer service is what makes them loyal to a brand

34% of consumers said that providing exceptional 24/7 customer service is the best way a company can build loyalty with them

63% of consumers who said they would tolerate inconveniences inflicted by certain companies or brands would do so because of superior customer service provided  by the company

In order to reach a “royalty” level of customer service, you must give priority to the following four areas:

Hire the right people and empower them to meet customers’ immediate needs

Build trust by providing a consistent and flexible service experience

Solicit feedback from customers to show how much you value them

Keep a “client” mindset (regardless of whether you’re a B2B or B2C business)

Hire the Right People and Empower Them to Meet Customers’ Immediate Needs

Hire the right people and empower them with the authority to make judgment calls to resolve customer issues without having to jump through hoops to get management approval.  Front-line employees usually know best what should be done to satisfy customer’s immediate needs. But you need to ensure that each employee with a customer touchpoint actually thinks like a customer, and continually asks themselves if they’re treating customers the way they want to be treated. Employees need to be empowered to make on-the-spot service decisions, but at the same time challenged to continually find ways to improve their own quality and level of customer service. Customer service training must be conducted, and quality of service must be reinforced on a regular basis (e.g., through implementing recognition and incentive programs).

Build Trust by Providing a Consistent and Flexible Service Experience

Establishing trust helps to build an emotional connection and, ultimately, more loyal purchasers.  Build trust my making you interactions with customers the best they can be.  Differentiate your customer service experience by “bending over backwards” for your customers.  Offer genuine value in your service, with no question about your customer service promise. Aim to over-deliver.  If you have the opportunity, whether online (via social media), in person or on the phone, provide some useful resources—some unexpected extras—such as offering advice to customers about using your product, giving them supplemental guidance in a particular subject area, or providing follow-up steps for them take to ensure they continue to receive quality service from you.  Above all, your business (and everyone who has interaction with customers) must be consistent in the branding and delivery of your service experience.

Solicit Feedback From Customers to Show How Much You Value Them

People are more likely to buy from you when you prove to them that your business understands them, so ask for feedback at every customer touchpoint.  You need continual feedback from customers to understand what they want from you in terms of service, and what they think about how well you are meeting their needs.  Have interactive conversations with your customers and ask them what they want and need. Use various channels and formats, including in-person interactions, surveys, and social media. Ask them how your service impacts them and encourage customers to tell you what you could do better. Always view customer complaints or constructive criticism as an opportunity for improvement.  When you take time to LISTEN and RESPOND quickly to customer feedback, you’re showing them that you care about them and building relationships that result in increased loyalty to your business.

Keep a “Client” Mindset

Maintaining an appropriate “client service” mindset can impact your business success.

It’s NOT a B2B vs. B2C thing. Think about it:

Customer = person that purchases a product or service (i.e., “transactional”)

Client = person who engages the personal services/advice of another (i.e., “relational”)

Forging a long-term relationship with your buyers, providing them ongoing advice for the future, making an emotional connection, and looking for opportunities to offer or provide additional value, advice or services to them, are all effective tactics for keeping them as engaged long-term clients instead of transaction-focused customers. And establishing a practice of routinely referring to your buyers as “clients” rather than “customers” will help serve as a constant reminder of those relationship-building business objectives to boost client loyalty to your business and your brand.

Has your company established any specific customer service programs tied to these four areas that have proven effective and boosted loyalty and retention among your customers? Share your stories.

Rob Wolfe is a Certified Integrated Marketing & Brand Management Coach who helps emerging entrepreneurs craft a brand “footprint” & identity, target market positioning statements, marketing plans, business plans, and go-to-market strategies, as well as advise on website design, social media presence, and client loyalty initiatives. His goal is to help entrepreneurs get off the ground to achieve their short-term business objectives. He has provided such leadership advice in various industries, and shares relevant B2B perspectives for discussion on his website, “Client Focus.” He lives in southern New Jersey near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.