Everyone wants customers who rave about them to others. Getting a positive, personal recommendation from a friend or neighbor carries more weight than the most expensive advertising. It’s a trust issue. We know our friends and neighbors are self-motivated to tell their story, there is no payment involved. They want the best for us and want to share a good experience.
Instead of creating raves, many owners create gigantic waves that also become word of mouth stories of who not to use for service.
Waves are created by:
- No follow-through
- Not keeping your word
- Being treated gruffly or rudely by anyone in the organization
- Doing the bare minimum
- Being late or not showing up
- Lack of integrity
These are only a few of the things that create waves, but they are more prevalent than you might imagine.
Being good at what you do is just the beginning. Creating stories that make customers rave is not hard but does take awareness and putting specific operational processes into place.
Know what is most important to the customer.
Taking the time to learn what your customer values most takes place in your first interview with them.
This is the time to dig deeper to get them to tell you stories about their previous experiences and what they loved and hated about them. What does going the extra mile means to them?
Make detailed notes about these things and later transfer them into whatever system you use to track your customers so you can refer to them later to create a rave.
Put processes in place to address each item from how the phone or email is answered to your final interview after the job is complete.
How is your customer greeted? Do you write to a general audience, or do you personalize each message with their name? Are your emails personalized? What are their areas of concern? Are they pressed for time? What are their communication preferences? What are their fears regarding the service you are offering? What gives them confidence in terms of services they hire?
Every single one of the above questions refers to a level of service that you can define.
- Take the time to interview some former customers and find out what their standards are for exceptional service and the specific activities that made them notice and remember them.
- Next, define your processes and protocols. Train your staff (or yourself) to implement these immediately.
- Finally, look for opportunities, even in dire catastrophe, that will create something positive and memorable. Notice what customer need/s are to which no one is attending.
This week, I’ll share some stories of owners that created enduring raves.
It’s not as hard as you might think.