How to focus on
your customers, clients or patients. More importantly, why we need to make them
feel ‘LOVED’!
On average, and for a
variety of reasons, most businesses will lose between 10% and 20% of their
existing customers each and every year. Customers come and go. It’s simply a
fact of life.
Some of the reasons for
customer attrition are unavoidable but others are in the complete control of
the business.
Interestingly, according
to a recent survey by the Sales and Marketing Executives International,
customers stop buying for the following reasons:
· 1% die
· 3% move away
· 5% develop other friendships
· 9% leave for competitive reasons
· 14% are dissatisfied with the product or service
· 68%
leave because they were treated with indifference, disrespect, apathy or
neglectful behaviour on the part of employees of that business organisation
with whom they interacted
But
what is good news is that 82% of a business’s customers leaving because they
are unhappy is not good news in anyone’s book.
Because 68%
of people leave through
indifference, with a bit of ‘handholding’ many of these customers wouldn’t
leave in the first place, and those that do can be ‘won’ back.
As a business, we work
very hard to keep our clients happy. We’re not perfect by any means but we
focus on every interaction we have with them and make sure at the very least
they are happy with the outcome. We also regularly tell them we appreciate
their business, and when they refer people to us, we say ’thanks’ and send them
a gift.
There’s more we do, but
I can tell you from my own experience that once you get a customer it’s your
job (and the job of your team) to make sure you hold on to them. It’s not
difficult to ‘love’ our customers, as long as we don’t forget . After all,
even a loved one needs telling how much you care every so often!
