Per­haps it takes an eco­nomic downturn…I mean readjustment…of the scale that we've had to real­ize just how impor­tant loyal cus­tomers are to a busi­ness. It goes with­out say­ing (but I will say it any­way) that with­out cus­tomers there is no busi­ness.  But how much effort and empha­sis does your orga­ni­za­tion place on get­ting new cus­tomers ver­sus keep­ing exist­ing customers?

Seth Godin posted a won­der­fully suc­cinct blog not long ago and asked what if there were "No new cus­tomers"? I join him in ask­ing, "What do we do as indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions to show our cus­tomers that we value them?" While you're think­ing about that, here are a few ways I think we can show cus­tomers that they light up our world.

1. Take every oppor­tu­nity to say "Thank You". Grat­i­tude as a part of cour­tesy is one of the hall­marks of excel­lent cus­tomer ser­vice. Any cus­tomer ser­vice, sales, or sup­port train­ing worth doing includes that fundamental.
2. Be gen­er­ous with sin­cere com­pli­ments. Some­times we think com­pli­men­tary thoughts ("Wow. She brought all the data files we talked about need­ing.") but fail to say any­thing. Praise isn't just for direct reports. When it's sin­cere, it  strength­ens rap­port by show­ing that you noticed and appre­ci­ated your client's efforts.
3. Be proac­tive about nur­tur­ing your rela­tion­ships. Stay in touch. Send arti­cles, web links, a sum­mary of a web­cast, or book rec­om­men­da­tions that you know will inter­est your client. And it doesn't always have to be the account man­ager that makes con­tact. Once the cus­tomer is a cus­tomer — has pur­chased your prod­uct or ser­vice — then ser­vice and sup­port can also keep in touch. Tech­ni­cal sup­port or field ser­vice can check back to make sure that what they did to resolve an issue is still stable.
4. Make an  effort! I'm a mem­ber of a LinkedIn group called Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence Man­age­ment and was read­ing a con­ver­sa­tion thread ear­lier today. Gary M. Freed­man, another mem­ber of the group, told a great story about his expe­ri­ence in a Wells Fargo Bank branch. He was impressed with the effort made to make him feel impor­tant — and he doesn't even have an account with the bank.

What he described was beyond good ser­vice and def­i­nitely took some effort. He wasn't just greeted; he was engaged in con­ver­sa­tion so pleas­ant he didn't want to go to the teller. The teller didn't just do her job; she made it per­sonal by offer­ing a hand­shake at the end. What was done isn't so amaz­ing as much as the fact that it WAS done and done so well that the cus­tomer felt special.

What do you and your orga­ni­za­tion do to show you value your exist­ing cus­tomer? I'd love to hear your suggestions.

With a back­ground in per­for­mance improve­ment and instruc­tional design, Mon­ica Postell works with Impact Learn­ing Sys­tems in design­ing and deploy­ing train­ing and devel­op­ment pro­grams that fos­ter real cus­tomer loyalty.

Mon­ica Postell

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