There is a word that can break through the noise and distractions of the world and reach your customer.

The most important word to a customer is that person’s name.

From the time we are little, we are trained to respond to our name. It is so powerful that even if we have a common name (like Joe), we instinctively turn around whenever we hear it called.

This week when I went to the gym, the clerk greeted me by name even before I handed him my membership card. I was so impressed that I actually mentioned it to my wife.

Think about the opportunities you have to greet your customers by name.

If you see them in-person, you should always use their name in the greeting and conversation.

On the phone, you can use a customer’s name not just in the greeting, but during the call, and as you say goodbye.

Don’t be lazy in your emails. Don’t just jump into the message. Start with a proper salutation and use the person’s name.

In your automated email newsletters, most software that handles these can automatically include the customer’s name not just as a salutation but also in the email message itself. Although I am used to seeing these, they still catch me off guard because after all, it is my name.

Be careful with using customer’s names incorrectly. Misspellings, mispronunciations, or even calling someone by the wrong nickname can really aggravate some customers.

When in doubt on how to spell or say a name, just ask. Most people are not offended when you sincerely ask about their name.

What are some other ways you could use your customer’s name to build relationships with them and help close the sale?

This year I used Turbotax for my business taxes. Towards the end of the process, I encountered a very awkward step.

1. I had to print out a form.

2. Sign the form.

3. Scan the form back in.

4. Attach the form to my return.

For being a piece of software, these steps seemed incredibly ridiculous. I remember having this issue last year.

However, this year Turbotax knew what I was thinking.

The instructions on the page included a message like:

“Note: we know this is archaic and not very green. We’re working on it.”

That simple message changed my perception of the problem. They were honest, up front, and even self-deprecating. This resulted in me following the process and probably using Turbotax next year.

It is OK to admit your shortcomings, errors, and oddities to your customers. It makes you more human, approachable, and helps customers relate to you (even if you are a piece of software).

In the Turbotax example, since they admitted the obvious, they prevented innumerable support calls that would have resulted and helped build a relationship with customers.

You can do likewise. If something is obvious and annoying to you, it will be glaringly obvious to your customers. If you can’t fix the problem before customers see it, at least acknowledge it.

People that have expressed an interest in you in the past may no longer care about you nor want to hear from you.

This may be sad, but it is still true.

What should you do with these prospective customers?

Talk to them.

I recently got an email from TripAdvisor.com where I has signed up to receive notifications about a trip to Chile:

Still thinking about that trip to Santiago, Chile?

We’ve been sending you e-mails about Santiago, Chile for a while. Are you still interested?

Wherever you’re hoping to go, TripWatch can bring you the best deals and reviews. Add new places and drop the places you’re no longer interested in.

This email helped do two things:

1. Made me think if I still wanted to get these emails.

2. Let me know how I could change my preferences if needed.

In this Trip Advisor case, they were sending me regular emails with updates about Chile. If I had changed my mind about that destination, I would have started to ignore their emails or could possibly mark them as spam.

Either of those actions is damaging to the relationship.

By sending an email specifically asking if I was still interested, it reopens the conversation and allows the customer to select the course of action he or she most wants.

If you have prospective customers that haven’t purchased from you or interacted with you in some time, reopen the conversation to see if they are still interested.

The science fiction movie 2010 had the subtitle “The Year We Make Contact”.

This new year, 2010, needs to be the year your business makes contact with your customers.

Step 1: Observe Your Customers

One of the most eye opening experiences you can have is to observe your customers using your product or doing business with you.

Take some time to watch your customers and see how they interact with you and your products. The simple act of observation will highlight points of confusion, frustration, and wasted time that currently plague your business processes.

Step 2: Ask Your Customers

Ask your customers what they think of you. Find out why they decided to do business with you. Perhaps you can survey them in mass, or interview them individually.

Step 3: Listen to Your Customers

When asking for feedback, you’ll need to listen to understand. Don’t jump to conclusions, interrupt, or start day dreaming.

If you are having a conversation with customers, ask clarifying questions. With one-way communication, like a survey, re-read answers to get a better understanding of the intended meaning.

Step 4: Take Action

Compile the insights you’ve collected and then make an action plan. What needs to change? What do you need to stop doing? What should you start doing?

Acting on customer feedback and suggestions gives you a great springboard to jump ahead in your business. Take advantage of the opportunity!

I’ve got some bad news for you: you’re not perfect. You, your employees, and your business will make mistakes that directly impact your customers.

When you make a mistake, you may be tempted to hide it, ignore it, or even deny it.

Don’t run from your mistake.

You need to be proactive in addressing the issue and resolving the problem with the customer.

How you handle mistakes speaks volumes about you as a business.

The last time we had to get a battery for our van, we went to the nearest Sears auto center. They installed a new battery and about 30 minutes after we had gotten home, they called us on the phone.

Apparently, the mechanic had forgotten to tighten a bracket during the installation and they told us we should go back in and they would take care of it.

I took the van back, the mechanic apologized for his mistake, tightened the bracket, and I was on my way.

If Sears hadn’t been proactive in notifying me of the problem, I would have found out about it later.

The same is true of mistakes you make with customers. The mistake will be discovered eventually.

It is to your advantage to identify it, confess it, and fix it before the customer realizes there is a mistake.

This will show your customers that you actually care about them after they pay and have left your store or business and will help build a long-term relationship with them.

Once the issue is resolved, take a look at why the mistake happened and learn how you can prevent that mistake from happening again.

At the point of sale, customers need to be told how to make the first step.

If left alone or uninformed, customers may walk away even when they were ready to buy.

Last week I had to get our car’s alignment fixed. As I was waiting in the lobby, I observed several customers enter the shop and look around confused, not knowing who to talk to or how to request service.

This mechanic shop had a counter where you’d expect to see an employee, but no one was there.

The customers would stand around, looking into the garage bay or oddly around the room. After several minutes, one of them walked out into the garage and tracked an employee down.

This was too much work for a customer.

Don’t Make Customers Work to Buy from You

You need to make it extremely easy for customers to place their order, request service, and buy your product.

Contrast the mechanic shop with the bakery down the street. This bakery had a sign on the counter with a bell that informed the customers to make a choice and then ring the bell for service.

Just like the mechanic’s shop, the bakery will have employees actively engaged in performing work and may be out of the customers’ sight.

Nevertheless, the bakery made it very clear how to proceed.

Show Customers How to Proceed

Give your customers a way to say “I’m here” or “I’m ready to buy.”

Without the clear path to a sale or checkout, you are losing frustrated customers that simply give up instead of going through the effort of figuring out the quirks of doing business with you.

Don’t be quirky. Be obvious. Your customers and bottom line will thank you.

Have you ever seen miscommunication cause inefficiencies in your business, problems with orders, and even more disastrous results?

My employer hosts an annual conference, and in order to save confusion at the conference center, has employees register online and pick up our badges at the office before heading downtown to the conference.

This week I went down to the lobby to pick up my badge. After waiting 20 minutes in line and observing several printer malfunctions and technical delays, I made it to the front of the line.

I provided my last name to the girl behind the laptop. She started typing away and then asked me, “Joe or Joseph?” I said, “Joe,” since that is the name I go by. She continued typing but said nothing to me until, “It shows you as not registered. Did you register? Did you get a confirmation?”

I answered yes to all these questions and had her confirm the spelling of my last name. I then said, “Did you look under Joseph? I am the only one with either of those names here.”

Apparently I was registered under Joseph and not Joe, so she said with a huff, “That is why I asked you which name before.”

Unaware of how my answer to her previous question would be used, I answered incorrectly.

So what is the lesson here?

If you need some information from a customer that must be an exact match for something you are doing, tell them why you need that information.

In my example, if she had said, “Which first name did you register under, Joe or Joseph?” I could have answered correctly and quickly been on my way.

If there is confusion and rework with every customer transaction, people will be waiting unnecessarily long and you may lose customers.

Confirm that you understand the answer that was given when asking questions of customers. Doing so will make your interactions with them less awkward and more efficient.

Make sure your customers are getting the value and benefits they paid for.

You have customers that sign up for your service or pay for your product and then never use it again.

Isn’t this a waste of money? Yes, it is.

Why should you care about these customers? After all, they already paid you and you collected your money.

One key element of customer loyalty is that you actually care about your customers after the sale.

We’ve used Carbonite backup service for our desktop computer in the past. There was a period of time when we didn’t have our computer on for a while while we were on vacation.

During that time, Carbonite sent us an email letting us know that the software hadn’t been able to backup any data recently and wanted to make sure everything was still fine.

In our case it was but the idea behind the email deserves your attention.

Carbonite is a service that you have to renew. Just like Norton Anti-virus does a good job of detailing all the benefits you’ve received over the past year, Carbonite doesn’t want to you to miss out either.

Why? Because when it comes time to renew the service, the customer needs to have good memories of the benefits that have been delivered over the life of the product or service.

Your customers have paid good money for your product. Make sure they get what they paid for. Going the extra mile to remind customers of what they purchased will take you beyond just a transaction and into starting a solid relationship with your customers.

New customers to your business may not be familiar with the products or services you are offering. This can cause great confusion and even indecision when they are reviewing your offerings.

To be successful in selling to customers, you need to transport the customer from their current state of mind to an understanding of what you are selling. You need to speak the same language as the customer.

My wife and I recently ventured into a local Mexican restaurant, Tio Dan’s Puffy Tacos. We’d never been to this restaurant before and aside from the name of the place, which clearly told us what their specialty was, we didn’t know anything about it.

Tio Dan’s menu was a full color, laminated, self-proclaimed “food book” that had pictures of every single entree they serve. These weren’t fake marketing pictures; they were real pictures of actual food they had prepared.

By looking at the menu, you got a good sense of what you’d be eating. You didn’t have to guess what a particular dish was based on an unfamiliar name because what you saw is what you’d get.

Tio Dan understands that not every customer that comes through his door knows what he sells or what the items on his menu are. He helps overcome that hurdle by showing customers what they can buy in terms they can understand.

How can you help your customers better understand your product or service? Perhaps you can show them the end result (a picture of food in our example). Or use an mental anchor that connects what you offer to something the customer already understands.

We got a very sneaky direct mail postcard the other day. It was from a services company we had used for some plumbing a few years ago.

The postcard read:

Your home may be due for its annual plumbing inspection and water heater clean and check as recommended by the consumer product safety commission and your manufacturer.

Your home’s $30 credit can be used for any plumbing, heating, air conditioning, electrical or appliance service or repair.

The postcard said we had a credit with them that would expire on an approaching date.

A “credit” implies we overpaid in the past or were overcharged and that we have some money due back to us.

The truth is we don’t have a credit with the company. The truth is that this is just a gimmick to get us to use the credit towards a more expensive work order.

Tricking customers is never a good long-term strategy.

A better strategy here would have been to continue down the path of their first paragraph: educate the customer. Perhaps, “We’ll inspect your air conditioning system for free. If we find a problem, we’ll show you what it is, explain your options, and give you our price. If you choose us to service your A/C, that would be great. If not, that is OK too.”

Be completely transparent and honest. The hardest part is getting the customer to invite you to their home. Once you are there, you can educate some more, give them options for repairs, and will probably close the sale.