So the Question of The Week is …
ByWhat can YOU do in the next five days
to begin treating customers like gods?
Some questions to ask yourself …
1. “Do my promotions tell the truth, the whole truth and NOTHING BUT the truth?” Ask any soft-offer marketer and he’ll tell you: Promotions that create unrealistic expectations for the product invariably result in lower pay-out on the back-end.
Hard-offer marketers know that over-the-top promises result in much higher cancellation rates and much lower response to secondary sales and renewals.
What can you do to narrow or better yet, eliminate the gap between your promotional promises and the reality of the benefits your product or service delivers … or even better yet: Deliver MORE than your promotion promises? Under promise-over deliver!
Could you, for example, add extra unadvertised premiums to your welcome packages or product shipments?
Promise 12 issues of your newsletter a year, yet include last month’s issue – a 13th – in your welcome kit … or schedule a timeless “Whoowah Bonus Issue” to hit new customers’ mailboxes two weeks after they come on board?
Maybe insert an unadvertised gift certificate offering a substantial “welcome aboard” discount on something your prospect wants?
Perhaps just send an unexpected free report or other inexpensive gift to every subscriber or customer before Thanksgiving “just because” you’re thankful for them?
2. “Do my promotions begin the bonding process with the new customers they create?” Do you position yourself or your spokesperson as an advocate who has a greater, higher vision for your prospect than he has for himself?
Do you demonstrate this by giving away valuable, actionable information or advice in your promotion?
What insights into your spokesperson’s life can you give away that make them feel more human, more like the prospect in their harmless little foibles, loves and values, therefore creating a friendship right off the bat?
When selling subscriptions, I avoid saying things like “When you subscribe …” Instead, I say something like “When you join me in …” On the order form, instead of calling my product a “subscription,” I call it a membership.
What could you do to position this initial sale NOT as a sale, yet as the beginning of a beautiful friendship?
3. “Does my product/service over-deliver on the benefit claims made in my promotion?” Goes without saying: If the product/service is faulty, fix it. If it can be improved, improve it.
Then, do this: Order a product or service from yourself, for yourself. Do it by phone so you get the live experience of dealing with the customer service rep. Throw up roadblocks.
I once called a client’s toll-free number and said I wanted a three-year subscription to his service. “We don’t sell three-year subscriptions,” they said. “Just one-year and two-year subscriptions.”
So I asked if I could buy a one-year subscription and a two-year subscription and have them run consecutively. That really ticked her off. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!” she said.
It was all I could do to resist crawling through the phone and telling her how great she was.
So challenge the operator and take notes. Then, when the welcome kit or first shipment arrives, note how long it took to receive, then go into a room alone. Get yourself into the frame of mind of a new customer who has been anxiously checking their mailbox every day, hoping to get your product. Then open it.
How do you feel? What are your first impressions? Are you bowled over by the quality and quantity of what you see inside? Do you feel closer to the company and/or its spokesperson? Does the experience leave you looking forward to your next contact with the company?
Then, even if you answered “yes” to every question above, get your best people together and spend a day brainstorming how you can make that experience a truly memorable one – in a good way.
4. “Do my people go the extra mile to make customers feel like part of the family?” Time for some more fun. Try calling customer service. How many times does the phone ring before someone answers? Are you put on hold? (Scribble, scribble!)
Have a complaint. Be angry. Be insulting. Take copious notes.
Then call back with a gazillion questions. More notes.
Try telling the rep about your cat. Still more notes.
Then, call with a big compliment. You guessed it – getting writer’s cramp yet?
Then, have a “come to Jesus meeting” with your reps and set them on the straight and narrow.
5. “Does each customer file-promotion contain a component that strengthens the bond with your customers?” I tell my clients that every promotion sent to existing customers must do two things: 1) It must, of course, produce profits, and 2) It must make the customer feel greater allegiance and loyalty to the company and/or its spokesperson.
More importantly, no promotion should ever produce profits at the expense of the relationship we worked so hard to establish with our customers. When max short-term profits and max bonding go head-to-head, bonding must always win.
6. “Am I doing everything possible to retain customers that complain or cancel?” A client of mine spends $24 to generate each new customer. Does it make sense to spend less to keep one?
That $24 could buy a LOT of tender, loving care for an irritated or disappointed customer! It could easily cover an outbound telephone call, a FedEx package with a $10 “I’m so sorry!” gift enclosed – the sky’s the limit!
Take a look at the process canceling customers go through and brainstorm everything you can think of to keep them in the fold. Think outside the box.
How about a “Hell NO!” letter to canceling subscribers: “Hell NO, I won’t cancel your subscription – the help I have for you in coming months is far too crucial to you! I’ve already refunded your subscription – that’s one thing. Yet denying you the critical guidance of our services is another. So please accept the next three months with my compliments …” You get three more months to win your disgruntled customer over.
James Tyler
Managing Editor
Online Publishing Group.com
Publishing & Media Professionals
1-800-341-3593
http://Online-Publishing-Group.com/
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