We can all understand why some executives need to protect themselves from interruption and time wasters. But anyone in sales, which includes most CEOs, should be accessible because the public at large includes all potential customers and other opportunities. A company to remain nameless lost my potential referral this week and a smaller, more approachable competitor will get it.

Big companies that fold ultimately fail for one reason. They become irrelevant to their customers. They can do this many ways. One big way is failing to make 2-way communication easy or deliberately making communication one sided, pissing off customers and potential customers. I see you nodding your head.

We’ve all experienced frustrating web forms that attempt to gather too much information or corral us into areas we don’t want to enter. We’ve also called for service or questions only to the dead end of non-options offered by the auto-assistant.

A percentage of customers may accept this unacceptable kind of relationship but a juicy, potentially lucrative portion of the market will bounce off the web page or hang up as soon as they sense a programmed waste of their time. They will make a beeline for the nearest competitor with a friendly agent ready to help them (buy something) and serve up a great experience!

The accessible business that lets the public speak with real caring people wins every time in the long run.

Aside from utilities and sometimes limited options, I choose to do business only with companies willing to have a relationship with me. I know they primarily want my money, but they are willing to keep earning it by taking time to help customers and potential customers – giving us a good reason to send them new customers.

Here are a few ways to avoid the false efficiency of limited service options and auto-attendant call processing.

• Answer the phone! Always let callers have the option to talk with a person. Make it the first option.
• Require only the minimum needed information on web inquiry forms.
• Respond to voicemail and web inquiries fast! 24 hours max.
• Fire customer-facing employees with bad attitudes. Fill in for them yourself if necessary.
• Hire only smart “people persons” in those jobs.
• Go the extra mile to delight or satisfy every customer for every dollar they spend.
• Don’t worry about the clock when you are providing excellent service. It’s not a zero sum game!
• Manage growth. If new business actually threatens your quality delivery, make that very clear to the prospect. Some might even get on a waiting list if you’re known as the best in the market.
• Be creative with add-ons and freebies that cost you little but are valuable to customers.

If any of the above sound like too much labor or cost, just think about what you already do when presented with vendor choices. Read the list again. The Golden Rule is so amazingly simple, isn’t it?

The post Make things easy for customers and they’ll help you grow! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

My opinion is we should avoid tossing around such powerful words as loyalty when we’re designing promotional programs. “Customer loyalty” in the context of incentive based purchases is a misnomer. Loyalty is faithful adherence to something in good times and bad; at full retail or deep discount. Loyalty is akin to honor, faith, respect and even love. You cannot offer discounts in exchange for certain behavior and call that loyalty. So, marketers, in this supposed age of transparency, can we be real about this?

The airline industry came up with an accurate and well received phrase: “frequent flyer” miles or discounts. That’s real. Consumers are delighted to redeem their frequent flyer miles and these programs certainly drive repeat business to the airlines that offer them. The trick is to make the repeat purchase incentives realistic and within reach. People flock to an offer when it’s actually a good deal and they see the value clearly.

There is such a thing as real customer loyalty. You’ll never find a loyal Harley Davidson owner looking at Suzuki motorcycles or even the Harley-styled look-alike rice burners. Getting a tattoo of a manufacturing company’s logo requires some genuine brand loyalty. Few brands have that kind of cultural and emotional connection with their target consumers.

Think of a brand to which you’re loyal. From what does your affinity in the brand stem? It’s based on something you genuinely feel about the company. Various impressions and interactions made you feel good about patronizing this unique business.

In recent years, Ford Motor Company has earned my loyalty with both quality and corporate governance policies. This is after I swore that only Japanese cars would suit me. I am certain I’ll buy another Ford as my next new vehicle. Apple has many loyalists and they win that loyalty by making the lives of their customers easier and more entertaining. What other brands can you think of that earn real loyalty from customers?

Word choice is important when describing our promotions and offers to the market. I have come to ignore any promotion with the word loyalty in it because I know that it’s only an attempt to make me spend more money, not save it. Everybody else knows that too. If I do respond to a “customer loyalty” offer, it’s because I need the product anyway and the promo catches me at the right time. This is probably true of most consumers. We go for the most bang for our buck every time. Sometimes that bang comes from the feeling we get buying from a company or person we feel good about.

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