1. Prioritize your customers. Determine which customers need your personal attention and how often. The larger customers (the "A" and "B" customers), most recent customers, or customers with past problems should receive the bulk of your customer-retention time. Remember, the 80/20 rule: "80% of your income comes from 20% of your customers."
2. Make regular customer retention calls. Develop a schedule or calendar of customer retention calls and follow it! Sometimes a phone call or email will suffice, to simply check up on delivery, billing, and so forth. However, don't forget the face-to-face call. When you do visit the customer, make sure that you have new information to present, and don't waste your customer's time.
3. Identify gaps and close them quickly. After the product has been delivered or service started, follow-up with the customer to make sure that what the customer received is what he or she expected. If there is a gap between the two, the customer will not be satisfied, and you will have a problem to take care of immediately. As a salesperson, you represent your company to your customers. This means that you, more than anyone else, are responsible for managing customer expectations and making sure that your customers think positively about the company.
4. Avoid surprises by keeping your customers informed. If you cannot meet the customer's requirements, or feel that it's going to take more time than anticipated, convey this message as soon as possible. Don't let it come as a surprise. The customer might surprise you by calling in a competitor.
5. Share information. Keep your customers abreast of your company's products and services, and demonstrate your knowledge of the industry and marketplace. "Whenever possible, show how the product or service fulfills the customer's needs and expectations." You can build trust and strengthen the partnership by sharing information about related products that you don't carry but that benefit the customer's business (however, don't refer the customer to your competitor's products). This will also facilitate the exchange of information that is, your customers may be more willing to tell you about changes in their business that require new products, service changes, and upgrades.
6. Monitor your activities. Top performing salespeople keep a record of every activity they undertake for a customer, along with brief notes, meeting results, actions to be taken, and the like. Such activities include service visits, phone calls placed, materials sent, and lunches attended, as well as any other contacts or attempted contacts. If a customer promises to act on something, successful salespeople send a note as a follow-up. This diary approach helps salespeople keep information about the account fresh and current. It also keeps their presentations focused and personalized. Each company has its own way of tracking customer activity in some type of CRM system. Most are good if it achieves the desired result of tracking and determining the frequency of customer contact. In addition, most companies prepare a number of reports to help monitor accounts, find problems, and uncover opportunities for growth.
7. Resell your product or service on every contact. Each contact is an opportunity to resell the value of your product or service. Take these occasions to reinforce the customer's buying decision. Whenever possible, show how the product or service fulfills the customer's needs and expectations. Failing to do so is inviting "buyer's remorse" or apathy. Both conditions leave you vulnerable to the competition.
8. Be responsive. When problems surface, your customers expect you to take care of them. To do this successfully requires managing the customer's expectations about what your company can deliver. Making promises that your company cannot keep is a sure way to alienate the customer. Before committing your company's resources, know what your customer needs and what your company can deliver. To be responsive and remain in control you must manage both your time and territory.
9. Work closely with your company. To be a good salesperson, you need to develop a good working relationship with the people inside your company. Proper rapport and communication helps your co-workers ensure that all problems and opportunities are handled promptly and efficiently. Strong customer retention skills and practices tell customers that you and your company are interested, understand their needs, and consider them valued customers. As you continue to make retention calls, a bond will develop beyond the normal business relationship, one that may have a long-lasting, personal value. While you cannot assume that a customer will stay forever, you can further the partnership by maintaining an effective, close relationship throughout the year.
Successful customer retention takes time, energy and discipline. Many salespeople aren't willing to pay this price. Instead they focus on the "next sale". Don't make this mistake. Ensuring your existing customers satisfaction is essential to long-term growth and profitability.Start implementing these successful customer retention strategies and see your sales and profits soar.
For more information on customer-retention and sales go to: philfaris.com
Phil Faris is a business development consultant, coach, speaker and author. He is president of Phil Faris Associates a firm that specializes in helping organizations hire, train, develop, lead and retain the sales talent required to succeed in a competitive marketplace. For more information on how to increase sales, profits and customer loyalty go to: http://philfaris.com
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