The Most Ignored and Overlooked Threat EVERY Company Faces (And 10 Simple Things You Can Do About It)

What is the most ignored and overlooked threat every company faces? Answer: The lack of a well thought out and implemented customer experience strategy resulting in - depending on your industry of course - a 20 to 70% customer loss in the first 100 days.

Notice how I said customer experience and not customer service.

Think about it. Customer service is reactive - you delivering on your promises, solving daily problems, responding to complaints and so much more. Customer experience on the other hand is proactive. It is strategic - a focused intention on how you want a customer to feel in every step of the journey. It more involves how you personalize every communication from day one to day 100 and beyond. How you create a more personal, connective, caring, deeper, more meaningful experience.

Now, while most business owners/leaders strive to and believe they provide excellent service, what most companies are rather terrible at is in providing a beautiful, memorable (and systemized for scale) customer experience.

As I have espoused in a previous newsletter article, "the strength of any business is NOT in the new sales it generates but in the referrals and repeat business it gets." We all focus so much on new business, new clients, new sales that we forget to humanize the journey and develop a strategic "experience" for every customer or client... so that they NEVER leave!

Why is this so important? Here's why... it is 6 to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than keep a current one yet, still, to this day, only 8% of customers feel their service providers deliver a "superior" level of customer service.

What the majority of your customers are really saying is this... they want an extraordinary experience! The service (reactionary) part was promised and is expected. So then, what can you quickly do to address this threat? Here are my...

10 Easy Things You Can Do To Keep Your Customers and Scale Your Referrals

1. Create And Design A Step by Step Emotional Journey For Your Customers

(From day 1 to day 100 and beyond). That's every communication, every interaction, every touch point and warm, thoughtful act. If you need help doing this, there of course is ChatGPT, Google and even better, gifted experts who not only do this for a living, but they are experts in knowing how to make your company a LOT more money from it (wink wink ;o)

2. Grow Your Clients Businesses

Imagine if you required all your salespeople to facilitate 5 introductions a week to good referral source for each client they have and land. Read my previous article, Here's An Effective, Universal Sales Strategy You Likely Have Never Considered

3. Make It Your Mission To Find Out What Your Clients Really Really Care About.

All of your people (especially those who are forward facing with customers or prospective customers) should never ever let a conversation end without know what that person really, really cares about. Teach your people to ask this simple question (or some variant of it)... "besides your family, friends and job/work, what do you really really care about." This will not only stimulate a more personal conversation but it also give you vital information about the person in which you can later act upon and touch their life in a way that delivers a more impactful, genuine experience. (More advice here… don’t stop there… keep asking questions about what they are sharing… why? Be curious!)

Think about it, when you know what someone cares about you know how to touch them, their life in the most meaningful way. You also have something else much more important to talk about besides just work and the transaction. In sum, make each relationship mean something to them and to you… elevate it above simply a relationship based on a transaction.

4. Every Month, Ask Your Client How You Can Be Better.

We (too often) rarely take our relationships with our customers and clients above the transaction, the reason why they hired us… the work. Sometimes, it really helps to do more… give more. If you do, you will find that you get more.

Often, the best way to improve is by having the courage to regularly, at least once each quarter, get right feedback from the horses mouth… ask our customers and clients how we can be better for them? How can we make the pre-launch better, the scoping easier? How can we make the on-boarding process easier? How is our reporting? Do you need more or less frequency of that reporting? See where I am getting at? Drill down into the details of every aspect of everything you do with them and ask them (one detail at a time per ask of course).

Then… get better, give better, serve better and be better. Oh and, don’t forget to keep delivering better and make sure you are continually checking in to ask them how well you are improving or not.

5. (Consistent) Thoughtful Gestures.

Here is where you take the advice I espoused in 3. (above) and now you are putting it into action!

Let your clients know how much you appreciate a particular something about them. Give genuine compliments. Send a thoughtful gift based specifically on what they really really care about. It absolutely does NOT need to be expensive because what they will feel is that you really listened, you really care about them. You are touching them through a thoughtful gesture in way the has real meaning for them.

6. Through Your Actions, Not Just Your Words, Let Your Clients See How Much You Really Care.

This is really a version of 5. (above) but here, instead of just a compliment or a gift, we do something for them WITH them? How about buying tickets or a table at their charity event? Or, take it one step further, what if we ask them who they know who needs help or assistance of any kind - a colleague, a loved one, etc. - and we ACT on that?

7. Be Vulnerable!

While yes, we need to be mindful in sharing the right amounts of our own personal vulnerability at the right time… still, climb the stairs… start slowly sharing your story, your journey, your challenges, your failures and lessons learned. Let them see who truly you are not just as a professional but as a son, mother, father, sister, brother, friend, colleague.

There is strength through vulnerability if you know how to use it properly (and of course genuinely).

8. See A Mistake, Problem or Even Confrontation As An Opportunity!

If we want people to open up for us, then we need to open up to them first.

Life has a way of gift wrapping serious problems, issues and challenges as opportunities. Your greatest opportunities will come from these problems and these moments in your life.

As I often say, the true measure of the human is revealed NOT when things are easy but when they are hard! You will be seen and most importantly remembered by your colleagues and yes, your customers by how you navigate through the hard stuff not easy stuff.

Be the change you want to see in the world, in your family, in your company and respond differently. Respond more in an empowered way. Be hungry for these challenges because again, this is how you will be seen

Over the long term, people and your customers will trust you to always share not only the real truth of what is going on but, by doing so, and by how you are conducting yourself during these difficult moments, they will take more notice of you and who knows, perhaps even admire you.

9. Pass The Buck Properly!

Imagine dating someone for a long while and you both decide to get married. The day comes and there you are, the groom, standing there, waiting for your bride to reveal herself and walk down the isle. However, when the doors open you double glance and notice, “hey!… who is that? Someone else is walking down the aisle!”

Well, I am here to report to you that this unfortunately is what most companies do once the salesperson hands off a new client the person who is going to be working with that customer or client. THIS… is how, in my view, every customer feels. They don’t even know, really know, who they will be working on the day to day stuff with.

Here is an opportunity for your salesperson to do two very important things...

1). share with the soon to be client what the journey will be like every step of the way - who they will be working with, how things will progress, timing, team, how you expect to make them feel, etc. Here you can creatively share personal, fun and serious profiles of those people, maybe even customized videos of your people introducing themselves, sharing their stories, why they care so much and how they are going to help them.

2). Have your salespeople share everything they learned about the customer in the process of landing them (personal and professional) with the team that will be servicing them.

10. Ask Your Clients What Their Personal and Professional Goals Are!

Funny… we can know and work with people for years and years - our colleagues, our customers - and never know what their personal and professional goals and dreams are. Imagine if you asked? If you shared yours? Imagine if once you found out theirs, you asked them how you could help and even further, did everything you can to try and help them achieve their goals/dreams?

Now, I recognize not all of us actually have established clear goals. So, if this happens to be the case, what if we responded by asking if we could help bring them better into focus for them?

A great way to get a conversation going in this direction is to share our own goals and dreams. Here, we can be vulnerable with them… build the relationship and act and SERVE!

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Money (and lots of it) naturally shows up if you are doing it right. If you are delivering an unforgettable EXPERIENCE for your clients and customers. And, while I consider the ten things above to be just the tip of the iceberg of all that can be done and really quite "easy", I do readily recognize this is all easy for me. Many of the ideas proposed in my top 10 can be entire subjects and lessons to themselves. Even more difficult is implementing these as organizational behaviors not just individual behaviors. For this, it will take a special person to bake this all in, coach your people and team through it and of course keep them accountable to these new behaviors. If you don’t have someone on the inside, seek and get help from someone from the outside.

Again, get help, but at least do these ten above (I am of course happy to be that person but get help from someone if you need it!). If you do, I promise you... you will keep more of your customers, generate more referrals and greatly reduce the need to keep looking for new sales to sustain and grow your company.

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Andrew Kolikoff is a master of masters in creating profits for organizations by elevating people and company cultures to become the very best they can be... more productive, more engaged, more servant hearted.

If you are seeking a powerful, dynamic speaker, wanting a more transformative company retreat, in need of someone to assist with conflict resolution, better communication as a result of a merger or acquisition, a deeper commitment to the development of your people through coaching, or delivering a better customer experience, please contact Kolikoff directly --> Here

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