Much research has been done on what the makes a winning customer experience. What is it that makes customers come back to your business instead of going to someone else’s? If your repeat business is low, what is it that you are doing to drive your customers away? There is a consistent theme that emerges across the research - winning customer experiences are built on consistency. Michael Gerber in his book “The E-Myth Revisited” calls this orchestration. “Orchestration is the glue that holds you fast to your customers’ perceptions”.

This may seem a glib response to a complex issue, but take a moment to consider it from the customer’s viewpoint. When dealing with a business for the first time, the customer probably has no set expectations on what the experience will be like. With your first interaction, you set the standard in the customer’s mind. If you set a positive standard, the customer will likely return. The next time they do, the customer will expect the same from you. Fail to deliver, and ultimately you will lose that customer.

So if consistency is the key, how should a business go about ensuring the consistent experience for the customer? First, start with the end state that you want to create. What experience do you want your customers to have (cheerful, professional or very fast service, friendly, feel valued etc). With this in mind, think about all the ways that your customers interact with your business. Your business may have many touchpoints - telephone, face to face (single or multiple sites), email, web-site, snail mail and so on. Your business needs to be predictable at each touch point, and predictably the same. The customer notices when they get one experience by walking into your shop, and a different experience when they speak to you on the phone.

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For many of us - especially those in service businesses - our existing and previous customers are vital for three reasons:

1. They have already bought from us, so providing they had a good experience, they might buy from us again. We also know that getting a new customer is much more expensive than selling to an existing customer, so by continuing to sell to them, we are really saving ourselves some money.

2. They can give us invaluable feedback on how we did. Was our service good enough? Did we delight them or were we ‘just ok’. Did our product meet their expectations? Was it good value for money? And so on.

3. They continue to save us money because they should be our major source of referrals and new business. So through them, we get access to new clients who already know about us and have a positive opinion of what we do.

Most clients I meet are not leveraging their existing customer database, and by not doing so, are losing out on a cost effective source of potential new business. Many receive referrals - for which they are grateful - but it’s not because they actively sought the referral, or had a strategy in place to ask for it.

Here are 8 ways to maximize the value from your most valuable asset:

Delight your Clients

Anyone with half a brain can satisfy a customer. But only when you continually delight customers will they keep coming back. You should aim to exceed your customers expectations on every interaction that they have with you. Do this consistently, and you will have a customer for life.

For example, you think your loyal client could benefit from reading a section of your ebook or an article you’ve written? Surprise them and make it a gift. Sure, you could say, “I’ll give you a fifty percent discount.” Forego the money.

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This year, number of Web sites will grow at an unbelievable rate of 1,000 percent.

The strength of a Web presence is that any organization can look as good or as bad as any other firm on the Web.

Getting on the Web with a home page is a no-brainer.

Getting the most from the Web’s global reach takes a lot of gray matter.

Most Web home pages are developed, controlled and managed by marketing, because “they have the budget”. But the team needs to involve IS, marketing, engineering, advertising, public relations, engineering and customer service.

IS needs to be involved because they are ultimately responsible for protecting the organization’s most critical resource, computerized data.

Before you commit to a home page design, surf the Net and Web. Visit large and small, complex and simple Web sites. Study their strengths and weaknesses.

Determine how to make yours an effective and profitable Web site.

Advertising and marketing materials are usually the first items put on the home page because the Web is often viewed as a new promotional media.

Unfortunately, most organizations stop here; but they’ve really only scratched the surface.

The Web site is an excellent place for marketing and product research. An integral part of your home page should be an evaluation/feedback section. Get input on how you can expand/improve the information presented to help the “reader.”

The Web site can be an open forum for new product ideas and product enhancements as well as a repository for input on products/services customers would like to see.

Your Web site can be an excellent tool for providing timely and cost-effective customer service and customer support.

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Good News: This year more than 95% of the businesses in the U.S. – large and small – will have Internet access. Globally more than 65% of businesses in industrial countries will have Internet access. This year an estimated 60% of homes in the U.S. will have Internet access.

Bad News: This year more than 95% of the businesses in the U.S. – large and small – will have Internet access. Globally more than 65% of businesses in industrial countries will have Internet access. This year an estimated 60% of homes in the U.S. will have Internet access.

Whether your firm’s target customers are businesses, homes or a combination - nationally or internationally – the forecasts for your future are a mixture of good news, bad news. As your business grows so will your support requirements. It’s unavoidable. After all, you are in business – business-to-business, business-to-consumer or simply business-to-customer.

If you’re like most firms in the industry, 70 percent of your customer service budget is staffing. Every day, your support knowledge goes out the front door and home (even if you outsource it or move it offshore). On a monthly basis you probably have to replace some portion of that knowledge that was lost as a support person leaves for a better paying job.

The biggest problem a company (regardless of the channel) faces today isn’t competition from the infrastructure players who threaten to undercut your pricing, the breakneck speed of keeping up with technology or the struggle to balance income with outgo. It’s creating and maintaining relationships. While people are pivotal in the relationship picture it is even more important to use our technology to cement and enhance that relationship.

While some industry “experts” will tell you that automating these processes and activities will be expensive and painful, we disagree.

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Do you remember the last line in your job description in the corporate field?

· Will perform other duties as required.

It was and still is the catch-22 of most working environments. One may have been hired as an engineer, accountant or office cleaner and expected to perform work related to your profession but they can always get ‘ya with other duties as required. It means: I know you didn’t sign on for this, but hey, it’s got to be done, someone’s got to do it. You may say, “why me”? Your boss or the human resources department replies, “why not”?

You might not think as entrepreneurs that we will fit into a mold, but we do, something that I refer to as the entrepreneurial paradox. We want different, we don’t want the usual working hours, answering to a time clock or to someone else, we want to be free and approach tasks and challenges in our very own way.

Most entrepreneurs have a good product or service, combined with a work ethic and an opportunity to be our own boss and work our own hours. Most of us don’t know that this actually means working more hours (sometimes a lot more).

Except for the few of you that may be setting up a bookkeeping or collection service, following up and having to collect on invoices is low on our list. If we think of it at all, we don’t think of it much. After all, when you were telling/convincing your spouse about starting your business, I’ll bet you never said “I’m really looking forward to calling up those customers who haven’t paid their bills!”

There are a number of reasons why about 50% of small businesses will not last more than five years, but what it comes down to is non-performance of ODAR (other duties as required).

Some of these duties may be cosmetic and others are critical. Foremost among the latter is credit and collections.

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Negotiating can be done in a professional manner that can increase customer satisfaction while helping to protect both parties’ interests.

Let’s first look at some of the problems that give negotiating a bad name and then look at the solutions. A lack of training in negotiating in the automotive industry has put sales people at a disadvantage. Usually, a sales person is taught how to negotiate in a learn-as-you-go method. Although all learning must be accomplished by doing, some preparation has to be done to make the learning experience more effective. All sales people and managers should go through a course on basic and advanced negotiating. Assuming that sales managers can automatically teach your sales people to negotiate professionally is asking for trouble. How did the managers learn to negotiate?

Sales people should be taught the expected procedures. I like to call these routing procedures. Routing procedures will define everyone’s responsibilities, from the moment a customer is greeted until they are delivered, including the necessary paperwork and who initiates what. Included in the routing procedures are items known as, black and white items. Black and white items are the things that should never vary at your dealership. These items are to be defined by your top management and can include such things as not quoting discounted prices on the lot or never low-balling on price.

Another source of problems in negotiating is the misuse of traditional negotiating techniques. The “higher authority technique” is a technique of always deferring to a higher authority for a decision. The technique is a solid negotiation tactic that has been run into the ground by automotive people. Having your sales people run to the manager more than once or twice in negotiations is a crime.

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