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Sales is sexy. Increasing revenues. Closing deals.
Marketing is sexy too. Flexing the grey matter. Persuading. Convincing.
Long term customer relationship management is not sexy.
If sales and marketing are a hot date, customer relationship management is a marriage at the seven year itch stage. “I do value our relationship but those other customers over there are soooo sexy. It doesn’t mean anything. Honest.”
Dumb metaphors aside, we know the long term customer relationship is more valuable to us but we just can’t resist the thrill of the chase. Plus, building and maintaining those relationships requires a real concerted effort overs months and years.
It’s a lot harder than placing an ad or setting up a website.
Here’s a quick question though – what kind of position would you be in now if you retained every customer or client you’ve ever worked with? What if they were all regulars now?
Would you even need to chase new business?
If you haven’t got a long term strategy for maintaining and growing your relationships with customers and prospects – get started now.
Think about:
- What is the lifetime value of a customer / client?
- What do I want the relationship to feel like?
- Who will I seek to build relationships with? Will they all be the same?
- How will I stay in touch? Email, post, face-to-face, social media, a combination?
- Can I define the depth of the relationship in stages? ex. prospect, one-off buyer …
- Can I grow the level of permission to contact them over time?
Put it on paper with dates and benchmarks and then get started. And if you already have, why not share a little of what works for you in the comments below.
Useful link: Drew McLellan – Please Don’t Ignore Me
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Fantastic post Drew,
This is the kind of information that you know about – but it takes someone else to actually write (or type) it before you take notice and say “Oh yeah, I remember thinking about that once!”
It’s important to remember that if you don’t concentrate on retaining customers first, the new customers you attract today will not be retained tomorrow. Get your retention strategy bang on and then start to attract the new business, then watch the pounds (or dollars) stack up!
Thanks for the comment Nigel,
Also think beyond simple retention. Focus on building a relationship that can lead to referrals, WOM, increased spend etc…
NB: Just or clarity, the last line of the post was a link to Drew McLellan’s blog
Mark
Sorry about that Mark,
I had just been reading Drew’s blog and linked to yours – It was a Monday Morning!
You are right. Developing the long term relationship from a on-off to a regular customer helps develop cross-selling, up-selling, referrals etc. A closer relationship with your customers, lets you understand – and fulfill their specific requirements better. That understanding will help to develop better products and services, in turn helping to generate more new business. It’s all about listening and learning.
Nigel
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