Customer Retention Starts With A Happy Employee!
Much is said these days about taking care of your customer. Some would say that we spend far too much time selling, and not enough time making sure your client/customer’s existing needs are fully met. Don’t get me wrong, my sales guys do a hell of a job bringing in new business and we certainly want them to keep it coming, but in my completely biased opinion it starts with a happy customer. Every Marketing/Management/Sales 101 class beat the stat in my head – it costs an organization 5x more to bring a new client on than it does to retain an existing client.
As I help run the client operations team at AG, my primary focus IS client retention. (Which as you can see gives me sort of a biased point of view.) Working in the hotel industry I learned both good and bad lessons. One of the good ones that was indelibly burned into my brain, was the importance of taking care of your customer. If you do the right thing by making them a priority, eventually new and repeat business will follow. The problem with my experience in that industry was there wasn’t as much importance placed on taking care of the people responsible for giving the customer the “warm and fuzzies”. Long hours, low pay and rigid rules will take their toll over time.
So the first question for me every day is: How can I make sure my client base doesn’t go anywhere? -From what I've seen, the most common response is that it starts with unbeatable customer service. (Or in AG’s case, high quality sales leads). Great, well how do we make sure that happens? Simple -Take care of YOUR people!
While it is obviously important that we make our customer/client a priority, at times we can neglect the people who are responsible for driving customer success and new business to begin with. We need to continually take the time to recognize the folks that keep the engine going. It certainly can be easy to just crack the whip on our employees because we all have difficult objectives to hit, but we have to prepare ourselves for fallout as a result.
My focus everyday/week/ month is to put tough but attainable goals in front of people. I make sure they have a clear understanding of my expectation and that they get all the assistance they need from me during the process. -Oh and by the way…don’t be afraid to inject a little fun in there while you’re at it! Last time I checked, it IS possible to enjoy yourself at work!
So let’s recap: Take care of your customers. -You take care of your customers by taking care of your people. If you take care of your people AND your customers, then you'll see increased loyalty and new business from both of them. Now rinse and repeat.