The Relationship Debate - Simone Douglas

Simone Douglas - "#SeriouslySocial"

Introduction

As the world of sales continues to change and evolve, so has the number of sales tactics and various technologies to help businesses find new customers and retain their current ones.

Many of the old school sales tactics don’t have come to a point of redundancy and having too many new ones in place can cause its own unique challenges for an organisation.

It’s a tough world for salespeople, especially in B2B. But there is also a wealth of knowledge and techniques out there that will help sales teams achieve success and reach their goals. The question becomes what are the must do’s in the modern era of selling and what are the nice to haves?

There is still one sales tactic that every salesperson should master but few truly do: relationship selling.

Satisfied customers are loyal, but appreciated customers are even more so. The best way to make a customer or prospect feel appreciated is to do something that delights them. By pleasing an existing or potential customer, you encourage them to enjoy the process of being a part of your customer base. It's an incentive for them to come back to the business if they have any other work or an opportunity to refer

Today we are going to be talking about how to build stronger relationships with your customers which in turn leads to more revenue.  By the end of the show you will understand

•  Why stronger relationships with your customers leads to more revenue.
•  How to build stronger relationships with customers that stand the test of time and the road bumps along the way. 
• How to turn these relationships into more revenue through repeat business and referrals.

 
It is easy to get distracted by all the noise in the business world at large but jump day is your chance to settle in and work on your business in ways that allow you to make the most of your opportunities today, tomorrow and forever. 

Today we are going to engage one of the most enjoyable parts of doing business and coming into Christmas season is the perfect time to start thinking about how we provide the unexpected for our customers and bring unique experiences to them that will continue to build on our relationships in positive ways

Then we are going to chat about the difference between delight and customer satisfaction.

Customer delight is the process of surpassing customers' expectations to build a long term, positive experience around your product or service and brand. Customer satisfaction happens when you simply meet customers' expectations. Who wants to be in the business of simply doing anything?

IBGR is a global community of commerce committed to your success and our programming is designed to give you the tools and resources as well as the one percenters you might be missing. So settle in because all the best stories are told with the audiences full attention and today is no exception. If you put the learnings into place you will have started your preparation to belt 2021 out of the stratosphere. After all We didn’t wake up this morning and decide to own an averagely successful business now did we?

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​Show Objectives - The Why
Today we are going to take a really close look at the effectiveness of ‘Surprise and Delight’.

It really depends on what type of loyalty mechanism is in play between you and your customers.

A study by Marketing Science Institute points out that customers are loyal because of 3 intrinsic behavioural mechanisms:

Habit: memory based loyalty, formed from consistent and automatic spending patterns, notably in customers whose usage does not change over time.

Dependence: rational loyalty driven by a cost-benefit analysis of switching costs, particularly in customers with a wide product holding.

Relationship: social and emotional loyalty, built on the trust that arises through multiple interactions typically in long-tenured customers.

We are going to look at how we talk to each of the four different customer segments based on how they fit into the below

Loyalists: have high levels of all 3 loyalty mechanisms. 
Dependents: have a broad product holding with you but low ‘habit’ and ‘relationship’ levels. 
Sleeping Dogs: these customers are mainly bound by ‘habit’. Sceptics: these customers have low levels across all of the 3 loyalty mechanisms.

Key Issues - Owner Perspective:

1. Why do you need to work to surprise and delight your customers?
2. How are we personalizing each customer interaction, and ingraining a customer-centric culture within all parts of our business?
3. What assets do we have available to us that will allow us to build stronger relationships with our customers? 
4. What Marketing Channels do we already have established or which ones do we need to develop.

What You Need to Know - What we will be covering
Let's dig a bit deeper and talk about how you can achieve delight among your customers. Below are the basic building blocks that we are going to look at today through the lens of Who, What, Why and How.
 

1. Solve customers' problems - The first thing your business needs to do is solve the problems your potential and current customers are experiencing. We can’t get to delight if we don’t start here.
2. Be timely - A big component of customer delight is the ability to be available and responsive whenever your customers reach out.
3. Be helpful - Going beyond the immediate solution to provide information and ways to help your customers manage their challenges creates bonded customers.
4. Help customers succeed - When you truly understand what it is people need from a product or service like yours, you'll be able to target those pain points and solve for them to exceed customer expectations. More importantly when you truly understand your customers business goals and needs you can support them in achieving them.
5. Listen to customer feedback - If a customer comes to you with a complaint, remember to listen
6. Be enthusiastic - Throughout every interaction your business has with potential and current customers, be sure your team maintains an enthusiastic, positive, and welcoming voice that complements your brand persona and your six word story
7. Be unexpected - Customers expect to see their needs fulfilled, but are truly delighted when your team goes above-and-beyond in the customer experience.
8. Build a community - People enjoy the feeling of belonging to a community or group. Whether it is structured or unstructured, that feeling of belonging contributes to a customer's wider sense of happiness.

 
What you need to do​ today
 

1. Start with the end in mind - what are the goals for your business
2. Identify the customer delight touch points and map them out
3. Identify who in your networks you need to be working to delight more often.
4. Review and tag your customers based on where they sit on the surprise and delight journey.
5. Personalize and create a contact plan for each loyalty segment
6. Plan to spend time putting lessons learnt and aha moments into practice.  Let me know how it goes.
7. ACT! Nothing changes if you don’t set aside time to make it happen so once you have worked out what you need to do start putting timelines and deliverables on your action plan. Get clear on what you want your customers to feel, what actions you want them to take and what pain points you are here to solve for them.

 
Shows
Previous: Episode C3.05.3 The bread & butter, cream and dream customers; how to recognise them and what they mean to your business

Next: Episode Season 3 Episode C3.07.3 Hidden wins and missed opportunities - What opportunities do you have to increase purchase frequency, upsell, cross sell, or diversify to grow your wallet share with your customers?

Written by Simone Douglas 
The Publican & Licensee of the Duke of Brunswick Hotel, Executive Director for BNI Adelaide North one of the biggest networking organisations in the world, the driving force behind South Australia’s leading social media agency, Social Media AOK and best-selling author with her first book “Seriously Social – turning your online game into real-world gain”. and the recently released Confident Networker

Simone also serves as Deputy President of the State Chapter Committee South Australia for the Franchise Council of Australia and sits on the Franchise Advisory Council for BNI Australia

You can connect with Simone on any of her seriously social platforms
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