Competition and Customer Loyalty

     

Introduction

It takes about 20 times more energy to get a new customer as you will need to keep one you already have.  To keep a customer is to treat him with a measure of quality and excellence.  Whether the customer is an individual or organizational buyer, they all have expectations of the firm they deal with.  The basic determinant of whether they will become loyal to that firm or to a competitor is premised on whether those expectations are met or not.  This discourse is targeted at helping the participating firms to meet and exceed their customers/clients’ expectations.

The Effect of Competition

Who is a competitor?  Someone who produces and/or sells similar products to yours is your competitor.  All such companies involved in similar trade are in competition.  You are all in competition for the customers’ money; striving, trying to outperform one another, etc; but the choice of who to stay with, is the call of the customers to make, but you can help them.  Never let your competition shows your customer a better product than yours!  Do you want to avoid losing your clients to your competitors?  Then help them avoid seeing a better product in your competitor’s.  How?  Make your product the best in the market.  The same principle applies to both new and existing products/sellers in the market.  There are key areas you must focus on to keep your customers.  These will be examined shortly.

Why Customers Quit

1% die

3% move away

5% other friendships

9% competitive reasons (price)

14% product dissatisfaction, but

68% quit because of an attitude of indifference towards them by some employee.

A research conducted by Stanford University revealed that, money made in any endeavour is only 12.5% by knowledge, and 87.5% by your ability to deal with people.  John D. Rockefeller said, “I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun”.  Besides several other factors that could take your customers away and give them cheaply to your competitors, the attitude of your employee, or people who relate with customers matter the most.  Customers consider themselves your most priced assets, and they want to be treated as such.  Anything short of this, meets with a beckoning from competitors.

The single most important ingredient to the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.  Always realize that, any activity you engage in is capable of being a benchmark with which customers evaluate you, particularly in the earliest stages of their contact with you.  That is the customer’s privilege, not yours.

Do you want to have an edge over your competitors with regards to the battle for customers, then have an edge first, with your company attitude.  The customer has no business differentiating one person from another in your firm, every singular misbehavior by any one is seen as company misbehavior.  Customers don’t even see their own wrong, the company must just have a perfect attitude.

How to gain customers’ confidence and keep them

1.      Establishing contact with customers is a vital part of any company’s success.  The ability to maintain a welcoming environment involves a combination of the physical environment and the way the staff members communicate with the customers.

2.      Make sure you acknowledge and greet your customers within 3-4 seconds, as this is how long it takes for them to make a first impression on you and your business.

3.      Greet your customers with a smile and a ‘hello’; this will make a huge impact on the rest of your service.  If a customer is not acknowledged and does not feel welcome, they will leave the business and go elsewhere.

4.      Keep in mind the quality of customer service can never outweigh the quality of the people who provide it.  By making sure you keep those who work for you happy will ultimately improve the quality of service and experience your customers have.

5.      Treat your customers how you would like to be treated; its an easy principle.

6.      Management should lead by example, and set the standard.  If the management leads in excellent customer service, the customers will notice it every time.

7.      Try to remember your regular customers; welcome them back; make small talk of how they are; what have they been up to?  This builds rapport and makes them special; use their name.  Their regular attendance pays your wages.  Treat them with the respect they deserve.  You will keep them happy and returning to your business.

8.      Go out of your way for your customer, if they are after something specific, do everything you can to get their needs met.  For example, if a customer wants a specific product and you don’t have any left, make the effort to track one down from the warehouse or another store.  They will be really impressed and happy with the excellent service they have received and will return to your business again.

9.      Train your staff in proper customer handling procedures so everyone in the business is consistently providing the same high standard of service.  All staff needs to be trained how to handle difficult situations as this will add an overall good impression of the customer service your business provides.

10.  When you are hiring staff for your business, you want to make sure you are employing people who can fit in with your customer service standards.  Someone who can is not afraid to talk openly, smile, and be approachable.  The mistake some companies make is hiring people because they are desperate.  In turn, employ people who are not suited for the customer service industry, which in turn will hurt your business and reputation.