CHAPTER 40
Building Customer Relationships That Last
Effective relationships with customers are like my relationship with Riley, my Golden Retriever.
Like any good Golden Retriever, my buddy Riley is serenely uncomplicated and ecumenical with his affections. He loves anybody who plies him with kibble twice a day, patiently tosses him his ball, consents to be dragged along on the high-speed outings we still call walks, and tells him what a good boy he is.
The truth of the matter is that Riley doesn’t really care who feeds and walks him. Anyone who makes him happy by completely taking care of his basic requirements earns his affections. That is all your customers want as well.
A productive and lasting relationship with a customer is all about needs and deeds. Customers have needs. And their relationship with you extends only to the degree that you meet and exceed those needs with your deeds.
Like our canine companions, customers have developed a simple hierarchy of needs: Give me timely, complete, and accurate information to make an informed purchase decision; live up to your promises and deliver on your commitments; and, most important, support me without condition.
And, just like Riley, customers don’t care who meets their needs. It could be you. Or it could be the sales rep from your prime competitor. Customers may like you, but they don’t care about you. Customers care only about what you have done and can do for them.
If you aren’t there to meet their needs, customers will quickly forget that you exist. Who has ever had to leave a beloved dog to go off to college or move away from home? You know your dog loves you absolutely and completely, until the car taking you to the airport disappears around the corner. At which point, they will have largely forgotten about you and bonded with the new person supplying the kibble and the walks. Your customers are the same way.
Here are three strategies to build lasting needs-and-deeds relationships with your customers.
Practice equivalence. The principle that all salespeople should be guided by in servicing their customers is what I call “equivalence.” The Golden Rule—which we all learned in childhood—states that you should treat others the way you would want them to treat you. That is what equivalence means in selling and service.
Ask yourself: If you were a customer of your own company, what would you expect the customer experience to be? How would you wish to be treated by your own sales and support people? That should be the minimum standard of care that you provide to your own prospects and customers. This is easy to start with but requires constant attention.
One of my CEO clients was a very demanding consumer. That was his right. However, it was often stressful to go to restaurants with him because he demanded perfection in the food and service and was not bashful about sending dishes back to the kitchen. Yet, when it came to his own customers, he was defensive about his products and adopted a minimalist approach to customer service, making it a challenge for customers to get the support they needed. It took a long time to help him recognize and acknowledge the inconsistency between the service he expected when he purchased a product and the way he treated his own customers. Only then did he start earning the repeat business he needed to really grow his company.
Much like the other strategies in this book, you can practice equivalence even if your company doesn’t embrace it. The actions you can take to demonstrate a higher level of support are under your control.
You have to constantly survey yourself about how well you are doing with these tasks and other basic sales responsibilities. Are you promptly returning calls? Are you meeting the expectations you set with customers? It’s easy to let your guard down. But your customer’s time is every bit as important as yours. Every time you have the opportunity to interact with your customer, be absolutely certain that you are providing a level of service that is no less than what you would be satisfied to receive if you were the customer.
Delight your customers with your commitment to customer service. Commit to being completely responsive to your customers’ requirements for support, both presale and postsale. The first step to take internally is to eliminate the distinction in your mind between presale and postsale support. All support is presale. As soon as a customer gives you an order, all of your support should be provided with the goals of having a satisfied customer who will give you the next order and receiving a great referral to another potential customer.
Another of my clients had a simple escalation procedure in place: All calls to sales and service were to be answered by a live person. If the frontline sales or service tech were not available, the call was bumped to a manager. If the manager was busy, the call was routed to a VP and then up to the CEO. The CEO routinely answered calls from customers. He never identified himself to customers by other than his first name when he helped them. Imagine how powerful it was for customers to learn later that the CEO had so humbly helped them.
Demonstrate your appreciation for the opportunity to serve your customers. With Riley this is as easy as scratching his back and telling him, “Good boy.” Customers may not welcome the physical contact, but they always like to hear that you appreciate the opportunity to earn their business.
You’ll notice I didn’t say that customers like to hear that you appreciate their business. I’m sure they do. But I learned a lesson a long time ago that what they really want to hear is that you are going to work hard every day to continue to earn the right to win their business. Demonstrate by your words and deeds that there is no danger of your becoming complacent and taking the customer for granted. The strategies I covered in the previous chapter, those to help your customers maximize their return on their investment in your product, demonstrate your appreciation for the opportunity to work with them and to earn their trust and confidence in return.
Finally, it is important to be consistent. I had a CEO client, Dan, who complained to me one day about a frustrating experience trying to get customer service from a camera company. He had gone on their website to find a customer service number to call. There wasn’t one. Just a form to fill in and submit. He didn’t want to do that. He wanted to talk to someone. So he called the main number for the company, which was listed on the website. Dan described to me how he became more and more worked up as he navigated the auto-attendant and began to realize that the company didn’t have an extension for customer service. After ten minutes, he hung up in frustration. I said to him that he must really hate auto-attendants. He said he certainly did. I asked if he thought that auto-attendants were a good customer service tool. Dan emphatically disagreed. I picked up my phone, dialed it, and handed it to him. I asked him, “Then why do you use it in your business?”
Practice equivalence at all times. And keep an eye out for the small inconsistencies in your processes that can send a damaging message that you don’t intend.