You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter on your web site as long as the byline is included and the article is included in it's entirety. I also ask that you activate any html links found in the article and in the byline. Please send a courtesy link or email where you publish to: support@multiplestreammktg.com Operating a business on a daily basis dealing with customers can actually be frustrating and they often don't make it easy for you and your employees to treat them nicely. You need to remember where all your revenue and sales come from for your business. Every dollar in sales that your business gets comes from these customers that can sometimes be frustrating. You want to treat them well and hope that maybe they'll return another day happy and satisfied and bring family and mends. The old saying, "The customer is always right", is really not true. One unhappy customer, through word of mouth, can translate into a lot of lost customers. Just because customers aren't telling you how good you are, often times you think, "Everything must be okay." They may not come to you and say, "That was a horrible experience, but they might tell their family and friends that." Silence is not golden. Each person really has different theories on this, but they have the potential to tell just one or many other people positive or negative things about your business. Look at a happy customer as free advertising. You might already know how much it costs for advertising. It's been said that an unhappy customer will tell a minimum of 1-10 people their negative experience. Think about that. 1-10 people automatically not doing business with you. That might change the way you respond to someone. Just maybe a receptionist having a bad day and being rude on the phone - that person telling 1-10 people about that and they will never do business with you. The first step to a better relationship is to realize customers aren't different from anyone else. They are people with feelings, reactions, wants and desires. They've been studied for the last 50 years and during that time, more than any other time in history. It's your job to understand human drive, passions, emotions, fears and target those emotions. You want to always be looking for a response from them good and bad. Every bad response you get from a customer is an opportunity to improve. The second step is to reverse your "Money Plan" that is always thinking of them as money machines. You want to think, "How can you get them more - better - faster - easier - less expensive - higher quality - longer service- better benefits - more options - and more desirable things that they want?" In order for this to work you must think of your profit will come as long as you are running the business properly. You can't think like this for long without ending up with more value in your business or product or service. A greater number of customers that are doing more business with you, doing it more frequently, and they're doing it more often for a longer term and they're giving you referrals. Treat your customers like you want to be treated. |
