JoAnna Brandi, often called the “Customer Care Lady,” has 20-years experience helping create more positive, customer-caring companies that thrive, where employees are motivated, customers are loyal and competitors are nervous. She's the publisher of the Customer Care Coach®, a ten session self-study customer care leadership program, and Monday Morning Motivation, a weekly focused “self-talk” for people who care about their customers.
JoAnna is a consultant, well-regarded public speaker and author of two books on customer loyalty: “Winning At Customer Retention: 101 Ways to Keep ‘em Happy, Keep ‘em Loyal and Keep ‘em Coming Back” and “Building Customer Loyalty: 21 Essential Elements in Action.” She’s been delighting people worldwide with her biweekly “Customer Care Tip” for over 15 years. JoAnna is a practitioner of applied positive psychology and an “Authentic Happiness Coach," bringing the teachings of the new “Science of Happiness” right into the workplace. She's currently working on a new book, “The Feel-Good-at-Work Factor.” She's also a founding member of the Positive Workplace International.
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It’s the time of year when everyone’s thinking about romance. But did you ever think about how much romance is involved in building and sustaining customer relationships? I have.
When I look at the sales and marketing process, it very much resembles the courtship we see in our early romantic endeavors. We put our best foot forward, wear our finest clothing, listen attentively and talk endlessly about the benefits of entering the relationship. We wine and dine and woo.
Then somebody says yes. We send a thank-you card, perhaps, and then what happens? Well, if our goal was to close the sale, probably not much else. But if our goal was to open the door to a long-term relationship, the romance will continue. Both in business and in life, romance is a process, not an event.
In our acquisition-oriented society, we rarely think beyond what will happen after we get the sale (or the mate, for that matter). I often look at magazines, some two inches thick, that focus on having the perfect wedding, but wonder where people get their information on crafting a life-long marriage. We seem to focus on the getting so much more than the keeping.
I'm astounded when I speak to companies that invest heavily in sales and marketing to acquire new customers but seem to miss the point about investing in the maintenance and nurturing activities required to help them retain their customers. It's common knowledge that return customers are more profitable to brands than one-and-done buyers.
Sadly, most companies don’t look at the numbers that way. They keep spending on getting rather than keeping. It costs anywhere from six times to 30 times more to get a new customer than it does to keep one you already have — and keep them happy.
Let’s go over that thought for a minute: Let's say it costs you $500 in sales and marketing costs to acquire a new customer. How long will it take you to break even on the cost of acquisition? On average, it takes 18 months to 24 months before you generate enough revenue from the customer to break even. If you lose the customer before a third year, you’ve lost money on the proposition.
What can you do? Start by doing the math to get a firm understanding of what customers are costing you to acquire and retain. Then take a look at your existing romance process. Don’t have one? Create one.
Do you have regular methods in place for gathering customer feedback? Do you regularly communicate with your customers to let them know what’s new with your brand and to find out what’s new with them? Do you have a systematic approach to saying thank you and letting customers know you really appreciate their business? Do you regularly refresh the “soft skills” that people need to have to demonstrate that they care for your customers? Do you have a dedicated retention budget and process?
If you don’t, perhaps you should. Romance is a process, not an event. Think of romance as the cultivation of a relationship, a synchronized, value-based customer contact process focused on building and sustaining a relationship over time.
And frequently ask yourself my favorite question: If you’re not romancing your customers, who is?
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