Client Loyalty
Client Loyalty--How To Keep It
By Jennine Michael
I was in my early twenties and starting my career with Lincoln National Life Insurance
Company. I remember, my sales manager, making his trainees come back from sales
calls and hand write thank you notes. We wrote: thank you for your time, thank you
for your referral, thank you for becoming my client, thank you…thank you…thank
you! I felt like I was twelve and my Mom was making me write thank you notes to
my Aunt Sue for sending me a Christmas or a birthday present.
My sales manager ingrained in all of his trainees the concept that creating
a sustaining business is not about selling, it is about relationship building. His favorite
medium was the greeting card. Smart guy! By the way, this all took place
before computers, contact managers and web based systems that make it all so easy
today.
Thank heaven for that training! I have used the wisdom of sending cards and
thanking (thus appreciating) my customers, referral partners, and business
associates over a lifetime of career building. Sales may stop when you
change careers, but relationships continue over a life time.
At Alchemy we call this "Appreciation Marketing" and it is a strong
component in our company. Yes, we still send greeting cards. Look
at our slogan: “Turning your contacts into gold”. Every company we
consult with is introduced to Appreciation Marketing, and we
believe every business should add an appreciation marketing
strategy to their business model.
I thought I would share with you some statistics that support this concept
of appreciation marketing. These come from several different sources,
and reflect consumer surveys conducted in 2014.
• 68% of lost customers leave because they feel unappreciated,
unimportant, and taken for granted. In the roofing industry, do our
customers even remember who installed their roof three years
later? The answer too often is NO!
24 Today’s Roofer / June 2015