As a retailer, what’s your most valuable commodity?  Your inventory?, your property?, your receivables?….no, it’s your customers.

A beautiful store with lots of products and no one to buy them doesn’t spell success in any business book that I’ve seen.  We’ve probably all seen and laughed at the placard:  “I have so much work to do…why do these damn customers keep getting in my way?”  The last laugh, however, is on us.  Customers are equipped with an inner signal and a green light goes off when they feel they’re being treated with respect and concern.  A red light blinks with the specter of indifference.  Green:  customers return; red: customers leave.  So, Why are customers worth so much?

What’s the price tag associated with an empty store?  Or the cost of having last week’s customer shopping at your competitor’s establishment?  Formulas exist that predict what a loyal customer might spend over the course of a ten year period.   The one-time only customer might cost your business tens of thousands of dollars.

Business games teach us how to make money.  Marketing games tell us how to attract customers.  What’s needed is a game that teaches us how to keep customers.   This article offers one and it’s called “Customers for Keeps”.

Our game begins with a couple of simple premises:

• Our business:  enriching our customers’ lives
• The measures:  revenues, returning customers, referrals

The key is not to get the goal and the measures reversed.  Too many people think we’re in the business of making money.    What’s wrong with that?  Why does it matter?  Well, if we focus on enriching customers’ lives….the queue of returning customers will contribute to the company coffers.   But if we focus on making money, we usually lose sight of the customer, the real reason we’re in business, and instead focus on ourselves which causes us to miss the target as well.

So, how do we play this game of “Customers for Keeps”?  Despite the current winter weather, venture into the future and think Spring.  Think Baseball.  Picture the baseball diamond that we’ll call The Customer Relationship Diamond.  Like that venerable sport, our objective is to advance the batter round the bases.  Central to our game and located at the pitcher’s mound is communication.  What relationship can be nurtured without dialogue and conversation?  Customers reach the  “at bat” position through advertising, word-of-mouth and memorable past experiences.  From this point on, it’s the job of the service provider to advance the runner.   First Base is “Hosting”.  Hosting a customer is the same as welcoming an honoured guest to our home:  we anticipate their needs and prepare accordingly.  We treat them with an interest that borders on the obsessive.  The astute retailer sees his establishment through the eyes of the customer and offers policies, systems, information and comforts that communicate “you’re special”.

Second base is labeled “Understanding”, oftentimes the hardest base of all to reach.  To get our customer from first base to second base, we must ask questions and listen to extract what’s in the customer’s mind and transfer it to our understanding.   Why is this important?  Consider the following: Most customers don’t know what they want…they start with a vague idea, and they look to us for assistance in helping them get clarity.  In our baseball analogy, too many players try to steal second base, usually with predictable results.  “You’re OUT!”,  screams the umpire.  What does stealing look like in our retail game?  It’s assuming that we know what the customer really wants, and we rush to “sell” him rather than help the customer through his thinking process. What questions can a service provider ask?  Questions about what they think they want, why it’s important to them, what’s driving them to make a purchase, what their issues and concerns are, what they’re currently considering, who else is affected by the purchase, what their interests are…..  There’s so much for the excellent retailer to discover if only s/he would ask.

Let’s say our retailer passes the test and advances the runner.  Third base is about “Assisting”.  Armed with the information, insight, ideas and expectations of the customer, the retailer is now equipped to offer information and alternatives.  Consider that customers don’t want to be ‘sold something”, but they would like to be part of the process, to be involved, and to be treated to the possibilities that a knowledgeable service provider has to offer.  Ultimately, the final decision is that of the customer.  When retailers see their role as working in partnership with the client so that the best decision is arrived at, customers know they’ve found an exemplary retailer.

Does the excellent service provider stop there?  Never!  Leaving a customer at third base is a missed opportunity that may cost you the game.  How do we get the customer across the plate,  or what our game calls the  “Keeping” base.  It’s an act of proactivity where the retailer contacts the customer, sale or no sale, to check the following: where is the customer now in his decision, how is the solution working for her… The real message that’s conveyed:  the service provider cares.  A pretty powerful message.

So, that’s the game.  It’s a simple one but so often misplayed.  The rules are clear.  Focus on your customer first and foremost.  Reach the bases in sequence.  You win when your customer wins.   The penalty for poor performance: leaving a customer stranded creates an opportunity for your competition.

Customers are hard to find and they’re harder to keep.  The quality of your products isn’t enough to earn their loyalty.  But the treatment you display, before, during and after the sale, will differentiate you.  Try it and see what happens.

By Cheryl Crumb