Three Pillars Supporting Long-Term Customer Relationships

All companies want customers who stay, buy more and tell others how great it is to do business with them. Great companies create great customers. How do they do that? It takes a thoughtful strategy and a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. I believe there are three pillars supporting a loyal customer base: innovation, performance and service.

1. Innovation

One sure way to erode your customer base is to take them for granted and stop innovating for them. Great companies use innovation not only to attract new customers, but also to keep current customers dazzled. When was the last time you offered a new way of doing things that made life easier for your customers? How about a new process that saves them time and money? There’s a growing tendency for companies to try and upsell us at every turn. It’s irritating unless it seems more advantageous for us than them. Great companies roll out offerings that help customers do things better, not slightly fixed versions with more promotion than substance. The IPod destroyed the portable CD player in exactly that way and no one ever again had to jog with that 12-song anchor tied to their waist.

2. Performance

You have to keep performing to keep your customers. This goes for your people as well as your products. So you got a big contract and life is good, right? Then the problems start with poor production quality and delivery issues. For product rollouts, today’s nanosecond news cycle is akin to the peril of a first sales presentation. As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Great companies obsess over performance metrics. A former boss of mine often observed that when you continually measure something, the trend improves. Your customer base will reward you for that great performance. It’s tied to the Basking in Reflected Glory effect, where the success of others we associate with becomes our own success. Everyone loves a winner.

3. Service

Customer service is essential to supporting long-term customer relationships. People tend to only think of this in keeping customers for life, but great customer service won’t help unless you also innovate and perform. It’s like working with a disgruntled customer. You can’t begin to fix them until you understand them and know the details of their issue. Great customer service is not possible if you’re not innovating and performing for your clients.  Another way to look at this is that your customer service staff shouldn’t be the only people on your team helping customers. That’s like no one but the goalie in a hockey game playing defense. You’ll get creamed. And you’ll go through a lot of customer service reps. Just as everybody on your team should be in sales, so should everybody on your team be in customer service in one way or another.

With innovation, performance and service you can keep customers for life and turn them into sales associates.

David E. Potts is the author of Customer Relations and Sales from A to Z, available through Amazon. His blogs can be found at http://solvingthesalespuzzle.com/ Follow him on Twitter @TazewellDave