Creating Raving Fans in 2020
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Hard Questions before we begin,
If you were truly honest with yourself, how do your prospects and clients view you?
What emotions do they associate you with?
Do they really think about you at all after you finish with them?
What could be possible if you made a conscious effort to attach yourself and your brand to the positive moments in your client’s and prospect’s lives? (Or better yet, created powerful moments in your client’s lives.)
Let’s Hear from Joey Coleman, Author of Never Lose a Customer Again:
The 8 Phases of the customer Experience
From Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman
1) Assess - Customer decides if they want to do business with you
2) Admit - Customer Admits they need your help – You start to work together
3) Affirm - Buyers Remorse – Your guidance is needed to affirm their decision
4) Activate - You start to provide what was bought
5) Acclimate - The customer learns about how you do business – onboarding
6) Accomplish - Customer receive the result they were seeking
7) Adopt - Customer takes ownership in relationship - Raving fan or Raving mad
8) Advocate - If your clients reach this stage, you have a built-in, unpaid, uncommissioned marketing representative, singing your praises far and wide!
6 Ways to Communicate with your Clients & Prospects
There are 6 ways to communicate that can be used at each stage above. Unfortunately, most businesses stop communicating at stage 6, or worse before which is why most business lose 20-70% of their customers within 100 days!
In Person–Oldest medium of communication there is. Grab coffee or throw a client appreciation event.
Email– Cheap and easy way to provide info, but overdone and less emotional.
Mail– With the rise of email, this can be more impactful, especially when the card is genuinely handwritten.
Phone– 91% of people always keep their phone within 3 ft. Text and calls almost guarantee reaching your customer
Video– Creating personalized messages for customers is an opportunity most businesses overlook.(BombBomb is a great service to capitalize on this medium)
Gifts–“Most overlooked way to trigger positive customer emotions” but it’s often done poorly…
Since we are experts on gifting, and how you can use gifting to grow your reviews, referrals and raving fans. We will stick to this form of communication in our advice.
Where Most Businesses Go Wrong in Gifting
When most businesses think about how to appreciate their clients through gifting,
they usually do one of the following:
1. They say, “That’s too much work, I’ll just keep doing what I’ve always done” and they give up before getting started.
2. They give a (usually cheap) gift at the holidays, or a birthday.
3. They give a “non-gift”
The first response of giving up, while totally understandable, obviously won’t create any change in how your clients view you or increase your business, but we can help.
Birthday and Holiday gifts seem like a great option, but they’re much less impactful than they could be, mainly because they get lost in the noise of family, friends, and other businesses gifting to them. Also, NOBODY likes a Cheap gift.
Even worse than a cheap gift is a “non-gift.” As Coleman says, “Giving a customer a coupon for 20% off a future purchase is not a present for the customer; it’s a present for your company”
Making charitable donations in someone’s name also falls into this category. The intention is good, and I hope everyone make donations personally, but the true benefit received in a donation goes to the charity and to the person writing the check. Unfortunately, it doesn’t involve your client at all.
The good news is that there are 5 simple rules you can follow to ensure you are giving an impactful gift…
The Five Keys to Giving an Impactful Gift
Ensure your client gift makes an impression on your clients, by keeping these five principles in mind:
It should be memorable. First and foremost, your gift needs to stand out. There are many ways you can make this happen that we’ll break down, but the easiest way is to make it unexpected and personalized
It should make them think of you, specifically. A box of chocolates or a gift certificate will certainly be appreciated by your clients, but they could get those gifts from anyone. A great client gift makes them think of you, specifically, every time they see it or use it.
It should last a long time. If your gift is something edible or drinkable—it’s going to be gone quickly. And once it’s gone, it’s gone—you’re out of sight and out of mind.
A successful client gift becomes part of your client’s life for the long run—which means that they’re constantly being reminded of you.
It should provide real value.Your gift needs to bring some tangible value to your client. It could make them laugh. It could help them appreciate their new home. Preferably it is something that is high quality, that’s used often and for a long time.
There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to approach this—but, bottom line, swag won’t cut it! They don’t need another hat, jacket, or lip balm.
It should be exciting.Finally, an effective client gift is something that your clients get excited about. It shouldn’t be boring! This is probably the one that stumps most business owners.
Usually it means they either need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get an exciting gift.
Or possibly worse, they feel the need to spend hours analyzing everything the client said or posts on social media trying to find the perfect gift just for them. While this will be exciting for the client, it’s not scalable and it’s not worth the time you could be spending on revenue generating activities.
Why Client Appreciation Matters:
Do You Know the Lifetime Valueof your Customers?
Have you ever thought to yourself, that customer ONLY spent $ _____ , so I don't really need to get them a thank you?
We've all done it, we're all guilty of putting a price tag on what we deem as a dispensable relationship.While it is true that many business owners in general can waste money, time, and resources thanking clients in the wrong way, allowing yourself to fall into the mentality valuing a client based off their first transaction is bad business, because of the law of reciprocity. If you are consistent with your giving, your clients will feel called to give back to you.
I have a few questions to ask about that small fry client:
1.) Do you know where they will be socially or financially in 5 years? or 15?
2.) Do you know everyone that they know?
3.) Do they have a job? Where do they work? Do they own a business?
4.) Do they have children? Where do they go to school?
It doesn't matter if you don’t know the answer to all those questions, or even answered no to ONE of these questions, you are selling yourself short if you choose not to thank them for their business...
Here's why...
Law of Reciprocity:In social psychology, reciprocity is a social rule that says we should repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.
That is, people give back the kind of treatment they have received from you. By virtue of the rule of reciprocity, we are obligated to repay favors, gifts, invitations, etc. in the future.
When you add UNEXPECTED VALUE to your clients, you create Raving Fans and become the first thing they think of when they hear someone talking about your industry. These are the types of clients that will interrupt a stranger's conversation to make sure you’re mentioned.
And when you have Raving Fans, you will be remembered, you will be recommended to their friends, family, and coworkers. You will be given their business for LIFE because your clients will want you to be part of their life!
To put numbers to this, on average if a company grows its retention by just 5%, that company’s profit will grow by 25% to 100%!
Just to clarify, this is not a substitute for crappy service. You must first perform your duty up to their expectations before you are able to go above and beyond to exceed those expectations and make them into a raving fan.
So this all sounds great, right? But where do you go from here?
Why Thousands Use
Gifts with an EDGE and Cutco
Its memorable. In addition to being used daily and forever, our gifts are customized for your clients and can be scheduled to arrive at unexpected times to create the most impact.
It makes them think of you, daily.The gifts are branded with your information, so you know you’ll always be at your client's fingertips when they or their friends need your services. We can make the branding BIG AND BOLD or small and discrete.
Bonus – Because it’s branded, its 100% tax deductible instead of the IRS Limit of $25 per gift.
Real Value that will Last Forever, literally. Cutco products are best in class among the kitchen industry. They’re all American made for over 71 years and it’s the only knife company backed by a FOREVER GUARANTEE. If your client ever breaks, melts, cracks, or dulls your gift, it gets sharpened or replaced for free, forever.
It’s Exciting.This one you’ll have to take my word for. If you’re unfamiliar with Cutco, ask your friends/ family. I promise anyone you ask who has it is a raving fan and will emphatically tell you that you need it in your kitchen!