When is it Time to Dump a Client?
This video was posted on iMEdiaConnection. Agencies, including ours, want to do great work and make clients happy. But where do you draw the line with a disrespectful client? Watch the video and see what some of the experts think
What Benefits do Loyalty Programs Bring?
All loyalty programs should provide a few direct, tangible benefits which depend on the program’s structure, the nature of the industry and even the state of a company’s brand. In general, there are three core benefits:
- The Attrition Benefit: There should be a boost in Customer Retention.
- The Lift Benefit: There should be an increase in the amount customers spend.
- The Acquisition Benefit: There should be a gain in the rate at which a company attracts new customers.
For the three items above, here is what our customers are seeing:
- The Attrition Benefit: Members of our customers Programs visit our Customers 8% more than all customers visit.
- The Lift Benefit: When Members visit, they spend 39.8% more than all customers.
- The Acquisition Benefit: Our customers boast that they can close deals 7.5% more than before the implementation of the Program.
What are you doing for your Customer Loyalty? Is it benefiting you through less attrition, more spend and more new customers? Find out more at re:member group.
Advanced Consumerism & Email :p1
Say I am going to my friend John’s house for a BBQ party, we have some dinner, (delicious bratwurst), some drinks and some good-times. As the night progresses, I start to talk about my company and the products I sell. I get past the info stage and into something like a hard sales presentation. They are not really interested and start to get annoyed but since we are friends no one says anything. A month later I am talking to one of John’s mutual friends and she asks me why I didn’t come to John’s BBQ the last week. Needless to say, I told her I wasn’t invited.
The same concept that killed the next invite to my friends BBQ is the same concept that gets played out everyday in millions of peoples email inboxes. People have a safe feeling about their home and a similar safe feeling about their email inbox.
Back to the Basics In Your Customer Relationships
At the re:member group, we understand companies are built one customer at a time. What does this mean for a growing loyalty marketing company? Everything.
In the expanding world of new marketing, companies and customers alike are starting to understand it’s much more cost effective to retain customers rather than throwing money at advertising, in the attempt to acquire new ones. Unfortunately, building loyalty takes more effort than just dedicating funds to acquiring new customers in bulk. Loyal customers are a valuable asset; a commodity not to be taken lightly. In addition, the cost of acquiring a new customer far exceeds keeping loyal ones.
The hook brings you back…
John Popper and the boys from Blues Traveler never spoke truer words. With the exception of Popper, they aren’t great musicians. It’s their hooks that helped them sell millions of records. Their hit song Hook bluntly said “it doesn’t matter what I say,” but rather, it’s the hook that will keep you coming back. Their hook was that the song cleverly used the chord progression of Pachelbel’s Cannon in D. On some subconscious level, it resonated with us – and we ate it up, even if we weren’t sure why.
Jill Griffin discusses the Hook Principle, that states “the more products and services a customer buys from one source, the less likely that customer will leave.”
Studies suggest that less than 30% of new car buyers return to the dealership for service. New cars are being built better and better and require less maintenance. If your vehicle does need service, there are dozens of options for repairs – and let’s face it, the dealership has a reputation of always being the priciest. Sure, the dealership has the best technicians, but in a tight economy, the local repair shop seems like a reasonable alternative.
Based on the NADA’s statistics for 2007, most new-vehicle departments are operating at or below breakeven. Never has it been more essential to capture that new-car buyer for service.
A new-car buyer needs an incentive to return to the dealership for service. A few dollars wisely invested in that customer can have a huge impact to your bottom line. Customer loyalty and retention is key. Show them value in doing business with you.
Returning to the Hook Principle, when considering a loyalty program, think about ALL of your departments. How will my program increase new and used sales revenue, service revenue, parts and even bodyshop? It’s not enough to think of your departments as separate entities. Truly capturing a loyal customer means getting them to try all of your dealership’s services. A great loyalty program will accomplish just that.
When a customer realizes your dealership really is a “best-value” one-stop shop, why would they go anywhere else? The hook will bring them back – on that you can rely.
Make Your Customers Your Cheerleaders
At a past position I held, I was in charge of all of our printing and marketing pieces that went out the door to our customers. During one of our more time-sensitive and important mail campaigns, I approved a mail piece that went out; I sent it off to the print company, and after I received the mail piece back, I was horrified. A very important piece of coding was incorrect and I didn’t catch it before I sent it out the door. Turns out one of my employees transposed an all important code and I didn’t catch it.
I called the printing company. In a bit of a panic, I was glad to get right to a customer service rep. As it’s a rather big company, it seemed to me they must have agents just waiting online so the customer doesn’t have to wait to speak to someone.
I kept my cool, but again, I had to admit: I had messed up.
After telling the CSR what happened, she explained that I could return the mail pieces for a credit, as a courtesy to our company, to which I replied, “I have to send these out the day after tomorrow.”
Add Value to you Customers’ Lives with a Loyalty Program
Here is another excerpt from Jill Griffin’s Article that was posted a few days ago by the re:member group. The article was originally posted by the Austin Business Journal on February 19, 2000. Jill heads up the Griffin Group, and has written several books on Customer Loyalty.
“Frequent buyer programs, also referred to as loyalty programs and reward programs, have become a critical retention tool for companies searching for unique ways to add value and, in turn, build customer loyalty. For example, estimates show that more than 60 million Americans belong to frequent flier programs. You also can earn points when you shop for groceries, go to the dry cleaner, use the phone or even use an HMO.”
Loyalty Programs can be quite costly to develop (however, the Programs the re:member group develops are not). On the other side of the coin, Loyalty Programs are actually revenue generators once they’re truly burning gas. As Jill mentions above, Members of Loyalty Programs can earn points a host of different ways. This is great to keep your company at the forefront of your Members’ minds. The Programs we develop allow Members to literally do the things they do every day and earn points while doing it. The great thing is that this can actually turn out to be a revenue generator (or at least revenue neutral), because the partners are actually paying you to have your members shop there.
This is a “critical retention tool”, as Jill mentions. Think about it: If I’ve gotten service completed at your dealership, and have earned points for it (which are good only back at your organization), I’m locked. You’ve retained me for my next big purchase. Add to this my ability to earn points at over 400 online merchants through your branded Mall, and now I’m thinking about you every day. That’s advertising you can’t buy. This truly adds value I can sink my teeth into, and in turn builds customer loyalty.
Another unique way we add value is to keep our Customers’ names in their Members’ wallets. We do this by allowing Our Elite Members to receive discounts all over the nation when they show our Customers’ branded membership cards. This is an out-of-the-box way to bring value to your customers’ lives. After all, let’s face it, times are tough and people want to hold onto their money. You’re helping them do this by providing discounts at other establishments. Essentially, we’ve found a way to leverage your customer database to get others to give away free stuff.
A Quality Call Center Begins with Quality People
The backbone of any company should be customer service. Or, in the case of the re:member group, Member Service. This is considered the highest priority at re:member group.
Members should be remembered as people. Real flesh and blood people. These people we speak to over the telephone are somebody’s brother, sister, mother, father, girlfriend, or loved one, and should be respected as such. How many times have you called customer service for your utility bill, cable bill, or mobile phone service and been less than pleased with how the call ended? Did your issue feel unresolved? Have you felt the CSR (Customer Service Representative) could care less about you as a person? At times, I have left feeling like that CSR did not enjoy their job very much.
A 5% Increase in Customer Retention Can Really Affect the Bottom Line
Here is an excerpt from Jill Griffin’s Article that was posted yesterday by the re:member group. By the way, the article was originally posted by the Austin Business Journal on February 19, 2000. Jill heads up the Griffin Group, and has written several books on Customer Loyalty.
“Keeping customers who are highly valued can greatly improve profit, Fred Reichheld says in his ground-breaking book, “The Loyalty Effect.” Presenting extensive data across a wide array of industries, Reichheld shows why as little as a 5 percent increase in retention can improve a company’s bottom-line profitability between 25 percent and 85 percent, depending on the industry.”
Companies that embrace loyalty programs know that this statement by Reichheld is not a joke. It’s the real deal. Let me share with you some stats from some of the Programs that we developed. Bear in mind, however, there is one factor that is essential for the success of any Loyalty Program: buy-in at all levels of the organization.
Since the above statement is about customer retention, I’ll share with you some stats that focus solely on this:
Loyalty programs can reap financial rewards
We recently came across this article by Jill Griffin. Although this article was published in February of 2000, the principles remain the same for building and implementing a solid loyalty program. What’s interesting is that we were facing a similar economy in 2000 as we are today, in 2008. Companies who have embraced loyalty programs prior to today are reaping the benefits. It’s not too late though…
Jill Griffin is the author of “Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It.” We’re going to post the abridged article today, but then spend some time dissecting it for today. We’ll see how this article parallels nicely the philosophy of the re:member group and the Customized Programs we build for our customers.
Across the country, businesses are awakening to the fact that all customers are not created equal and that keeping the right customers is as critical to success as acquiring them in the first place.