Document text
- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 5, 2005 Marketing Today Reaping the double windfall Anthony Hernandez Customer complaints can wreak havoc on any business and can easily neutralize the best marketing campaigns. An increasing percentage of complaints center around so-called “standard business practices.” That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can use these facts to tremendous advantage. For example: When it comes to customer service, are you and your employees experts in what your business does and sells? Finding people who know what they’re talking about is becoming increasingly difficult, making those who do all the more refreshing. Do you ask open-ended questions designed to get the customer talking about her/himself or do you try to push products and services on them? Get customers talking about themselves and they will close the deal without you having to sell a thing. Better yet, buyer’s remorse — and the refunds it brings — will decline. Do you stand behind your products or do you restrict refunds and exchanges? Believe it or not, the more liberal your guarantee and refund policies, the fewer returns you’ll get. How about your marketing? Do you wax poetic about your company, your products, your services, your prices, you, you, you? Or do you build lasting relationships with your customers using a step-by-step process that turns leads into prospects into customers into clients into referral sources? Each step of this process must be all about giving value. After all, you can talk about how great you are, or you can prove it. Which carries more weight? Many customer complaints have to do with marketing. If you’ve ever deal with overly persistent telemarketers, you know exactly what I’m talking about. What if these companies instead sent information of interest to you? Let’s use this column as an example. Could I run weekly ads touting my skills and experience and exhorting people to engage my services? Sure. Would that approach be more or less effective for you than reading columns containing information that you can use to improve your business? Are you seeing a common thread here? I hope so, because the simple truth is that your business is not about you. It’s about your customers. If you go out of business, customers will simply shop elsewhere. You’re the one who will be in a world of hurt, not them. The secret is therefore to always err on the side of your customers. Place yourself and your employees in your customers’ shoes and learn to constantly ask what you would want to happen were the situation reversed. The Golden Rule states that you should treat people the way you want to be treated. If you are applying the Golden Rule in your business, then you are already light years ahead of far too many of your peers. That said, let me suggest the New Golden Rule, which states that you must treat people the way they want to be treated. Do that and you will virtually eliminate customer complaints. Do that and your marketing will be all about your customers. Right there, you will have overcome the all-too-prevalent perception among consumers that “Businesses don’t care about me, they just want my money. The sheer number of businesses that have lost sight of treating customers like the lifeblood that they are means that you have a real opportunity to stand apart from the crowd. I’m working on a new book called Guerrilla Marketing in Action as a follow-on to the video by the same title produced in (if I remember correctly) 1993. Guess what: Every single business featured on that tape is still in business today and going strong. The one common threat binding these disparate entities is their unwavering dedication to their customers. You get my point. This is not to say that you can’t or shouldn’t play favorites. Take a good look and you’ll probably find that you’re getting 80 percent of your business from 20 percent of your customers. Treat these people like family. Treat those who buy less like royalty. Treat everyone else like honored guests. Place your customers’ needs and wants ahead of your own and your needs will be richly taken care of. Place your needs ahead of your customers’ and you will go wanting. It’s that simple. Great customer service and customer-centric marketing need not be expensive. It need not be difficult, complex or overly time-consuming. It must, however, come from the heart. Master both and you will reap not one but two very profitable windfalls. That’s a promise. The ability to place yourself in your customers’ shoes depends to a great extent on your level of knowledge about what you are selling. Becoming an expert in your products and services will give you deep insights into your customers’ needs, wants and budgets. This will help you close more sales. The same holds true for your employees. A little investment in training can pay off handsomely. We’ll talk about that next week. If you want to know more about the power of giving as way to increase your own abundance in work and life, I cannot recommend “The Power of Giving” by Azim Jamal highly enough. You can find this book at Amazon.com or at your favorite bookseller. This book is proving to be a tremendous help to me and it can help you find innovative ways to reap the windfalls described above. Need additional help with your marketing or any aspect of your business? If so, please e-mail me to set up a free 30-minute consultation with no obligation whatsoever. As always, I look forward to your questions and comments. You may e-mail me at [email protected]. Visit me on the Web at www.coachanthony.com. Anthony Hernandez is a local business consultant with more than 19 years of business and marketing experience. He lives in Ashland with his wife Robyn, son Logan, and their three dogs. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams