AtricleZine - Never Trust a 'Silent' Customer

Its simple math: You lose $20 x 50 weeks. That's equivalent to $1000 a year.

If you lost just 10 such customers per month, you'd lose about 100 clients a year.

That's $100,000 that could be in your back pocket if you were a little complaint-conscious.

That Doesn't Happen in Our Business: The Denial Syndrome

Overtly it won't. In a Bain & Company survey of major corporations, they found that on average, U.S. Corporations lose half their customers in five years. Notice, it wasn't 'one year' or 'suddenly'. Clients have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then its camel-back-breaking time. So, if you think that all your customers are happy with you-they aren't. It's a basic fact of life.

What's really weird is that you can't measure how much business you're really losing. A study was done on a bank, they found they had as many accounts as they had a year ago. What they failed to measure was how most of the people had 'silently' transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line.

The same thing applies to your customer. Like a patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don't use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it's almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business.

If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn't ring any alarm bells. However, if you've been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.

No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don't deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.

The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers

Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.

How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him."

Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?

It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line. The Sales Training Series: Gaining Commitment
Employers value salespeople based on their ability to Gain a Sales Commitment. Improving this sales skill has never been more important than it is today. So, what are you doing to get better?Here are several ideas on how you can improve your sales effectiveness at gaining customer commitments.Always Have a Commitment Objective!Our recent research shows that nearly 80% of salespeople do not understand what their primary purpose is. Your principle mission in sales is to Gain Commitment. The confusion stems from the variety of tasks we as salespeople are asked to perform. The end result is that 62% of salespeople make sales calls where there is no attempt at Gaining Commitment. One of the most important reasons why this occurs is most salespeople do not establish what we call a Commitment Objective for every sales call. This is the number one mistake that all salespeople make. Well, it's time to change that!Commitment ObjHappen in Our Business: The Denial Syndrome

Overtly it won't. In a Bain & Company survey of major corporations, they found that on average, U.S. Corporations lose half their customers in five years. Notice, it wasn't 'one year' or 'suddenly'. Clients have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then its camel-back-breaking time. So, if you think that all your customers are happy with you-they aren't. It's a basic fact of life.

What's really weird is that you can't measure how much business you're really losing. A study was done on a bank, they found they had as many accounts as they had a year ago. What they failed to measure was how most of the people had 'silently' transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line.

The same thing applies to your customer. Like a patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don't use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it's almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business.

If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn't ring any alarm bells. However, if you've been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.

No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don't deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.

The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers

Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.

How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him."

Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?

It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line. Launch A New Product With Promotional Gifts
One of the most effective ways to launch a new product is to package it with a promotional gift. The something-for-nothing factor is always a great lure to get people to try a new product, and it’s one that is being exploited in a big way by many major manufacturers. If you’re launching a new product, you don’t want to package it up with just any free gift, though. You need a plan to make sure that the promotional gifts you choose are the ones that will return the most boom for your investment.Coordinate the Gift with the Product The free giveaway that you choose should make sense with the product that you’re selling. A fitness club launching a spring advertising campaign, for instance, might include an imprinted promotional water bottle if you come in for a tour of the facility, and give you a free fitness meter imprinted with the club’s name if you sign up for a year’s contract. The two items fit the club’s profile, are scaled to the produost of the people had 'silently' transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line.

The same thing applies to your customer. Like a patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don't use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it's almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business.

If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn't ring any alarm bells. However, if you've been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.

No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don't deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.

The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers

Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.

How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him."

Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?

It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line. Where Does The Fear Of Public Speaking Stem From?
In all my years of public speaking, I have learned many techniques to help calm those butterflies in the ol' stomach before getting up in front of a group. Several techniques don't actually have anything DIRECTLY to do with speaking or being in front of the group at all!One time I did a presentation on the topic of Public Speaking and in my intro I asked the audience to grab the big box of 'Fear of Public Speaking' I had placed on everyones tables. They looked around the room quite dumbfounded! Then I asked if I could go to the store and buy a big family-sized bag of 'Fear of Public Speaking', but by then they realized where I was going with this....the fear of public speaking doesn't actually exist, rather, it only exists in our minds!Have a backup plan! If you are preparing a presentation and you are planning on using some high-tech approach (say a Power Point presentation), have a backup plan! Print enough copies of the slides so eu've been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.

No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don't deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.

The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers

Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.

How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him."

Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?

It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line. Payroll Time Clock Software
Most entrepreneurs consider payroll management a strenuous business process. Most companies either have a dedicated staff involved only in payroll management or they outsource this function. Payroll management involves calculating the money owed to each employee, taking hourly wage, commission, sick leave, vacation time, and other variables that change the pay from week to week into account. From this gross pay medical insurance, pension plans, social security taxes and other programs the company or government pay for has to be deducted. In all, figuring out the payroll for each employee can become a job unto itself.Fortunately, there are many versions of payroll software that will solve these problems for all kinds of businesses. Payroll software helps to automate and provide timely and accurate payroll processing for all types of employees. These programs automate the entire process from deducting taxes to even printing out the checks. Many oft would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn't want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, "We don't take complaints on this line. You'll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him."

Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?

It's easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don't have a complaint line.

Most companies act precisely in the same manner. For one, they have no real complaint department. If clients are unhappy, they feel embarrassed to complain and because no route has been cleared to vent their feelings, they avoid it completely.

Then they leave.

Obviously, you can't wait for something to go wrong. Your job is to find ways to get the client to complain. If they complain, you are getting feedback that is extremely valuable and is probably relevant for all your other clients as well. Best of all, empowered with a complaint channel, a well-trained client will complain at every juncture giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and regain their trust.

How Companies React to Complaints

Virgin Airlines CEO, Richard Branson, sometimes makes an appearance at the gates when a flight is late, apologising profusely to all passengers as they check out. How mad would you continue to be if you ran into a situation like this?

Yet most companies detest complaints. Living in their ivory towers, they refuse to believe that any of their clients would leave. So they never ask for feedback. On the rare occasion that clients get mad enough to put it in words, it's too late. Even then, a complaint is treated with nuisance value.

The first step a company takes when dealing with complaints is that they fix it.

Yeah, Right!

Because of their crummy service, the plane took off without you, you missed your meeting and lost more than just your temper. Do you think, just replacing something is going to erase all that trouble? It's going to take much, much more.A simple replacement is never the answer. It has to be a heck lot more than just a numb 'sorry' . You've got to woo the customer back like you would with the girl that you had your eye on. Going down on your knees and begging for forgiveness is a start. Then you've got to lay it on thick and the thicker the better.

The Problem With Zero Defect

Lots of companies ran themselves into the ground trying to achieve zero defect. In an unpredictable world like ours, that goal is unreal. Even the best of intentions aren't much use if you run into a flash flood. Clients recognise that. However, it's up to you to have a disaster recovery plan in place.

When I say that, I don't mean a grandiose 'in case of a nuclear attack' plan.

At Nordstrom stores across the U.S., salespeople are empowered to do 'whatever it takes' to fix a problem, even if it means going to the store across the street and buying the product at a higher price. It's called the art of immediate recovery, and it assumes that something w

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