Do you have customers that leave suddenly? You were doing an outstanding job for them, lavishing them with truckloads of service and yet they disappeared without a word.
The key operating factor here is ‘without a word.’ That’s the scary part! The silent ones are always the most dangerous. If you would like to learn how to keep your customers, you’ve first got to keep them noisy. Read this marketing article to find out just how you can make complaining clients one of your biggest assets.
Imagine you run a pizza parlour. You have all these neighbourhood families that pop in at least once a week for some pizza, garlic bread and Coke. On an average, one customer spends about $30 per week. But let’s assume they spend just $20. Imagine you did something that bugged this customer, but he or she never told you about it. What would you stand to lose if they left?
Its simple math: You lose $20 x 50 weeks. That’s equivalent to $1000 a year.
If you lost just 10 such customers per month, you’d lose about 100 clients a year.
That’s $100,000 that could be in your back pocket if you were a little complaint-conscious.
That Doesn’t Happen in Our Business: The Denial Syndrome
Overtly it won’t. In a Bain & Company survey of major corporations, they found that on average, U.S. Corporations lose half their customers in five years. Notice, it wasn’t ‘one year’ or ‘suddenly’. Clients have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then its camel-back-breaking time. So, if you think that all your customers are happy with you-they aren’t. It’s a basic fact of life.
What’s really weird is that you can’t measure how much business you’re really losing. A study was done on a bank, they found they had as many accounts as they had a year ago. What they failed to measure was how most of the people had ‘silently’ transferred the money out into other banks and the closure of the account was a last measure, somewhere down the line.
The same thing applies to your customer. Like a patient Buddha, they will seemingly appear to put up with everything, till suddenly you find they don’t use you anymore. This is a classic flight of business. You hear nothing of it, till it’s almost gone and it takes a mammoth effort just to hold on to the business.
If you look at it from another perspective, you might even be getting equal to or slightly less business from your customer. Naturally this doesn’t ring any alarm bells. However, if you’ve been watching carefully, your customer has probably grown bigger and richer in the past few months or years. If your business with them has not grown exponentially, you are actually LOSING OUT.
No matter how successful your business, you will always have scope for improvement. Best of all, you will always have complaining customers. Don’t deny the fact. Accept it and then do something about it.
The Real Reason Why You Lose Customers
Last month we went to KFC to pick up some chicken and chips for dinner. On the way home we discovered that the chicken and the chips were soggy and tasted terrible.
How would most customers react? It would depend on their history with the product, but most people would grumble and simply not go back. We complained. We picked up the phone and called the toll free line at KFC. They asked us to place our order. We said we didn’t want to place an order, we just wanted to complain. They said, “We don’t take complaints on this line. You’ll have to call the manager at the branch where you bought it and talk to him.”
Now Why Would I Bother To Go Through All That Trouble?
It’s easier to never go back. All that money that KFC spends trying to get new customers is going down the drain and out the back door because they don’t have a complaint line.
Most companies act precisely in the same manner. For one, they have no real complaint department. If clients are unhappy, they feel embarrassed to complain and because no route has been cleared to vent their feelings, they avoid it completely.
Then they leave.
Obviously, you can’t wait for something to go wrong. Your job is to find ways to get the client to complain. If they complain, you are getting feedback that is extremely valuable and is probably relevant for all your other clients as well. Best of all, empowered with a complaint channel, a well-trained client will complain at every juncture giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and regain their trust.
How Companies React to Complaints
Virgin Airlines CEO, Richard Branson, sometimes makes an appearance at the gates when a flight is late, apologising profusely to all passengers as they check out. How mad would you continue to be if you ran into a situation like this?
Yet most companies detest complaints. Living in their ivory towers, they refuse to believe that any of their clients would leave. So they never ask for feedback. On the rare occasion that clients get mad enough to put it in words, it’s too late. Even then, a complaint is treated with nuisance value.
The first step a company takes when dealing with complaints is that they fix it.
Yeah, Right!
Because of their crummy service, the plane took off without you, you missed your meeting and lost more than just your temper. Do you think, just replacing something is going to erase all that trouble? It’s going to take much, much more.A simple replacement is never the answer. It has to be a heck lot more than just a numb ‘sorry’ . You’ve got to woo the customer back like you would with the girl that you had your eye on. Going down on your knees and begging for forgiveness is a start. Then you’ve got to lay it on thick and the thicker the better.
The Problem With Zero Defect
Lots of companies ran themselves into the ground trying to achieve zero defect. In an unpredictable world like ours, that goal is unreal. Even the best of intentions aren’t much use if you run into a flash flood. Clients recognise that. However, it’s up to you to have a disaster recovery plan in place.
When I say that, I don’t mean a grandiose ‘in case of a nuclear attack’ plan.
At Nordstrom stores across the U.S., salespeople are empowered to do ‘whatever it takes’ to fix a problem, even if it means going to the store across the street and buying the product at a higher price. It’s called the art of immediate recovery, and it assumes that something will go wrong and you will have a Plan B to fix it. The more you prepare yourself for this inevitable event, the less chance the client has to complain.
More often than not, a complaining client is complaining about everything but the product. Ever see people complaining about the food at a restaurant? The principal purpose of the restaurant is food, yet people leave because of loud music, bad service and everything else. Your job is to assume you’re a restaurant and find out what your ‘everything else’ is.
Getting Complaints is Like Winning Lotto!
1) What you need to do to ensure a regular stream of complaints. Dump the feedback form and go out and ask your customer’s face to face. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to, if anything goes wrong. There is no such thing as a silent customer.
2) Complaining customers are always very precise. They eliminate the vagueness of feedback forms. Listen to them, act on their complaints. It’s not that they want to leave. They want to be wooed back. Fix the problem and then let them know how you fixed it.
3) They’re giving you free feedback that would cost a fortune at a research company, so reward them. They’ve been inconvenienced on top of getting a bad product or service. That inconvenience factor deserves payment in the form of a reward over and above just fixing the problem. Customers who are bought back from the brink are extremely loyal and extremely ‘noisy.’ Treat them like the asset they are.
4) Remember, it costs eight times as much to get a new customer, than it takes to keep an existing one. Keep them at all costs. Atone for your sins.
5) Rule #1:The complaining customer is always right. Rule #2:When in doubt, refer to Rule #1
You’ve made an outstanding presentation. You’ve explained the deliverables and the benefits of your product or service in great detail. Your client is ready to buy right away. There’s just one itty-bitty problem. One little nuisance.
Um…Your price is too high.
Not that darn price objection again…
If you’ve run headlong into the price objection, it’s probably your fault. Yes, you read right. You’ve failed to structure your proposal so that the client has to choose between yes and yes.
Ah well, it’s too late to back track now, and you’re in the middle of a soup of your own making. But fear not. There’s a way to clamber out of the soup bowl.
Here’s what you do
1) Smile when the client objects about the price.
2) Then simply summarise all you’ve just presented.
3) Turn to the client and ask: Which part of the package would you like me to leave out?
The client will be surprised…
He wants the whole enchilada and here you’re asking him some daft question. “What do you mean by that?” he’ll ask. You say: “We can reduce the price, if you like. We just need to take out some of the components.” While the client is still gasping at your audacity, tell him that for you to deliver the goods/services, this is what you need to charge. If you charge the clients less, you have to take out some components.
Example, Example:
At 5000bc.com, you can get a lower-priced product. That is, you can take the Regular Membership instead of the Premium Membership. Yes, some customers think the Premium is a touch too expensive. Of course, you only realise how much value you get in the Premium, once you’re in. But sound reasoning won’t necessarily dissuade some customers. They still want the cheaper option.
So we take out the components. You get the Regular Membership. It’s more economical, but it doesn’t have the 12 interviews that alone are worth more than $400.
You can use the same concept. If your client wants to reduce the price, go right ahead and reduce the price. Just make sure he knows that there’s a price for reducing the price.
So you’ve read the Brain Audit. And yes, you’ve worked out that problems are good systems to get the client’s attention. So you take out all the problems and dump them in the client’s face.
But it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that matters.
If you present your words in the wrong way, you’ll actually drive your clients away, instead of attracting them. So how do you avoid this painful mistake? You avoid the ego-killers as it brings up invisible and unwanted objections.
What are ego-killers?
Imagine you’re talking to a mother. She’s just told you that her kid is a pain in the you-know-where. You say, “Yeah, that kid is really a pain.” And suddenly, the next moment you’re looking into the fiery eyes of the mother. And she’s going at you like a shark on the attack.
Huh? What did you do wrong?
It’s OK for her to criticise her kid. It’s not ok for you to do the same. And the same applies to a client. You’re doing the ego-kill. And the clients aren’t going to like you for it, no matter how right you may be.
Some examples of ego-killers are:
Are your sales sagging and you’re unable to upsell?
Do you have a weak marketing plan?
Do you have clients who walk out of the door with increasing regularity?
Yeah right, like I’m going to tell you that all of the above is true.
Because even if all of the above is true, I’m going to deny it till I go azure in the face. I’m not going to reveal to you that I…ahem…am a complete failure.
Spare the ego some thought
Here’s how you can improve the same thoughts without brutalising the ego. Are your sales sagging and you’re unable to upsell? How to instant boost sagging sales and upsell clients with increasing regularity.
Do you have a weak marketing plan? How to take the leakages out of your marketing plan, and increase profits
Do you have clients who walk out of the door with increasing regularity? Prevent client-loss. Keep clients loyal to you with a simple three-step system
I know, I know…
The re-worked lines look the same, but they’re not. They still have the problem-solution but they’re actually a whole lot different. Because they don’t attack me personally. They just show me the route to improving what I already have.
My ego is intact. My credit card is ready. Now I’ll buy.
Here’s a trick question. Who owns your website? Who owns your business? Surely it’s you, right?
You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried! So who on earth owns your business?
Well, who owns Coke?
Let’s go back to 1985. New Coke was the unofficial name of the sweeter drink introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace its flagship soda, Coca-Cola or Coke. Properly speaking, it had no separate name of its own, but was simply the new version of Coke, until 1992 when it was renamed Coke II.
Public reaction to the change was devastating, and the new cola quickly entered the pantheon of major marketing flops. However, the subsequent reintroduction of Coke’s original formula led to a significant gain in sales, which conspiracy theorists believe was the original purpose all along.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
So who owned Coke all long?
Well, it was the customers. And em…your customer owns your website. And your business. You can at best, be a caretaker. and create products and services that the customer wants. Of course, this has major repercussions.
You may, for instance, like the colour of your website.Your customers may hate it.
You may personally detest long copy.
Your customer may want to read the complete details.
You may personally want whatever you want. Your customer will tell you that you should be listening and giving the customer what they want.
So are you going to become a spineless jellyfish?
No, why did you get that idea in your head. You still have a lot of work to do. You still have to put together the products and services based on what you know.
But the biggest mistake most business owners make, is they fall in love with their products and services. And ignore what the customer is saying to them.
But often customers say nothing
They just don’t give you referrals. They just leave. So before they do, you’ve got to keep probing. You’ve got to get their consumption levels up a whole lot more. And that’s what going to bring back a customer who adores what you do. That customer will turn into a friend, helping you along the way, and forgiving you for your silly ways.
Customers can afford to forgive you, y’know. After all, they’re the real bosses!
Personal Experience
We were in love with our brand at millionbucks. We’d spent money and time, registering it as a company. We’d spent a lot of effort and moolah getting the logo right. And customers thought the name wasn’t um…too great. Of course, they said nothing. And we listened to nothing.
But the day we changed our name to Psychotactics, they came forward with their feedback. They said: “Even though we liked your work, and we like you personally, we couldn’t bring ourselves to give you referrals, because the name ‘millionbucks’ sounded so trashy.”
Hmmm…You live and learn. Since then, all our websites, our whole business has been fashioned around customer feedback and participation. You’d be wise to follow the same system.
The lawyers shifted uncomfortably in their seats.
They were being asked to do something that kinda took them a squillion miles out of their comfort zone.
Someone was actually asking them to destroy their business. Someone was telling them to take the bulldozer and go vladabadaboom with their law practice.
The law firm had just run smack, bang into 180 degree thinking.
So what’s 180 degree thinking?
Let’s drop the logic for a few minutes and let’s play a game where your brain runs helter-skelter.
Imagine you run an airline. Imagine you wanted to destroy that airline as ethically as possible.
Hmmmm…what would you do?
You’d find out what customers hated, right?
So let’s draw up a customer hate list.
Customers hate being squashed in their seats.
Customers hate air hostesses that won’t smile.
Customers hate planes that aren’t on time.
Customers hate boring meals.
Customers hate re-runs of movies.
Nice hate list, isn’t it?
But let’s suppose you changed your mind. And didn’t want to destroy the airline after all. What would you make sure you’d do right away?
Let’s see.
Wider seats, smiley hostesses, planes that take off and land on time, interesting meals and great movies.
And that’s why the lawyers were a little jumpy
Because when they went through the concept of 180 degree thinking. When they stopped thinking about how to grow their business, and turned it 180 degrees to ‘How to destroy the business’ instead, they came up with some home-truths that made them squirm.
What did customers hate about the law firm?
1) Customers hated how they were being charged for every darn email; every conversation.
2) Customers hated how they were slapped with a three thousand dollar bill and then a petty $23.50 additional charge for faxing and photocopying.
3) Customers hated it when the lawyers needed to be asked dozens of questions and didn’t have a kind of check list in advance.
Guess what the lawyers did day in and day out?
Good way to destroy a business, huh?
Now, now…I’m not taking potshots at lawyers.
We’re all prettttty good at bugging the hell out of our customers too. Except, we don’t even know we’re doing the bugging. Even as you read this article, some of your customers are searching for the exit sign. Some of them are heaving deep sighs of frustration.
And no, there won’t be a screaming, yelling tantrum. The customer will simply slink away quietly, very quietly, unless you ask a vital question.
So what’s the question?
What silly thing would we have to do to lose your business?
(Ok, deep breath).
First do this exercise internally. Ask yourself: What dumb things would we have to do to lose our customers?
Don’t do the logic trip. Write down every possible thing you can think of, that would cause your customers to stampede like wildebeest on the Savannah.
Of course, if you’re brave…you’ll graduate to the harder part
The part of actually dealing with the customer. The part where you sit your customer down and ask: “What silly thing would we have to do to lose your business?”
In effect, you’re asking the customer: What Bugs You?
Software programmers know this factor well
Software programmers get customers to complain. Software, like your business, has inherent bugs. And the customer keeps reporting the bugs either manually — or the software has an automatic reporting system, whenever there’s a failure of sorts.
Your business has no such failure mechanism
But, but you do have a feedback form, don’t you? And that’s a failure mechanism, isn’t it?
And customers barely use the feedback form anyway. Why would a ‘What Bugs You’ question make any difference?
It does make a difference.
The ‘What Bugs You’ question isn’t something that the customer needs to take thirty minutes to answer. They can answer it over the phone, via email or in person.
And most importantly, the ‘What Bugs Me’ question isn’t engineered by some fancy-schmancy research team.
When a customer finds a bug. When they find something to complain about, the feedback is relevant and instantaneous.
Funnily, the fear of feedback doesn’t lie with the customer
It lies with you.
Yeah, you. the one who’s afraid of what the customer may say.
You’re the one that’s not sure what to do, once the customer gives you their bugs. Because now you’ve now got to fix that bug.
In every situation and case study we’ve done before, the customers were more than happy to send in their bugs.
180 degree thinking isn’t for weaklings
The real test of whether you’re getting things right is not to stop sitting in your ivory tower and patting yourself on the back.
180 degree thinking forces you to be constantly tweaking your business based on what the customer demands.
Now here’s a caveat
Not all bugs can be fixed. And you’ve got to be frank with the customer. What can be fixed, will be fixed. You don’t have to get all jittery about the fact that you’ve just opened up Pandora’s box.
Do what you can. That’s it.
And stop guessing…
On our website at http://www.psychotactics.com — almost every page has a ‘What bugs me’ button. And not only does the customer get a chance to complain, but they also go in the draw for a $50 prize.
Yup, and that’s another example of 180 degree thinking.
You’re making it easier for the customer to complain. And in case you’re wondering, we get at least 50-70 emails each month (that’s 850 bugs a year) with bugs and recommendations.
Can you see what’s happening?
In effect, you’re removing failure.
When you remove failure guess what you’re left with?
Yeah, when you sweep away all the bugs, or at least most of the bugs, you’re left with success.
Funny that, eh?
180 degree thinking isn’t easy going
The lawyers were uncomfortable. You’ll have that same sweaty brow feeling when dealing with 180 degree thinking.
Well, get over it.
Because if you want to grow your company, it’s vital to employ 180 degree thinking.
And if you want to destroy your company, that’s easy.
Just do nothing.
But is it possible to get the timing of the objections wrong?
Objections represent the things clients are sceptical about…
So objections aren’t a nice-to-have in your message, they’re critical to remove sceptism. Which means that the downside must be brought up. And once you bring it up, you then proceed to kill the objection.
But you can’t bring it up just anywhere
It follows a sequence, as we outline in the Brain Audit.
And that sequence is important to follow. Bring up the downside too early, and you’ve scared off the customer.
Bring it up too late, and you’ve got the client all cynical.
So what’s the just-right moment?
The just-right moment is as the client goes through a process. The process is simply:
1) Is this for me? Am I the target?
2) Is it solving a problem for me?
3) Does it have a relevant solution (for me?)
And then only once this analysis is done (often in a matter of seconds), does the client start looking for the downside or something to object about.
Understanding this factor of timing is vital
But there are indeed exceptions to the rule.
You can use an objection to dramatic effect, if you have a persistent objection e.g. If your objection is: I don’t want an expensive car.
Then the headline could be: If you want a cheap car, don’t read any further.
And so the objection forms a factor of qualification early in the message.
Which makes the message stand out, because it’s so confrontational.
Which is fine if you’re happy to stand out and confront
But if you’re keen to simply follow the logical sequence of the brain, all you have to do is make sure you get the timing right.
Make sure the objection shows up.
Right after the problem, solution and target audience.
