Building Customer Loyalty

Today instead of talking about warranty I am going to talk about one of my pet gripes - after sales care and building customer loyalty.


One of the things that Electrical Appliance Retailers are not good at is building customer loyalty.


Now that may seem hard and yes it is a generalisation but over the years having visited many retail stores from the slow moving department stores to the fast moving pure appliance retailers I have found it really just doesn't happen!


We tend to love them, get the cash and then leave them. Is there any wonder they choose to go to a competitor or be very price conscious when the next time they come to buy. It is interesting when you ask someone where they bought that Fridge, washer or TV and half the time they just don't know! Is that a warning? Is it telling you something?


Go into any big ticket area in the store where sales are slower and you tend to find sales people who have been working in that area for centuries - very experienced and good at what they do.


What I have found they always seem to have lots of free time on their hands but do they use it to best advantage? No! These people can be like gold in your organisation if they develop a personal brand and develop a reputation for advice and service. Repeat sales will follow.


Alas many don't!


With most big ticket sales there is a delivery involved and so the sales person will know when the new washer or plasma is being delivered so why not use this to your advantage to develop a reputation for care and concern for the customer.


So why not take this sort of approach -

1. Ring the customer to reconfirm delivery, day, time, etc..
2. Ring the customer the day after the delivery to check that the appliance has arrived alright.
3. About 2/3 days later send the customer a card and thank them for the sale.
4. Two weeks later ring the customer to

• check that the appliance is running all right
• ask if they got any questions on the operation of the appliance
• ask if they have any other concerns
• use it as an opportunity to mention any other relevant promotions (depending on the customer and what you learnt from them while in store)
• ask for referrals - do they know of anyone who maybe looking to buy a similar type of appliance.

The reason I suggest asking for referrals is that when ever someone gets a new appliance they tend to skite about it, show it to friends and often it will come out in the conversation that they are looking for a new appliance.

Now if that happens what are they going to do? First of all if you have been doing the value adding which I suggest, they are going to talk about you. They are going to talk about the sales person who has rung them up, sent them a card, made sure they are all right. Why are they going to talk about you? Because you will be an exception! No body in the industry is doing this, and if they are it is very rare and so you are setting them up to talk about you.

5. One month after purchase send out a customer satisfaction survey with a reply paid envelope.
6. When they return the survey, send them a thank you letter but include with it an offer for them to earn say $50 off their next purchase no matter what value of purchase for just referring one new customer to you who spends more than say $500. The referred customer would also get $50 off their purchase.
7. Ensure the customer is invited to any future special buying nights and receives other special preferred offers
8. Get the customers birth date so you can send a birthday card - must be handwritten
9. Send the customer a Christmas card or other special occasion card

Now what have I done - built a customer loyalty chain and I am sure you can think of ways of improving it.

Now this may sound a lot of hard work - but build a diary system and it becomes easy. Don't forget you do this during the down times in the day/week.

The goal is to get the customer to come back and buy from you, which means more commissions and more profits for the store. Take a long term view of the relationship and you will win.

A common comment I used to get when I would suggest this was "the customer may not be happy, they may have a complaint, I don't want to know about it, I might have to fix it!"

Sorry tough! You are better to talk to the customer, help them through the issue and you will have a friend for life! The alternative is to have them bad mouthing you, your store, your product all around town. I know what I would prefer.

Some of you may have concerns about paying for referrals as suggested in 6. Can I suggest this in response. You are only going to pay out when a customer actually buys, but you have got the customer thinking about you and so you are building top of mind awareness for future promotions.

The other thought is appliance retailers spend thousands of dollars on advertising each week and spending $100(retail cost) to bring some one to buy a larger appliance is actually cheap marketing as it only costs you a postage stamp to send out on a targeted basis and you only pay when the referred customer actually buys. The other way is to spend thousands on advertising with no guarantee of return.

This way you are acquiring a new customer that could then be feed into your targeted customer loyalty program and the cycle goes on. So you can see it is very easy to build a chain of regular customers but you need to make them feel loved and special.

Finally, I am reminded on one of the world's top sales people - Joe Girard - a car salesman who sold something like 77 cars a month with no fleet sales. He used some of the techniques I am talking about here and many more like learning the customers favorite music and then having it in the car so when the new owner turned on the ignition they were in "heaven!"

Check out http://www.joegirard.com/ for more of his story and sales ideas. He has some great books and training resources.