When I talk to CEOs and Business Owners about their customers, they can always tell me who their BEST CUSTOMERS are and why they are number one. It’s easy…they know who they are and they know what they buy. But when I ask them what they are doing to get more of these types of customers, this is where the answers get a bit fuzzier.
It usually has something to do with sales and sometimes marketing…but usually it’s focused around sales. They have a sales team “dedicated” to finding some of these customers and then enticing them into the company in some way…usually through some special deal. But it’s generally focused on the company going after the customer by tracking them down, meeting with them, figuring out a way they can help them, putting some special incentives together so they will try them out, and hopefully closing the sale.
This is an expensive and time consuming process…regardless of whether it works and has been used by companies for years. There is nothing wrong with this process in general…other than the cost and the close ratios. These can sometimes be high and low, respectively…but you keep it going because they are identified as your best customers.
If you are a retailer, it’s much more difficult to invest in the above process because you don’t have the margin per customer to dedicate to this kind of effort. So you might resort to “bring a friend” in programs or other such incentives designed to attract other highly desirable customers. This process can also be expensive and may not give you the volume of results you want.
There’s another way to go about attracting top customers. Another way to attract more top customers and win their attention and their business…often times without giving up margin and with a higher close ratio than your sales team. TURN YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS INTO YOUR SALES TEAM.
Create the processes and plans to enable your best customers to do the marketing and selling for you. This has proven to be the lowest cost and highest return for getting more of your top customers. It’s called “credible” WORD-OF-MOUTH. Credible because it is being spread by your most valuable and respected customers to other prospective customers.
Now you’re probably saying something like, “Of course word-of-mouth is great, everyone knows that and we get some of this from these customers so that’s nothing new. We would love to have more of it but we ask and ask and get minimal return from our existing customers…especially without some incentive.” The problem for most companies is that they really aren’t investing in their best customers in a way that would cause them to tell others about them. And I’m not talking about just “telling others”… I’m talking about “passionately raving about you” to others. There is a huge difference.
I will be the first to admit this is NOT EASY. It takes a strategic, consistent, and process oriented approach to make it happen. But these are your TOP CUSTOMERS we’re talking about…isn’t that worth some significant investment of time and resources? If you truly want more of these, then it is worth a very specific strategy and process for getting them.
The absolute best, “long-tail” approach to creating ADVOCATES that will rave about you and tell others just like them is to CREATE AN AWESOME AND INCREDIBLE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE they love and can’t wait to tell others about. It starts and ends with the customer experience…not products or services. Creating this experience doesn’t happen overnight…but it can completely differentiate your business…for a very long time and give you more of your best customers.
To help you get started thinking in the right direction, let me give you a key question you might want to start asking your leadership team and employees…
“What is the one thing we could do for our top customers that would cause them to say, ‘WOW, I love working with you because you _______ (fill in the blank)…this is so different from the way anyone else treats me and you make me feel incredibly important.’”
Start with this one question. Find out from your employees what they think would be the right phrase to fill in the blank and start collecting this information. Don’t ask them to come up with a list, just ask them for one thing. Believe me, they will give you more than one and that’s OK. But just get them to focus on the one thing they feel is the most important factor that would cause your best customer to make the statement above.
Once you have collected the information, sit down as a leadership team and go through and discuss every comment/suggestion. You will immediately see which ones jump off the page and will cause you to say, “WOW, there are some great ideas in here that we should seriously consider.”
Prioritize the list of items you feel would totally amaze your customer if you did these things. Come up with the number one item in the top list of items. Now, here’s the magic…
DO THAT ONE ITEM…DO IT BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE…DO IT WITH PASSION AND COMMITMENT!
If you make this happen, you will have started on a path to thinking and acting more CUSTOMER OBESESSED. However, this isn’t the ultimate solution…that takes a full “Customer Obsession Strategy” and plan to really change your company. But this is a good start.
When you have a strategy and plan to get your customers feeling this important and special and giving them an experience where they consistently say, “WOW you treat me so much better than any of your competitors,” you are well on your way to being differentiated and Customer Obsessed. And when your customers feel this way, they tell others…often and regularly. They become your ADVOCATES in the market to other people just like them…other TOP CUSTOMERS. Now you have your top customers doing your marketing to other potential top customers! And according to the statistics, 90% of the people believe the recommendation from someone they know or are connected with…90%.
Create a list of Advocates who are your top customers and you have created the most successful way to get more of your #1 Asset…your best customers.
