Keep customers loyal

What will get a customer to remain loyal? Better yet, what turns a loyal customer into a source of advertising – someone who’ll tell their colleagues about your services? The following steps will help you:

Satisfy customers

First, make sure you are doing a great job of satisfying your customers. Too often people rush into doing all the extras before they do the basics. Keep your promises and provide good basic service. How can you be sure you are doing what you need to do? Ask them if you are providing the service they expect.

Study the competition

Determine who your main competitors are and learn everything you can about them. Learn what they do for their customers and use them as a benchmark.

What they want

Learn more about your customers. Every time you and your employees get a chance, engage your customer in a discussion about what they want and need. If you discover something that you can do right away, do it. Go that extra mile.

Surprise and delight

People who provide the best customer service say it’s their mission to provide great service to every customer. If you decide your mission is to surprise and delight each customer rather than “make a sale,” you will have a much higher success rate. Write out your mission statement and review it daily to remind yourself the importance of customer service.

Make it personal

Although you should have customer service processes and procedures in place for all of your customers (a warm greeting, listen well, etc.), to provide exceptional customer service, you need to make it unique to the customer. This means listen carefully to the clues your customers give you. You then need to find creative ways to give them something they may not have expected. Listen to the tone of their voice or watch their body language to make sure you are properly gauging their reaction.

The days when companies simply meet customers’ needs to succeed are over, says Laurie Brown, a business coach who helps companies improve their sales, service and presentation skills. Customers are more demanding, and the merely satisfied customer is not necessarily going to be a loyal one. Service needs to be taken to a higher level, beyond just satisfaction, and expectations must be exceeded.