Business Advice Daily

Reprint and Repost Policy

by Jeanne Bliss

Do your customers love you? Not the ho-hum, lukewarm, check-the- “generally-satisfied”-box-on-the-survey kind of love. (That’s more in the realm of like…sort of.) The kind of love that inspires spontaneous thank-you letters and water cooler comments like “My new computer (or car or insurance policy or gym membership) is great—I highly recommend it!” No? If you suspect your customers aren’t feeling the love, you’ve got work to do…lots of it.

Customers who don’t absolutely adore you are more detrimental to your business than those who belong to your competitors. The latter might give you a chance in the future, but the former have already tried you and found you lacking. If you don’t enthrall your customers—and make them believe you respect them—you’ll lose them. The good news is you can make them love you. It just takes a hefty dose of commitment, energy and old-fashioned elbow grease.

So how can you make your customers love you? Well, first you have to respect them. Here are 10 tips for getting started. They’re far from easy, but they’re absolutely necessary. Do them for a while and then you can move on to the “L” word:

1. Eliminate the customer obstacle course. If you asked customers, they’d say that the obstacle course for figuring out who to talk to and how and when to get service is over-complicated, conflicting and just plain out of whack. We have forced customers to try to figure out our organization charts in order to do business with us. Instead of seamlessly executing customers’ interaction, let’s say placing their first order from start to finish, we deliver discontinuity in the experience where the organizational breaks exist. Sales sells the product, but operations is not given the specifics of what the customer needs so that what is delivered is a little off. Who does the customer call? Sales? Operations? Customer service?

2. Stop customer hot potato. He who speaks to the customer first should “own” the customer. There’s nothing that sends a signal of disrespect faster than an impatient person on the other end of the line trying to pass a customer off to “someone who can better help you with your problem.”

3. Give customers a choice. Do not bind your customers into the fake choice of letting them “opt out” of something. Let them know up-front that they can decide to get emails, offers or whatever from you, and give them the choice. You may initially build a bigger mailing list by binding customers in with the opt-out policy, but I don’t think it’s something your mom would teach you about respect.

4. De-silo your website. Our websites are often the cobbled together parts created separately by each company division. The terminology is different from area to area, as are the menu structures and logic for getting around the site. What’s accessible online is frequently inconsistent, as is the contact information provided. Even appearance may vary as strong silos create their own “look,” which extends into their section of the website. Depending on what link is clicked, customers feel like they’re entering entirely different companies. Figure out collectively what the message is, what the vitals are that you need from customers, and how you will serve them via your website, and work to deliver an on-purpose brand experience.

5. Consolidate phone numbers. Even in this advanced age of telephony, companies still have a labyrinth of numbers customers need to navigate to talk to someone. All of these grew out of the separate operations deciding on their own that they needed a number to “serve” their customers. Get people together to skinny-down this list and then let customers know about it.

6. FIX (really) the top 10 issues bugging customers. We have created a kind of hysterical customer feedback muscle in the marketplace by over-surveying our customers and asking them, ever so thoughtfully, “How can we improve?” Customers have told us what to do and we haven’t moved on the information. You can probably recite the biggest issues right now. Do something about them. Customers read the lack of action as lack of caring and certainly lack of respect.

7. Help the frontline to listen. The frontline has been programmed to get a certain output. Sometimes this means closing the call within a time frame; often it includes some kind of up-sell or cross-sell goal. It may be to meet with a quota of customers in a certain time period. Because we’ve programmed the frontline, there’s a predetermined flow of the conversation that makes it one-sided to the company’s advantage. Yet, this is what we’ve done. We’ve robotized our frontline to the customer all over the world. Let them be human, give them the skills for listening and understanding and help the frontline deliver to the customers based on their needs.

8. Deliver what you promise. There is a growing case of corporate memory loss that annoys and aggravates customers every day. A customer calls in a product return and is promised a mailing label that never arrives. An appointment is made for home repair and the workman shows up without the right parts. A promise is made for exceptional extended warranty service, yet the process is sloppy and unwieldy. The customer has to strong-arm his/her way through the corporate maze just to get basic things accomplished. They’re exhausted from the wrestling match, they’re annoyed, and they’re telling everyone they know.

9. When you make a mistake—right the wrong. If you’ve got egg on your face, for whatever the reason, admit it. Then right the wrong. There’s nothing more grossly frustrating to customers than a company that does something wrong and then is either clueless about what they did or won’t admit that they faltered.

10. Work to believe. Very few shreds of respect remain, if any, after we’ve put customers through the third degree that many experience when they encounter a glitch in our products and services and actually need to return a product, put in a claim, or use the warranty service. As tempting as it is to debate customers to uphold a policy to the letter of the law, suspend the cynicism and work to believe your customers. Most are going to honestly relay what is happening to them with your product or service. And because of all the “ifs, ands, and buts” in our policies, we’ve conditioned customers to come in with their “dukes up” when they have a problem.

Customers vote with their feet, and decide if they will stay or leave based on their perception of how much we value them and how we treat them. And more are leaving every day just because of our inability to do the basic blocking and tackling of delivering our products and services to them. Getting customers to love you has got to start with showing them the respect they deserve by making it painless and eventually a joy to do business with you.

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Reprint and Repost Policy

by Diane Carson

All too often, in our years as an outsourced marketing company, we have heard potential clients tell us at our initial meeting that direct mail doesn’t work. We are consistently amused because we are sitting across from that potential client as a result of a highly targeted direct mail piece. In fact, our business has been built on targeted direct mail. How have we successfully built a ten-year-old marketing company using direct mail? By defining our customer “wish list” and putting our name in front of them on a regular basis via the U. S. Postal Service.

Creating Your Wish List

Every business has an idea of whom they would like to be doing business with but limited resources won’t allow you or your sales department to call on every potential customer. The only way to get your foot in the door and to create a “warm lead” is through a well thought out and executed direct mail campaign. Begin by identifying your target audience. Can you go back several years and target customers who have done business with you in the past, were good customers, and yet you haven’t had contact with them in several years? Are you a member of an association who will sell you a list of members who would be interested to hear about your products or services? If you plan to purchase a list through a broker, be sure you purchase from a knowledgeable broker who will be able to assist you in finding a list that will meet your goals and target your potential market. Some purchased lists are rented for one time use and are “seeded” with fake names. To avoid penalties, be sure to follow the rules when using these lists. Whether you are using your own customer list or a purchased list of prospective customers, it’s important to make sure that your list is accurate and up to date. We call this the “grunt work.” Time spent at this stage will save time and mailing costs, while getting you closer to a new relationship with one of your “wish list” customers.

Designing Your Mailing Piece

Postcards are the least expensive to produce and most results-oriented methods of direct mail. A simple compelling graphic and message on the front of a postcard will entice the recipient to turn the postcard over to read your sales copy. However, because you can only include a limited marketing message on a postcard, they shouldn’t be used to close a sale directly. Postcards should be designed to generate traffic to your website and to produce sales leads. Potential clients can be directed to your website where they can learn more about your business. We have designed postcards for clients whose customers have displayed the postcard in their office simply because they loved the graphic and didn’t want to discard it. In addition, if you can include a short tip about your industry, it will increase the chances of your potential customer hanging on to your postcard. Postcards are inexpensive to produce—less than two cents each if you print your own—or there are many postcard printing sites on the Internet such as www.modernpostcard.com and www.postcardpress.com. If possible, apply a 23-cent stamp to your postcards, rather than using a printed indicia, to give them a more personal appearance.

In some cases, however, a simple sales letter will allow you to get your message across. Consider sending a series of sales letters to the same target database. By planning a series of mailings to the decision maker, you can develop “warm leads.” Repetition is the key and a follow-up mailing program—often referred to as the “drip method”—will allow you to carefully plan out what you want your direct mail piece to say and when to say it. For example, in your first direct mail piece, focus on a few key benefits of your service or product. In letter two, take one of the benefits and expand on it—again, pointing out features and benefits and what differentiates you from your competitor. In your third direct mail piece, focus on another benefit and keep repeatedly reinforcing your marketing message in subsequent mailings. By keeping your name in front of your prospects, as your offer matches their need, they will purchase your service or product.

Write Compelling Copy

Many direct mail copywriters use the AIDA concept. A=Attention; I=Interest; D=Desire. And A=Ask for Action.

Attention: If you have a product or a service your potential customers need, it won’t be too hard to gain their attention. Pointing out how they can benefit from your product or service will suffice. However, in order to capture the reader’s attention quickly, you must grab them in the first sentence.

Interest: Now that you have your prospect’s attention, you should expand on your benefit statement and engage them. Emphasize benefits of your product or service, not features.

Desire: After you have generated their interest, you will need to create a desire for your products or service by telling your potential customer what’s in it for them.

Ask for Action: Tell your potential customer how to purchase your product or service, how they can get in touch with you, and give them a compelling reason to contact you immediately.

Your copy should speak directly to your potential customer. If you have done your homework, you will know what benefits will grab your prospect’s attention. If the tone of your letter corresponds directly to the industry you are targeting, it will open the door to sales opportunities.

In today’s business climate, it’s not enough to open your business and expect customers to find you. Using economical highly targeted direct mail as a marketing tool to let your potential customers know you exist, even if you are an established business, allows you to get your message across, gets exposure for your business and gains attention for you and your product or service.

Six Pack Of Economical Ways To Use Direct Mail

1. Hire a professional marketing company to design a direct mail campaign and execute the plan.

2. Mail on Monday to arrive Tuesday—the slowest day of the week.

3. Use inexpensive postcards to keep your name in front of potential customers.

4. “Certified Mail” grabs potential customer’s attention instead of more expensive mail and package delivery services.

5. Send out a small initial sample and test. Tweak or change the offer in subsequent mailings.

6. Update databases regularly.

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