I was recently working with one of my San Francisco Bay Area executive coaching clients – the president of a mid-sized company. We discussed how to keep customers for life.
My executive coaching client and I further discussed creating a culture of exceptional customer service to help the company’s sales force seal more deals. I am coaching my client on how company leaders can change the way people think and act to create a more customer fan-based.
When you begin to think about acquiring and keeping customers for life, you need to think about the particular types of customers for whom your competitive advantage is so important that they would be poorly served by using anyone else’s product or service. You need to then emphasize again and again that the special features and benefits you offer are so important that they should not even think of going somewhere else. If, for any reason, you fail to do this, you may lose the customer and all the work you’ve done in building that relationship in the first place.
Identify your most valued customers and spend 80% of your time and resources delighting them. You need to over promise and over deliver. Capturing customers and keeping them is all about creating brand promises and delivering them. This means companies must do what they say—and more. In short, you must exceed customers’ expectations to win your best customers’ hearts.
Consumers are turning away from media and, instead, tuning into each other. Engagement and word of mouth marketing are the buzzwords of our new era. Customers are doing their market research online and listening to each other.
Unfortunately, many marketers continue to look at engagement in a one-sided way. Corporate blogs have become an excellent resource for CEOs and others to connect with customers in a personal manner. In spite of the possible pitfalls in opening two-way communication between the public and employees, there is much to be gained by being personable, accessible, authentic and transparent.
Customers are already communicating with each other online about products and experiences with your company. If you can join the conversation in a real way, in real time, you’ll have an advantage over those who remain silent and inaccessible behind corporate doors.”
Are you working in a professional services firm or other organization where executive coaches provide leadership development to grow emotionally intelligent leaders? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to create a culture where customers really like you? Enlightened leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a more customer-focused culture.
One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Do my customers really like me?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching as part of their peak performance leadership development program.