One company sends this card with its mail orders. “Please complain. Thank you for your order! We want everything to go perfectly. If the order was late, or wrong, or any of the goods are damaged in the slightest or you”™re just having a lousy day and want to unload on someone, call our customer care hot line.”
A car wash owner invariably walks up to a complaining customer, looks him up and down and as his face turns an apoplectic, beet-red screams at the top of his lungs, “Waddya want ”¦ a $100- detailing job for eight bucks? Now get outta here and don’t come back!” If the customer threatens to tell his friends, the owner yells, “Go ahead. They”™re probably jerks just like you!”
The first of three principles successful Hudson Valley organizations follow is to satisfy customers. Find out what your customer needs, then deliver it. Don”™t worry about how much you can make on the sale. Deliver the best customer service possible, the bottom line will take care of itself.
If you just happen to be a dog breeder, find out if a customer has time to train a puppy or would be better suited with an older, housebroken dog. Breeders that care only about profits often advertise low prices and sell dogs with genetic defects or illnesses.
“But,” you say, “a customer who buys a healthy dog from a reputable breeder isn”™t going to need another one for several years.” Success also depends on the second principle. Shorten the trading cycle! The new dog owner will remain a profitable customer if you offer training lessons and grooming.
Multiply sales by following the third rule. Offer content and low cost, not low price. Although you may pay less for inefficient software, lost productivity will cost you a fortune over the long run. Rather than cutting your price, educate customers about how much less it will cost them to do business with you.
Organizations following these three principles can succeed in any business.
Ӣ Satisfy customer needs.
Ӣ Shorten the trading cycle.
Ӣ Add more content and have low cost rather than low price.
It does not matter whether you”™re breeding dogs, writing software, making furniture, managing investment portfolios, selling mail order gift baskets or washing cars. Don”™t pursue the gross profit agenda. If there”™s a range of products to be sold, never ask, “Which one carries the highest profit margin?”
Replace the self-defeating tactics of the gross profit business agenda with the customer-satisfaction business agenda. All that”™s required is to generate multiple purchases of your product or services and not worry about making a large profit on each sale.
Gary Ryan Blair, author of “Everything Counts” and called one of the world”™s most influential thinkers says, “Everything you say; every thought you entertain; and everything you do has a direction that serves as an advance or a retreat in respect to your pursuit of excellence.”
Deliver excellent customer service by making people happy, no matter what it costs. They will tell friends and do business with you again. Shorten the trading cycle by adding related services or offer upgrades. Get people to buy from you more often. These rules of customer service are indeed the ultimate bottom line builder.
Questions for discussion:
Ӣ How can we, rather than reducing price, add more content, so that our customer can clearly see that we are offering the very best long-term price?
Ӣ What additional needs do our customers have that we could fulfill and, as a result, shorten our trading cycle and have them purchasing from us more often?
Joe Murtagh is The DreamSpeaker, an international keynote speaker, meeting facilitator and business trainer. For questions or comments, Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com, www.TheDreamSpeaker.com or call (800) 239-0058.
