What you should know about customer relations
Savvy business owners know that they must make their customers happy if they are to have any hope of making their business a long term success. However, today that relationship with your customers can be far more complex then you ever thought possible. Where large businesses once drew in customers with flashy marketing campaigns, today it is the business that knows and understands what their customers want and need that is successful. Today's customers are highly tech savvy so business owners must respond in a different manner then in years past. If you can rise to the challenge you can find that your marketing (and your sales), are more successful then ever before. Here is what you should know about customer relations-
How to use customer service in your marketing plan
Many business owners are surprised to learn that a majority of their customers will return to shop with them again simply because of the service they received. This is true even when your business does not offer the lowest price on the item they are shopping for. However, it should be stressed that even though your customers will shop with you again based on the service they received they will just as quickly desert your business because of poor customer service. Worse yet, studies show that when your customers receive poor service they are twice as likely to report that their family and friends over receiving a high quality of customer service. This makes offering the highest level of customer service to your customers extremely crucial.
How to improve your marketing through customer perception
One of the most common mistakes that many business owners make is not paying attention to what their customers are wanting. The bottom line is that if you are not listening to your customers then there is very little chance that you will be marketing effectively to them. Customer feedback can provide you with valuable insight into how your business is perceived by your customers and what you can do to improve your marketing. In addition, you can also use customer feedback to focus on building better customer loyalty. Here is what you need to know about how to improve your marketing through customer perception-
How Well Do You Listen To Your Customers?
As a business owner what you are you doing to listen to your customers? Listening to your customers help you to understand what they want and gives you insight into how to market to them and also how you can create better products that they will actually respond to. Listening to your customers is vital to the success of your business. The customer experience is something that you have to really focus on creating if you would like to have loyalty from your customers. Customers can easily provide you with the right type of information that you want if you will listen to them on places like social media sites and other areas. Listening to your customers will help you to make the necessary adjustments to create a better organization and really build with customer loyalty. Here are some tips that will help you to listen to your customers effectively:
Tips for using customer service to market your business
If you are a business owner you may be surprised to learn that many of your customers will return to you not for the fact that you offer lowest price but for the reason that you offer the best in customer service. Study after study indicates that many customers choose to patronize a different store simply because of the poor service they have received. In addition, studies also indicate that when customers have received poor customer service they are twice as likely to report this to friends and family then if they receive quality customer service. The bottom line is that if you are not offering the best in customer service you are generating a great deal of negative marketing about your business.
Customer Service Issues Causing You Problems?
How do you fair in the customer service game? Do you have customers that respect and appreciate your business? If you have people that are irritated with your company, they will spread the word and it can easily kill the sales for your company as well as hurting your company's credibility. You need to focus your efforts on being able to create stronger customer service so you can create a company that is successful and profitable. Your customers are your best ally and you need to treat them with respect and to ensure that they are happy or you will lose your company in a hurry. How can you find out if you are struggling with customer service? You need to start by taking a look at customer survey programs as they can help you to gather an honest opinion from the customers and it will be able to give you quality information about your customer service concerns and what the customers really want to see from you. Here are tips to help you create better customer service for your customers.
Customer Service Rules You Need To Follow
As a small business owner you need to focus on a number of different marketing tools that will help you to make an impact in your industry. Customer service is one of the areas that you really need to focus on in order to make an impact and to have customers that are loyal to your organization. Customer service is a skill that you need to learn yourself and to learn how to train your staff to have it as well. How can you work on quality customer service skills? Here are some rules that you need to follow.
Meet customer unmet needs
If you want to gain a greater market share, the first thing you need to do is figure out what your customer's unmet needs are or what frustrations they are facing in your industry. Any company that can solve a problem for a customer, meet a need that is not being addressed, or help alleviate a frustration is going to have engaged and loyal customers. Engaged and loyal customers means increased market share as those customers become brand advocates, and start to spread the word about what you do, and how much they love you.
Making customers happy
One of the top goals of any successful business should be to make their customers happy. Customers buy the products or services, and in today's world customers are the ones who can build or ruin a reputation. Your customers are your life blood, they are what improve cash flow, and create a following that is loyal. Thus, making them happy should be on the top of your priority list. Here are a few things to consider:
Focus on the customer experience
Back not too long ago, the way a company marketed its products and services was to spend money on commercials, ads, and other ways of getting in front of consumers and pushed their products and services. The focus was the product, it can do this, it can do that. Today however, the focus should be less on the product (although it still matters, and should be of value), the focus should be on your consumers, and their customer experience. This will help you increase sales, gain loyal customers that are customers for life, and help you gain a reputation for quality and service, which are invaluable.
How good customer service can help you market your business
Business owners may be surprised to find that a recent study indicates that the number one reason customers move onto another business, is indifference towards customers by the business owner and employees. This is a significant finding with almost 2/3 of the customers who were surveyed, saying that they took their business, elsewhere because they were poorly treated. This is a highly unfortunate mistake by many businesses, because not only do they lose the revenue, from these customers, they also lose the opportunity to use their happy and satisfied customers, in their marketing approach.
The 5 step process to customer retention
What are you doing to show your existing customers that you appreciate and need them? Do they know how much you appreciate them? Customer satisfaction is a big part of a successful company. You want to market to your existing customers as they drive in most of your sales. Customer retention is vital to your business, especially if you have a small company and you need the help and assistance of your existing customers to support your company.
Quality customer service to retain customers
Did you know that 80% of your product sales come from your existing customers? What are you doing to show these customers how important they really are to your company? Are you sending out direct mail pieces to them that shows them how much you appreciate them? Checking up on your customers often is the only way in which you can retain your customers as you want to provide them with the highest level of quality possible.
Using customer feedback
Do you truly understand your customer's needs? When you are developing a marketing plan, it helps to get some customer feedback so you can successfully market to them and so that you can make adjustments to your products and services in order to make them positively impact your companies' bottom line and develop a stronger bottom line. How can you acquire customer feedback and what do you do once you have acquired it? This article will guide you through what you need to do and what you need to know about marketing correctly to your niche market.
Five ways to build stronger customer relationships
Are you ready to market in a new way? Most of the traditional marketing efforts focus on branding, advertising, and online marketing. One of the best and most basic ways to market your businesses is by building stronger customer relationships. When customers are satisfied and happy with your company, they will be able to spread the word about your company. Word of mouth is essential for any company, especially when you are trying to acquire new customers and you are trying to build your reputation.
Want customer loyalty? Add value to your products
If you want to create customer loyalty to sustain a steady cash flow, you need to provide your customers with valuable products. What are your products and why do you think customers will have an interest in purchasing them. Customer loyalty starts by getting to know your customers. How are you grabbing their attention in the first place? Are you painting a certain image in their head that will help them get to know your company better and have a desire to buy your products?
How to develop trust and build authority
A great way to marketing your business online is through a blog, but blogging can also be problematic because there are a lot of jerks out there who take advantage of readers. So how does a blogger develop trust and build authority? What can they do to be seen as authentic? In other words, what can a blogger do to have people trust them so that they can successfully use their blog as a marketing tool? Here is a look at a few of the steps you can take to build trust and authority with your readership:
Using surveys to make marketing decisions
Businesses are always looking for ways to collect customer information to help them boost their marketing efforts. Collecting customer information can help you determine if you are making the right products and if your customers are satisfied with them. It is common for businesses to send out surveys and other methods to collect customer information. Email marketing is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to collect customer information. To collect customer information, you need to make sure you are using the correct survey questions.
Making on-off customers permanent business
Most every business has a few on-off customers. The on-off customer is the person that will purchase from your company and then won't purchase from your company again for a long time or they just won't purchase again. The on-off customer is very dangerous for businesses because they need repeat customers to survive. While you should always be on the hunt to find new customers, you cannot make this your only goal. To increase business, you need to find a way to make on-off customers permanent business.
Building customer loyalty
There is no great way to build customer loyalty than to start collecting customer information and finding ways to relate with them. Your customers want you to bend over backwards for them. A common problem for business is that they will get the customer, make the sale, and ignore them until they come back to shop again. Did you know that 80 percent of your sales come from repeat customers? With that being said, it makes complete sense why you need to spend some time gathering customer information and focusing your marketing strategies on them.
Boosting good communication to keep your customers
Good communication within your business can help you with customer retention and it can cut down on lost productivity costs. Communication is essential to running an effective business. There are numerous companies that spend too much time trying to attract new customers that they neglect to find ways to keep their current customers. One way you can enhance customer retention is to boost your communication skills within the organization.
Tips for improving customer loyalty
A loyal customer can be a very valuable asset.In addition to the warm fuzzy feelings that having loyal customers can bring to a business owner, the bottom line is that loyal customers attract new customers.A loyal customer will recommend your product or company to a friend who, if satisfied, will recommend you to their friends thus increasing your customer base.Loyal customers will come back to do business with you again and again.There is a long-standing statistic in marketing that states that on average it is 20% of your customer base that accounts for 80% of your sales.Those people in the 20% are your loyal customers and you would do well to make sure that they continue to feel valuable.
Overcoming the Marketing Slump
Is your marketing having a hard time delivering the results you want? Are you working as hard as you possibly can and still not getting results? Are you having a hard time attracting customers or generating the sales you need to remain profitable? If your answer was yes to any of these questions, you are probably in a marketing slump. What you were doing isn't working anymore so its time to re-vamp your marketing strategy and overcome your marketing slump. Here are some tips to get you started:
Meeting customer needs
With so many businesses focused on increasing their profits, many of them neglect the simple things like meeting customer needs. When you take time to understand the needs of the customers, you will find that it is easier to create products and that you will have an easier time with the marketing of your products. Take a look at some ways you can go about pleasing your customers. Here are some tips to help you get started:
Continue reading "Meeting customer needs"How to achieve total customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is probably your number one consideration if you run a business. Although your employees, profits, and quality control should be right up their, you know that if your customers are not satisfied you will not be able to continue with your business. Although you might be able to get new customers, you will need to keep old customers if you are going to have any kind of success. Furthermore, word of mouth spreads for bad products and services just as fast as it spreads for good ones. If your customers have poor customer satisfaction you can bet that others will hear about it soon. So as you are thinking about how to improve your business you obviously need to think about how to improve customer satisfaction. Many companies say that they want total customer satisfaction for their product or service. But is it possible to achieve total customer satisfaction? Most of us just assume that this is marketing ploy to get us to buy something.
How to turn complaints into brand-loyal customers
The goal of any company is to turn their customers into brand-loyal customers. Having a superior product is only one source of making brand loyal customers, being a superior company is going to secure your customers loyalty no matter your competitor's offers or promotions, and that is the goal of every company.
For the purposes of teaching you, the reader, how to turn a complaint into a brand loyal customer, we will be using Wal Mart (the monster mega store of the business industry).
Complaints can be seen as a negative, or in the world of business, it is much better to see them as a positive. You can use the complaints you receive (and every company will receive them) as suggestions to improve your product, the way it is presented, your customer service, or your company in general.
How to get OEM's as Customers
Before you can get OEM's as customers you need to understand who or what an OEM is.
So, what is an OEM?
An OEM is an Original Equipment Manufacturer. The original manufacturer of a hardware component or sub-component.
Why would you want an OEM as a customer?
Money.that is basically what it boils down to, you get an OEM as a customer and you basically get everyone who buys for them as a customer. So how do you get an OEM as a customer? You may also want an OEM as a customer because it is a consistent, often large, and good base customer that can help you gain other clients and customers.
Tips for retaining your loyal customers while staying at the top of your market niche
In order to retain your current customers and create new customers, it is absolutely vital that you understand customer buying.By understanding customer buying, you can understand what keeps your current customers coming back to your business, and what will bring new customers to purchase your products and/or your services.So here are some tips on how to understand customer buying that that you can create new customers and retain your current customers.
Customer satisfaction, a big part of outbound marketing
Marketing is a huge part of the business world, and understanding more than just the basics is important if you want to stay ahead of your competition.Customer satisfaction, a big part of outbound marketing can help you understand what needs to be changed or kept the same in order for your business to grow and increase sales and revenue.
Outbound marketing includes advertising, sales, public and media relations, customer service, and customer satisfaction.All of which are important parts of the equation.Another very important of outbound marketing, which many businesses tend to neglect, is product management.Product management can help increase customer satisfaction, which as we have already said is a huge part of your outbound marketing.
Continue reading "Customer satisfaction, a big part of outbound marketing"Retaining clients through marketing
Some of the best marketers will tell you, if you don't retain your clients, why bother marketing? It is one of the hardest and yet the easiest things to do. Keeping your clients happy is always what people focus on, which is a good point. However, have you taken the time to get to know your clients? If not, try out these simple steps, they are easy and painless.
1. Meeting people and making introductions
- 10 second description of who you are and what you do.
2. Dress to Impress
- People judge you the second they see you. Make sure the clothing you wear reflect the image of the company.
Marketing to a teenage girl, what to consider
It seems like it should be pretty easy to market to teenage girls. Their likes, dislikes, trends, and interests are already marketed like crazy, so one would think it'd be easy to just slip in and find a niche in the teen market. Not so. Instead, marketing to a teenage girl needs to be done in certain ways and it's important to know what to consider.
Teenagers, both boys and girls, are very aware that they are being marketed to constantly. They just need to turn on the television, open a magazine, or even go to school. Schools themselves are open to companies marketing to kids at school - how many soda machines are in the cafeterias and common rooms in a typical junior high and high school? Just that one example can give an idea of how bombarded teens are by companies' marketing tactics.
Continue reading "Marketing to a teenage girl, what to consider"Marketing to a middle aged man, what to consider
Knowing how to market to the middle-aged man is important to any business. The baby boomers (who are currently the middle-aged) make up the largest demographic out there and the better a company can market to them, the higher their profit and popularity will be. When marketing to a middle-aged man there are few important things to consider.
One of the things to keep in mind is the middle-aged man's life experience.They've seen a lot of progress in their lifetimes - from the growing popularity of television, the various social movements and changes, and the advent of the computer. Because of their life experience, they have a lot to offer, since they've seen such a broad spectrum of growth and invention.
Continue reading "Marketing to a middle aged man, what to consider"How to know what your customer wants
Introduction
One of the most important things about running any kind of business and doing it well is to understand you customers and know what it is they want.This is the only way you'll be able to succeed and make your business go the places you want it to go.If you are never able to make this connection, it is likely that your business won't survive for very long if at all.Knowing what your customer wants is absolutely essential to running any business well.
Instructions
It is so important to understand your customer so that you can make the most of your business.But many business owners would ask just how you get to know what they want.There are some simple steps you can take to make sure that your customer's needs are being met so that you are taking the best care of them and yourself.Here are some suggestions that will help you to determine just what it is that your customer wants.
Continue reading "How to know what your customer wants"How to get your customers in the door
Introduction
With so many people vying for our hard earned money, it is easy as a consumer to shy away from the new and simply stick to the products and services that we are loyal to.This mindset is exactly what marketers are trying to break through in order to introduce the consumers of their target markets to the latest and greatest products that their company can offer.But getting your customers in the door can many times prove to be the most difficult task in sales. It is your job as a member of the marketing team to come up with a way of interesting potential, current and former customers in what you have to offer to the point that they seek you out and come to visit your establishment.
Instructions
The likelihood of seeing a sale through to completion is greatly enhanced once you have been able to convince your customer that it would be worth their while to walk through the doors of your establishment.All of the hard work happens before you are able to see your customer face to face and relieve them of their spending money.It is that hard work of getting your customers in the door that will be discussed in the following steps:
Continue reading "How to get your customers in the door"Why most employees don't provide good customer service
I just saw something amazing. My Midwest Airlines from Milwaukee to Atlanta was delayed due to mechanical difficulties.
As a veteran of many such delays I sighed, sent off a text message saying that I would be late for my meeting, then took a seat for the duration.
That's when the amazing thing happened. A uniformed Midwest pilot got up out of his chair, went to the desk to find out more information, then walked through the waiting area talking to the passengers. He told each small group what was going on, gave his best guess on what would happen and how long it would take, and helped address missed flight concerns.
As it turned out, he was actually "off the clock" having just flown in from Los Angeles and was deadheading on this flight back home to Atlanta. So he not only didn't have to do that, he wasn't being paid for doing it either.
Ways to gain a loyal customer base
Every business owner and business manager knows that the absolutely fundamental key to being successful in obtaining and achieving your business goals is by gaining a loyal customer base.A loyal customer base will ensure that you have a foundation for your business, and that you have customers who will continue to return to your company in order to purchase your goods, your products, and/or your services again and again and again.While, as a business owner or as a business manager, you always need to be on the lookout for new customers, if you don't have a loyal customer base, then you will only be successful based on the absolute whim of what customers feel.And, of course, we all know how absolutely fickle and unpredictable consumers can be.
So how can you gain a loyal customer base?There are a number of ways that you can gain a loyal customer base so that you will always have a stable foundation that will bring in the money that you need to be successful.Companies and business are always facing pressure to reduce their costs and to get new customers so that more and more money can be made, and the amount of money made can be improved every year.As you keep working to gain new customers, you need to make sure that you can stabilize your customer base of loyal customers so that you can minimize the potential for losing money if you don't get the number of new customers that you are counting on.
Retain customers or create new ones, how to do both
In order to retain your current customers and create new customers, it is absolutely vital that you understand customer buying.By understanding customer buying, you can understand what keeps your current customers coming back to your business, and what will bring new customers to purchase your products and/or your services.So here are some tips on how to understand customer buying that that you can create new customers and retain your current customers.
How to retain customers or create new customers
Keeping your customers happy, how this is part of marketing
When it comes to marketing many of us think of advertisements and other marketing techniques but what many of us do not think about is our customers. Perhaps you are wondering what our customers have to do with marketing or how keeping our customers happy is a part of our marketing. If you are wondering about this I want you to take a minute and think about how important your customers are to your business and what kind of a role your customers play. For most of you the customers are going to play an important role in your business because without customers your business would not be successful. But not only are the customers a big part of your business, but the customers have a huge role in what kind of marketing your company is going to use. Basically when you are designing your marketing strategy you are thinking about the best way to keep your customers happy so that they keep coming back and you are also trying to draw in more customers.
Here are some marketing ideas you can try to help keep your customers happy.
Continue reading "Keeping your customers happy, how this is part of marketing"Understanding customer buying
One of the absolute key components to a successful marketing campaign for your small business is understanding customer buying.If you know why your customers are buying what they are buying, then you can tap in to those reasons in order to successfully design your marketing campaign to focus on the reasons why customers buy what they do.Also, understanding customer buying can help you design your products and/or your services so that you can attract more customers by focusing your products and/or your services so that they appeal to what customers really want.
Buy understanding customer buying, you can also know what attracts customers to your small business specifically.For example, if you can find out that customers are coming to you because you have a reputation for high quality, then you can know that you should emphasize that high quality in your marketing campaign.Perhaps customers buy from you because they know that you offer lower prices than any of your competitors.In that case, you will want to keep your prices low and highlight the fact that you will always have lower prices than anybody else.
Continue reading "Understanding customer buying"How to meet customer needs through your marketing campaign
A marketing campaign should have the goal of meeting customer needs in mind. There are certain things you can do to make sure you meet your customer needs, and those are explained below:
First and foremost offer good customer service. The customer is not always right, but they should always be respected and valued. So, make sure that your customers know they are important to you, and that you want to meet their needs. If they know this, they will be more forgiving, and they will be more willing to stay loyal to you and help you meet their needs by informing you of what those needs are.
Continue reading "How to meet customer needs through your marketing campaign"Tips for putting consumers first
Here are five tips for putting consumers first. Admit it, without the consumer; there would be no need for goods or services. Therefore in order to obtain the highest level of success for your business, you will need to reach ultimate sales, by putting consumers first.
Ok, so we know we need to put the consumer first but, how do you do this? Well for starters look at these five tips.
Continue reading "Tips for putting consumers first"Tips for building better, stronger relationships with customers
Here are some tips for building better, stronger relationships with customers. It is no secret that a strong relationship with a customer can bring more business. With that in mind we also know that there are key actions that will create that stronger relationship with the customers. However, what exactly are those key actions?
There are actually five great actions that will be key to building a better and stronger relationship with your customers. Following these tips will create a utopia of balance between business and the customer.
Continue reading "Tips for building better, stronger relationships with customers"What you should know about product focus
As you may have been able to guess, product focus is where a company's primary goal is focused on developing a product.The pursuit of innovation for the product is more important than being able to satisfy a particular market.First the product is developed and perfected and then a market is created for it.Marketing is involved throughout the process of the product focus, not to promote the product to a market, but to ensure that when the time comes to market the product, that there will be an immediate audience and demand for that product.Marketers have the heavy responsibility of predicting what people will want and how future market conditions will affect their product.
The approach of product focus is often viewed as a pyramid like system.The product is at the base of the process and all other aspects of the business build on it.For example, there would be no need for a marketing team if there were no product to market.Thus the product carries more weight in terms of importance, than does the marketing department (or any other department for that matter).Some would argue that product focus in and of itself really has nothing to do with marketing a product as is popularly known (advertising it, developing relationships with frequent users of the product etc.) until the product focusing process is completed and there is actually a resulting product as a result of all the research and development that was done.
Continue reading "What you should know about product focus"How to set up a customer loyalty program to increase revenues
What is a customer loyalty program?
A customer loyalty program, simply, is a system you set up that rewards your loyal customers for their faithfulness in choosing you for your services or product. It's a win-win situation, i.e. you win and your customers win. You both come out of the customer loyalty program better off than you were before. You've increased your revenues, or profits, and your customers have saved money or received special attention (or whatever) for playing their crucial role in this.
Continue reading "How to set up a customer loyalty program to increase revenues"How to segment your customers to determine your marketing needs
What does it mean, to segment your customers? When you segment something you divide it into segments, or parts, usually for organizational purposes. When segmenting customers for marketing purposes, then, we're putting our customers into helpful clusters or groups in order to develop a better marketing approach, and in turn a better product and better customer service. Let's consider a few things about segmenting customer in order to determine marketing needs.
How to satisfy a customer's concerns and questions using your marketing
Marketing isn't simply a matter of creating posters and advertisements and commercials and buzz for a business's product or service. Marketing covers a whole array of things, it's the way a business relates to the market in totality.
Let's focus onhow to satisfy a customer's concerns and questions using your marketing. There are many ways to do this, it's almost a matter of sheer creativity! First, though, we have to know what a customer's concerns and questions are-only then can we use our marketing skills to satisfy them. The best way to communicate with a friend, a lover, a sibling, a parent, and so forth, is directly. You go to them and say, "This hurt me," or, "I love this about you," etc. The same general psychological rule applies to marketing and to satisfying a customer's concerns and questions. We want to go the customer directly, we want to ask point blank: "What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? How could we make your experience with our service or product better? What concerns and questions do you have?"
Continue reading "How to satisfy a customer's concerns and questions using your marketing"How to increase your customer base while keeping existing customers happy
One of the keys to a successful business is increasing our customer base while keeping our existing customers happy. This sounds obvious enough, but it's a little more complicated in practice. The reason for this is that it's hard maintain both the focus required to keep existing customers happiness and the focus required for increasing our customer base. This difficulty is always present, whether our company is in its infancy or teens or productive middle age. Let's explore in more detail some ideas for increasing our customer base while keeping existing customers happy.
- First of all, if we have to choose which area to put more energy into, it's going to be keeping existing customers happy. Therefore, keeping existing customers happy should always be a company's top priority. Top priority in this case doesn't mean let other areas slide. It simply means that keeping existing customers happy should always be on the forefront of our minds, knowing that having a solid core of customers around which to build is hugely important to our stability and success
Continue reading "How to increase your customer base while keeping existing customers happy"Tips for discovering what, how, when and why your customers buy
One of the most important benefits of market research is discovering what, how, when and why your customers buy. By discovering this wealth of information about your customers you are going to be able to figure out better ways to serve your customers wants and needs. The best way to discover what, how, when and why your customers buy is by conducting some market research. By conducting market research you are going to be able to gather all of the information that you need about your customers and your potential market, this will give you the upper hand when creating your marketing and business plan.
Another great way to discover what, how, when and why your customers buy is to stay current with the trends in businesses. This information is actually easily obtainable and can provide you with patterns to customer's behavior. There are many companies out there who specialize in buying trends and for a fee you can gain access to the information that they have.
How to make contact with previously unreached potential customers
There are many ways to make contact with previously unreached potential customers. When you are creating your marketing plan you should keep in mind that you need to plan ways to get in contact with customers that you might have missed with your original marketing plan. A great way to reach your potential customers is to create ads and place them in a variety of mediums, such as television, radio, podcasts, magazines, etc. Another way to get in contact with unreachable customers is through internet marketing, internet marketing open ups the possibilities of marketing to a whole new level.
Here are some other tips on how to reach previous unreachable potential customers.
How to build relationships with customers, and why this cuts down on marketing costs
One of the most important things in marketing is to build great customer relationships so that your customers will continue to come back to your place of business. Creating good customer relationships will also help cut down your marketing costs because you are going to have customers that will return no matter what. By building a great relationship with your customers you are increasing the chances that they will become loyal customers because people like to stick to things that they know and trust. Your customer relationship management program should revolve around building a network of loyal customers through a process of rewards, incentives, loyalty, and quality services.
Here are the steps to take to start a customer relationship management program.
An explanation of customer driven marketing techniques
The marketing strategy that is used for customer driven marketing techniques is strategic marketing. This marketing technique focuses on what the customer actually wants and needs, rather than on what the company wants to sell.In employing this strategy companies will not pursue anything until it passes the test of consumer research. The system that is used in customer driven marketing research is known as Solution, Information, Value, Access (SIVA).
Here is a breakdown of the four elements of SIVA.
- Solution - how appropriate is the solution to the customers problem or need
- Information - does the customer know about the solution, and if so how, who from, do they know enough to let them make a buying decision
- Value - does the customer know what it will cost, the value of the transaction, what the benefits of buying the product are, what they will get for buying the product (reward), and will they have to make any sacrifices if they buy the product and if they do what will they have to sacrifice
- Access - where can the customer find the solution, where will the product be located for them to buy, can they get the product easily, if it is being shipped how long will it take to reach the customer, etc
How to make your prime focus your customer, and how that benefits you
Whether it comes to planning a marketing strategy or running a business, it is important to understand some of the benefits to making your prime focus your customer. It is worth discussing how to make your prime focus your customer so that you can reap of the benefits both in the short run and in the long run.
For starters, it is important to understand some of the reasons why your customer should be your prime focus. The main reason at the top of the list is that you are focusing your business in the most important direction-your clients.
How to create better products and services to meet a customer's need
If you are an entrepreneur in the early stages of developing your business and your marketing plan, one of the most important things to consider is how to create better products and services to meet a customer's need. You may be thinking to yourself `better than what?' And here is the answer: Better than your leading competitors.
Think about this closely for a minute, when you create better products and services to meet a customer's need, you are bound to beat out the competitors that may provide a similar product or service simply because yours is `better'. That is the key word we are keeping in mind here.
How to understand your customer loss so you can correct problems
We're all the same in that we all make mistakes. We all goof up, make a gaffe, slip on a banana peel, drive our car through someone's living room wall. Where we're different, though, is in our responses to those mistakes. Do we learn from them, or are we crippled by them?
As a businessperson, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to lose customers. You're going to anger people. Count on it. It's a part of life. It's like school or anything else, you can't keep everybody satisfied all the time. All you can do is to your best, and let the chips fall where they may. But you do want to learn from your mistakes. A mistake now and then is inevitable, sure, but making the same mistake over and over again isn't. When you lose a customer, you'll want to know why, so that you can avoid losing other customers for the same reason in the future. Let's think of a few ways in which this delicate maneuver can be accomplished.
How to understand your customer loss so you can correct problems
We're all the same in that we all make mistakes. We all goof up, make a gaffe, slip on a banana peel, drive our car through someone's living room wall. Where we're different, though, is in our responses to those mistakes. Do we learn from them, or are we crippled by them?
As a businessperson, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to lose customers. You're going to anger people. Count on it. It's a part of life. It's like school or anything else, you can't keep everybody satisfied all the time. All you can do is to your best, and let the chips fall where they may. But you do want to learn from your mistakes. A mistake now and then is inevitable, sure, but making the same mistake over and over again isn't. When you lose a customer, you'll want to know why, so that you can avoid losing other customers for the same reason in the future. Let's think of a few ways in which this delicate maneuver can be accomplished.
How to turn low-value occasional clients into high-value regular ones
First of all, what do we mean by "low-value" and "high-value" here? Poor customers versus rich customers? Classy customers versus gaudy ones? Smart ones versus dumb ones? No, no, and no. The keywords here are "occasional" and "regular." Occasional clients are low-value because they don't provide you with much income. Regular customers are high-value because they do. The great trick then, it turning low-value occasional clients into high-value regular ones, which takes us right back to where we started. Let's consider a few things.
1. Let's assume you've got a few high-value customers to begin with. You've got a few regular customers, the tried and true, the true and blue, who turn to you and only you for a specific need. Think back. Take a close look currently. What have you done, what are you doing, what do you plan do to keep these customers around? If something worked for them, chances are it will work for others as well. There's no need to go about reinventing the wheel, in other words.
How to tackle complaints in a way that turns dissatisfied customers into satisfied ones
OK, if you're running a business, you're sure to hear a complaint from time to time. You're sure to get an angry customer once in a while, a customer who thinks he's been cheated, a customer who thinks she's been treated unfairly or rudely, a customer who thinks that you've made their life harder insteadof easier like you're supposed to. It's inevitable, so the time to prepare for it is now. Preparing for it means developing techniques of meeting those complaints kindly, calmly, and satisfyingly. Sometimes a complaining customer can be turned into the stoutest, loyalist customer you've ever had in a few minutes, depending on how you respond to him or her when he or she complains.
1. When a customer has a complaint, they're usually not in the best of moods. They're usually not their best selves. They're usually a little more vicious than usual, impatient than usual, frustrated and desperate than usual. It could be that your company failed them on a particularly bad day, and all the badness of that day is now crashing down on you. Fair or unfair, there it is, crashing. Fair or unfair, there it is, your big chance, your opportunity to make a friend and find a loyal customer. How should you respond to customer complaints in a way that accomplishes these goals?
How to design your marketing around your customer's needs
As every successful businessperson knows, marketing is the life's blood of a thriving company. Marketing is how you show your face to the world. Marketing is how you tell the world "This is who we are." Marketing can attract or repel, delight or disgust, gladden or anger your potential customer. Therefore, learning how to design your marketing around you customer's needs is an essential lesson and well worth studying long and hard to master. In a short article such as this one, of course, we can only cover a few basics, a beginning. Let's look at some ways to get those marketing juices flowing and the money flowing in.
1. First, let's think about what it means to design your marketing around your customer's needs. Designing your marketing around your customers needs means firstly that you need to know what those needs actually are. Let's say your company specializes in running shoes. You're trying to design a marketing plan for your customer's needs. What are those needs? Running shoes. Simple. What a simple, perfect way to start. But then the details start piling up. Different runners have different needs. Men differ from women. Children differ from adults. Some runners prefer a flat, consistent terrain, while others prefer running in the hills. All of these little subtleties will have to figure into your marketing design. Designing you marketing around your customer's needs is complicated, but with the right team you can hit your target without fail.
How to be adaptable to your customer's needs
What does it mean to be adaptable to your customer's needs? Well, to start with, being adaptable means having some proficiency with adapting. Adapting means-changing to fit the times, altering methods to improve their efficiency, being ready to identify and take advantage of new trends, respond quickly to customer complaints, and so forth. You want your company to be fluid, fast, fit. You want to get your company into running shape. It's a dog eat dog world, and the biggest, fastest, strongest dogs do all the eating. But of those three qualities-biggest, fastest, and strongest-the one we're really focusing on his fastest. How does one adapt to one's customer's needs? How does one know what one's customer's want? How does one realize what bothers one's customers, what pleases them, what delights them, offends them, and so forth?
Continue reading "How to be adaptable to your customer's needs"Finding the lifetime value of a customer, and focusing on that to improve marketing
What is the lifetime value of a customer? Simply put, its that value or values that will keep a customer returning to your business for life. It's the thing that's most important to your customer. Once you know what that thing is, once you've nailed it, once you've got in your pocket and possess it, you can start thinking of ways to market it, to advertise it. But first you've got to find out what it is.
1. Obviously, finding the answer to that crucial question will depend on effective communication with your customers. In order to discover the lifetime value of a customer, you've got to ask the customer what it is. You've got to notice what lifetime values your customers have in common. You need back and forth, conversation, dialogue, action and reaction.
Finding the lifetime value of a customer, and focusing on that to improve marketing
What is the lifetime value of a customer? Simply put, its that value or values that will keep a customer returning to your business for life. It's the thing that's most important to your customer. Once you know what that thing is, once you've nailed it, once you've got in your pocket and possess it, you can start thinking of ways to market it, to advertise it. But first you've got to find out what it is.
1. Obviously, finding the answer to that crucial question will depend on effective communication with your customers. In order to discover the lifetime value of a customer, you've got to ask the customer what it is. You've got to notice what lifetime values your customers have in common. You need back and forth, conversation, dialogue, action and reaction.
Choosing to implement marketing that shows customers they are valued
How does one go about making a customer feel valued? That is, how does one go about making a customer feel cared for, important, needed, loved? If you want to a keep a customer for life, you'll find a way of answering this question correctly and sticking like glue to the answer. You relationship with your customer is similar to your other relationships. It's a matter of human beings relating to human beings. It's a matter of human feelings affecting human feelings. It's a matter of dialogue, communication, action and reaction, tone of voice, meaning of gesture, and so on and so forth forever. Whenever you're interacting with a human being, something sacred, something complex, something mysterious is going on. If your customer feels that you feel that way about them-they're yours for life. They won't want to go anywhere else. Why should they, when you not only satisfy their need for a particular product, but you satisfy their need for concern and care and sensitivity simultaneously?
Continue reading "Choosing to implement marketing that shows customers they are valued"Choosing the right way to obtain customer feedback
Choosing the right way to obtain customer feedback may be the most important decision you ever make as a businessperson. It's like a marriage or anything else, any other kind of important relationship. Communication is the name of the game, communication is key. Conversation, back and forth, dialogue, question and answer, complaint and solution, etc., create lasting bonds between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends and friends, customers and businesses, and so forth. You want to know at all times what your customers are thinking. You want to know at all times what your customers are wanting. You want to know at all times what's bothering your customers, what's pleasing them, what would please them more, what would bother them less, etc.
Right now you're probably thinking: Of course! I knew all that already. The question here is one of choosing the right way to obtain customer feedback. Well, to get right down to it, the real question is one of choosing the right ways to obtain customer feedback, because the more ways the better.
6 tips for getting to know your customer
The success of your company depends on your customer and whether or not they continue to come back to you.You must know your customer, what they want, and give it to them.This does not mean simply to know who your customer is, but to actually understand the people to whom you are marketing and why.
There are many ways in which you can get to know your customer.Here are 6 tips for getting to know your customer better.
Continue reading " 6 tips for getting to know your customer"3 tips for increasing your customer base
If you want your company to be successful, you will need to place great value on developing lifetime relationships with your customers.In today's competitive marketplace, you are probably well aware of the fact that your customers are also being aggressively prospected by your competitors and thus, your customers' loyalty cannot be taken for granted.
Your company must be customer focused, and to do so, you must recognize that relationship building, communication and customer service are all critical in increasing your customer base and retaining those customers.Here are three tips for increasing your customer base.
Continue reading "3 tips for increasing your customer base"How to turn complaints into brand-loyal customers:
The goal of any company is to turn their customers into brand-loyal customers. Having a superior product is only one source of making brand loyal customers, being a superior company is going to secure your customers loyalty no matter your competitor's offers or promotions, and that is the goal of every company.
For the purposes of teaching you, the reader, how to turn a complaint into a brand loyal customer, we will be using Wal Mart (the monster mega store of the business industry).