Product Showcases

Hold On To What You Have

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."
  --- Bill Gates

In his book, "Onward," Howard Shultz, the CEO of Starbucks talks about the time that W. Craig Jelinek, the CEO of Costco gave him advice that it is much easier and better to work to keep existing customers that it is to try to go after new ones. Shultz took this advice to heart and rolled out Starbuck's ultra successful Customer Loyalty Program energizing the company's existing customer base and bringing in millions of dollars in profits.

Every time we lose a customer to the competition, we also lose the hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars it took to get them on board in the first place. All of the marketing efforts and the time it took to learn the wants and needs of that customer just walked out the door. It is so hard to bring them back and even more difficult to replace them.

"Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them."
  --- W. Edwards Deming

Our existing customers are our ambassadors to our market. They say things about us, show off our work, and recommend our services to others. Losing them is like losing several full-page ads in the newspaper or a radio or TV commercial. We need them more than they need us, so it behooves us to do all that we can to hang onto them. If you are being threatened by a customer leaving, drop everything right now and do all you can to keep them.

"We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better."
  --- Jeff Bezos

One small thing that we can all do to try to hang on to our existing customer base is to let them know how much they mean to us. Sending out a "Thank You" card is the very least we can do. Wining and dining them doesn't hurt either. If we let them know how much we care to have their business, they are more likely to stay with us because they know they will be treated like VIPs.

"It is so much easier to be nice, to be respectful, to put yourself in your customers' shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help, than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship."
  --- Mark Cuban

Let's all begin today to be just a little nicer to our customers. No! Let's vow to be a lot nicer and to really turn up the love light for our customers. We need to set aside one day for every existing customer to shower them with kindness and appreciation for what they bring to our businesses. We should be a little inconvenienced and take the time, money, and energy that is required to let them know that we care about them and that we want to continue the relationship meeting their needs and to find a way to do so before they even ask us to.

If we don't, someone else will.

"Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships."
  --- Ross Perot