Evolving loyal, long-term customer relationships

Sometimes we get so preoccupied with marketing and sales activities and all the associated details that we forget the original strategic objectives.

The basic objective, of course, is to generate and grow sales revenue. But to have sales you need customers. And to have sustained, profitable and growing sales, the best strategy is to develop loyal, long-term customer relationships.

So the marketing, sales and customer service activities should all be aligned to deliver a customer experience with you, your company and your brand that evolves from a first time buyer to a loyal, long-term customer.

The customer experience typically evolves through four levels:

1. Satisfaction with price and availability

On the first exposure to you and your business, customers will quickly, maybe even subconsciously, compare price and availability to their expectations based on prior experience with your competition. There will likely be no sale, and maybe no second chance, if this minimum expectation is not met.

2. Recognition of superior service levels

The first point of differentiation and the first step to building a stronger customer relationship will be when the customer recognizes that you offer superior service. You can demonstrate it in many ways – faster response to inquiries, easier access, more stock, better prices or terms, better delivery, better warranty service and support.

3. Appreciation of the value of your knowledge and experience

After the basic needs of price and availability are met, and you have distinguished yourself with superior service, the customer experience should then lead to an appreciation of the added value of your knowledge and experience. This will be demonstrated by applying your product knowledge, training, education and experience to educate the customer and give him/her the confidence to make better purchasing decisions. Now you are building a valuable customer relationship.

4. Connection on values, mission and vision

The final step in cementing loyal, long-term relationships will occur when the customer recognizes a common sense of values, mission and vision in the way you both do business. This connection will be developed over several interactions, particularly when problems are solved together, or you meet on non-business related issues.

The sooner you can meet customer expectations at these four levels, the faster you will build lasting and loyal customer relationships.

Super Bowl decisions

Super Bowl ads are always part of the attraction for the 95 million viewers from around the world. For advertisers it was a $2.7 million decision to book 30 seconds.

A good or bad marketing decision? For Budweiser or Pepsi it's a small drop in the bucket of advertising millions they spend every week. For smaller companies it may be an all or nothing budget item and can be a risky bet. In the dot.com days there were always a few that spent their venture capital dollars on a Super Bowl ad just because the notoriety was worth the expense. This year there were still a few Internet companies in the mix.

The most controversial ad decision was the commitment to 60 seconds by Under Armour, an athletic underwear brand name that was launching its new line of training shoes. The six million dollar cost represents the equivalent of one month's net income (last quarter was about $17 million). Somebody really believes in the value of advertising.

When will they know if it was worth it?

Blinded by concentration

I was at a seminar recently which for some reason digressed into demonstrating how we can be so focused on a particular task that we fail to observe what is going on around us. The presenter gave a few demonstrations that we found interesting but unconvincing, then he proved it to us with a group experiment. The object was to watch a short film of students passing basketballs among themselves and count the number of passes, but only betweeen those students in white T-shirts, not those wearing black. OK, we watched closely for about 30 seconds and I counted 12, some said 16 or 17.

He asked, "Did anybody see the gorilla?" What gorilla? Most of us didn't know what he was talking about. So he showed the fim again and, to my amazement, somebody in gorilla costume walked into the middle of the scene, paused, waved at us, pounded his chest, and walked on. Wow. (It wasn't a different film because some people had seen the gorilla the first time.) I always knew I was able to concentrate and ignore the background noise, but this surprised me.

I was reminded of the story by this morning's newspaper article about Barbara Ann Scott who is celebrating the Sixtieth anniversary of her Olympic gold medal in figure skating at St. Moritz in 1948. (The first and still the only Canadian woman to do so.) Apparently in her early routine on the outdoor rink, a helicopter flew over and hovered to watch her perform. When asked if it bothered her, she said, "What helicopter?"

Being able to focus is obviously important to performing a task at our best, but occasionally we need to look up and be aware of our surroundings. Maybe the gorilla is not friendly, or the helicopter is crash landing.