You see the same scenarios every day as you interact with customers. Patterns start to emerge and you start to make assumptions. In so doing, you may be walking into trouble and great inefficiencies.

Last week I went to renew my driver’s license at the Department of Public Safety (DPS) office. The building was crowded. I stood in a long line waiting for a single person to assist us. I watched as almost half the people ahead of me were turned away because they were in the wrong place or didn’t have the right materials.

Lesson #1: You shouldn’t have to spend human resources repeating the same information over and over again. Put up big signs where customers arrive stating the steps in your process. Put the information up on your website. Automate a branch of your phone tree to repeat these steps or other useful information when customers call.

The woman behind the counter looked at the materials in my hand (a motorcycle operator’s manual) and asked if I was there to take the motorcycle test. I explained that I had come to the office to do two things: renew my regular driver’s license and get a new motorcycle license.

Lesson #2: When you ask a question, listen to the answer. Don’t assume or guess you know what a customer will say.

She handed me a form, gave me a number, and sent me off to wait with the crowd to be called back. Thirty minutes later, my number was called and I went to another counter to be helped. I handed over my form and explained the two licenses I needed. This agent then realized I needed an additional form. She waited while I filled out the form in front of her. I could have gotten the same form when I arrived at the first counter and had plenty of time to fill it out.

Lesson #3: Failure to accurately identify and serve customers’ needs will cause inefficiencies downstream from their initial contact with your business. Because of the way businesses are often structured, the mistake of one person in one department may never come back and bite them. It will, however, hurt the next person a customer deals with. Your company may have inefficiencies galore and not even know it because the cause and effect of problems are in different departments.

The problems I encountered at the DPS office could have been resolved by two things:

1. Be proactive in communication from your organization to the customer. You know what most people ask, forget, or need. Help customers self serve by communicating to them before they wait in a line to ask you.
2. Listen to customers and don’t assume you know what they will say, need, or do. Once you confirm that this customer’s problem is the same as the last 100 people, you can recall and reuse the same solution. Be careful if the need is different, because a cookie cutter solution will lead to customer confusion and headaches for other employees.

Your customer just bought your product. What are you doing to make sure it isn’t returned?

For my birthday this year, my wife got me a new electric razor. In reviewing the enclosed documentation, I saw a sheet of paper stating:

Please stick with it. It’s worth it.

Like many of the finer things in life, your Panasonic Sonic Shaver requires a little time to get used to.

That message was timely because my initial impression of the razor was not great. I wanted to go back to my old razor. I was full of doubt.

That doubt was curtailed by the simple piece of paper I noticed as I emptied the box. I thought, “oh, this is normal, I just need to give it some time.”

We all get that feeling of doubt after a purchase (especially with expensive purchases). You, as a business, need to help customers get over that hump. You don’t want them to act on that doubt and return your product.

Set Expectations

At the time of sale, explain to customers what to expect once they take your product home. The picture in the customer’s mind might not match reality. You have to set the customer up for success.

Help Included

Like my razor’s package, include a note or instructions of what to expect once the customer begins to use your product. Include pictures, words, how-to steps, etc. that will erase many hurdles your customer may encounter.

Create a Great Experience

Please make your “out of box” experience as smooth as possible. Your product should be easy to assemble, plug in, and work. Complex setup will reduce your customer’s chance of successfully using your product. If they can’t get your product to work, it doesn’t matter how great it is!

Repetition

From pre-sales to product packaging and onto post-sales support, you need to guide the customer along so they have a great experience.

Identify common concerns, doubts, or problems with your product and either fix the root cause of those issues or help mitigate them with adequate communication.

What are you doing to counter any doubt the customer has once your product leaves your store?

We all say that we love our customers and always do the best we can for them. Of course we do! Our “customer satisfaction” scores are high!

Jeffrey Gitomer’s customer service manifesto Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless teaches exactly why the “satisfaction” mindset is a lie and why customer loyalty is what matters to your long-term business success.

Loyalty is What Counts

Anyone can be satisfied with your business or product. That doesn’t guarantee that they will become repeat customers. Nor does that mean they will refer their friends and family to you.

Satisfaction is truly worthless as this book’s title boldly proclaims. Your business needs loyal, faithful, and referral-generating customers.

Story Telling

This book is written in Gitomer’s usual style with untraditional font styles and sizes scattered around for emphasis. He shares numerous stories of his customer service experiences and then extracts the best practices and ideas for improving your interactions with customers.

“Wow” Experience

Gitomer, as a customer, is always on the hunt for a “wow” experience. Does your business simply process customers as just another number? Or do you make each interaction a personal and memorable one?

Self Evaluation

Customer Satisfaction is Worthless has multiple self-tests and checklists where you can measure your current level of customer service. These offer great opportunities to identify areas of improvement. Most of the author’s suggestions are things you, as an individual, can do and they don’t require a big bureaucratic change to implement.

Company Policy

One point Gitomer makes that really resonated with me concerned company policies. Do you hide behind company policies so you can avoid doing something for a customer? Your company will always have policies but you don’t have to simply state “sorry, that is against company policy.” Instead, use: “in order to be fair to every one…” The latter is a much gentler approach that may very well diffuse a heated customer exchange.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless is a must-read for your business. If you interact with customers in any way (which odds are you do), you need to read this book.

Buy Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless on Amazon.com.

Toyota recently became the world’s largest auto maker by outselling longstanding US giant General Motors.

On the heels of this news, I saw two TV commercials that highlight two very different ways of selling vehicles.

Ford’s commercial showed me historical images of the American past. The voice-over stated, “Others can say their truck is built in America. But can they say they helped build America?”

So if I interpret this commercial correctly, I’m supposed to buy a Ford because they have a great history. That’s nice, but what have you done for me lately?

The Toyota Tundra commercial followed and spent the time touting the features and benefits of their truck.

I can buy a Toyota truck built in San Antonio, Texas or a Honda built in Ohio. That starts to blur the lines of what is an American-made car. The appeal to my patriotic emotions becomes weak when even foreign auto makers are producing cars in my home state.

Sure, some customers will be brand loyal and buy your product even if it is inferior to others. However, new customers don’t have that loyalty. They need to be convinced to buy your product.

Your company can’t call up the glory days of the past to sell your product today. You need to continue to innovate and deliver quality or your competition will overtake you.

Patriotism may have worked in the past but it will only take you so far. As Toyota has proven, a focus on quality, innovation, and constant improvement will drive your business forward.

I found these great posts in Problogger’s Top 5 Group Writing Project:

• Top 5 Internet Marketing Mistakes —
  You should never make a change unless you can measure the result. How else will you know if it was successful? If you market on the web, this is a good list of things to remember.
• Top Five Keys to Successful Persuasive Writing —
  Your writing and communication to customers will have be persuasive to stand out in the crowd. Your copy writing must not only grab someone’s attention, but also compel them to action.
• Entrepreneurs Developing Web Sites Must Address These Top 5 Potential Pitfalls —
  Sound advice for starting up your web site. A mistake here will cost you customers.
• The Top 5 Questions – to spark new marketing ideas —
  Asking questions is a wonderful way to rethink your current status quo. Matt offers 5 gems.

Your company must make a professional first impression with potential customers. Don’t set yourself up for failure by being cheap.

I drove behind an electrical contractor’s truck this week. This small business owner had big magnets on the sides of his truck with his company name and email address. It read something like this:

Jenkins Electrical
ecj_6@yahoo.com

There was no phone number or website address. Just a cryptic Yahoo email address.

Here are the top 5 questions you must ask yourself if you use a free email address for your business:

1. How are potential customers suppose to remember a random sequence of letters for an email address? (Especially if they are driving down the street)

2. What does a free @yahoo.com email address say about your business? Hint: It says cheap.

3. Are you missing an opportunity to build your brand presence online? That email address could just as easily have been a memorable and relevant domain name like JenkinsElectrical.com.

4. What happens if your free email host disappears? Poof! There go all your business emails.

5. What does a free email address say about your professionalism? Please do your business a favor and buy a relevant domain name. Think of this from the customer’s perspective. A free email address could mean you are only a temporary business that may not be there to support the customer post-sale.

Solution: Buy a domain name and set up a website. Get custom you@yourcompany.com email addresses and put up that professional online presence your potential customers will trust.

This post is part of Problogger’s Top 5 Group Writing Project.

A consistent customer experience is paramount to your business success. Once a customer gets a taste of great service, you better keep on delivering!

Predictable Company Response

My family and I had a DiGiorno pizza this week. Unfortunately, it was missing a large section of cheese. Since I had trouble with DiGiorno in the past, I called up their customer service for help.

The person on the line might very well have been reading me the very same script I heard two years ago.

Was that a bad thing? No. The DiGiorno representative apologized and will be sending me a coupon for a free pizza. This is the same result I got the last time I had trouble with their pizza.

Here is the pattern:

1. Customer buys product
2. Product has defect
3. Customer calls customer service
4. Company apologizes and compensates customer for trouble
5. Customer buys again

Because DiGiorno treated me well, I’ve continued to purchase their product. I always knew that if there were any problems, the company would take care of me. The company that guarantees its products will earn customers for life.

Good Experience Followed by a Bad One

Let’s contrast this great example with my recent Sears nightmare.

With Sears, I’d had a good experience in the past where the company tried to make amends and give me a good deal. My most recent experience was the complete opposite.

Sears had set my expectations in the past that they would negotiate and deal on price. My last visit to Sears completely destroyed my previous favorable experience.

Secret to Success

What is the difference between the DiGiorno and Sears examples?

Consistency.

When your company is consistent and dependable over time, your customers will start to expect a certain level of service. When that happens, you’re obligated to continue at that level. If you get lazy, your customers will notice.

Build on that level of service and make yourself even better. DiGiorno has mastered the basics. They can now move on to a new, higher level of customer service. Sears, on the other hand, keeps falling back. They need to start over and do things right before they can progress.

Be consistent. Meet your customer’s expectations first, then exceed them. After that, don’t stop! Keep getting better.

Are you more likely to buy from a local company than a national chain? What if a local company started in your backyard and then grew to national fame?

Businesses that feel like they are local can have a competitive advantage over cookie-cutter generic national or global brands.

Ice cream shop Dairy Queen has branded itself as Texan. Their catchy little jingle on commericals sings “DQ … that’s what I like about Texas!”

They even go so far as to say their white on red logo is a “Texas Stop Sign.”

By the sounds of it, Dairy Queen may very well be a Texas business. However, they didn’t start here. They started in Joliet, Illinois in 1940.

Despite their non-native status, Dairy Queen has created a powerful Texas brand that sticks in customers’ minds.

Obviously, Texas is a huge market and merits the custom marketing campaign. However, the principles here are sound. Targeting your local population by helping them feel you are a part of their community will influence buying behavior.

Your local small businesses recognize the power of their “locally owned and operated” tag lines. Large corporations see the benefits too.

Remember, customers may not be local to you but they are “local” to where they live. How are you targeting your local customers?