Getting customers is hard work, right? Keeping them can be even harder.
So, what if we told you that you could be undoing all your hard work, without even realising it?
What would you say?
A RECENT EXPERIENCE
I recently had a lady call me from a business that I’d been following on Facebook. She called during the day while I was working + wanted to have a conversation with me about her offering.
What she did –
She barraged me with questions, corralling me into this conversation about how she could help me solve my problems.
What she didn’t do –
She didn’t listen. She didn’t listen when I told her that I needed to get off the phone. Being a business day + my busiest time, I was already running late for a meeting.
Did that matter to her?
No. Why? Because she was so caught up in her own story, she wasn’t interested in mine.
She was so busy telling me what she wanted to tell me, she failed to understand that this potential customer had her own things going on at the other end of the phone.
She was so caught up in her own process + agenda – which she’d no doubt practised + perfected – that she forgot about the reason she was even there – the customer.
She failed to realise that there might be a better way to interact with me – my way, the customer’s way.
But she didn’t. She ignored my pleas to get off the phone + continued speaking over me, until she finally insulted me. + then she lost me. Check out the full story here.
THE LEARNING
If you want to stop losing customers, ask yourself this question – am I doing things to suit myself or to suit my customer?
Here are three ways to stop losing customers:
- Be careful that you don’t run your own agenda when it comes to your customers. Think about what it is that they need from you, + how you can solve their problems.
- Think about how you fit into their day, + how you can deliver what they need in the way they need it.
- Listen to your customers – they may be trying to tell you something that could save the relationship.
KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER
It’s easy to say, isn’t it? Know your customer. Easy. But how do you actually get to know your customer in a way that stops you from losing them?
We like to use Customer Profiles.
Customer Profiles are a powerful way of understanding who your customer is beyond demographics, to what they need from you, what they need from life, what their challenges are, their frustrations, + perhaps even more importantly in this particular case – the ‘day in the life of’.
Now, if this lady had done a ‘day in the life of Sueanne Carr’, she would have known that calling me mid-morning on a business day to have a 10-minute conversation with me about her product was probably not the best time to do that.
+ perhaps even a phone call is not the best way to reach me + engage me.
FINAL TIP
You work hard to get customers + to keep them.
If you want that hard work to pay off – all the efforts you’re making to reach + interact with your customer – make sure you’re telling your customers what they want to hear (not what you want to tell them) + when they want to hear it (not when you want them to hear it).
Miss this important step + you could end up wasting your hard work + effort, reducing your efficiencies + alienating your customers.
+ that would be a terrible shame.
