In these times, it is more important than ever to build customer loyalty.
Many businesses work hard to keep their customers satisfied or happy. In our organization, we want to do more than keep our customers happy and satisfied.
We strive to inspire customer loyalty to the point that our clients want to become advocates for us. This value is ingrained in our organizational culture, as well.
In fact, we find that our employees remain our strongest and most passionate advocates.
When we earn our clients’ trust and respect, they tell other businesses about us. When they refer friends, including business associates and industry peers, and tell them how we have positively affected their operations and profitability—that exemplifies client loyalty.
As Walt Disney said, “Do what you do so well that your customers will want to see it again and bring their friends.”
That is our goal. We are dedicated to developing long-term relationships with our clients. We provide them with a network of trusted experts and, in return, we want them as clients for life.
Fortunately, we have a lot of customers that fit into that category. They realize the value of what we do for them—and more importantly what it enables them to do—and they remain very loyal customers.
Our business is in the business of earning client trust, loyalty and confidence.
I’ve also found that during turbulent economic times like now, businesses that have already earned customer loyalties usually fare better. Since the US economy is largely fueled by small-to-medium businesses—which is the segment of the market we serve—we are keenly tuned into them and pay significant attention to their world.
As we meet and talk, these organizations and their entreprenurial leaders continue to amaze us with their resiliency and creativity. It's interesting to watch these businesses and their people; how they see and capitalize on opportunities, even in a down period.
I remain optimistic about the opportunities we share in developing and retaining customer loyalties. Again, we take it a step further, as our goal is to inspire client advocacy.
How we approach our business relationships.
We serve as an offsite HR department for small- to medium-sized companies. In developing business-to-business relationships, we continuously collaborate and constantly focus on client-retention efforts.
Many businesses spend time on studying customers or companies that leave them. They want to find out, after the fact, what they could have done to keep them. We, on the other hand, spend a lot of time and effort focusing on our clients who decide to stay with us.
So from the very start of the relationships, we stay in touch with the clients. Their feedback is vital to the success of this alliance.
How does this actually work at our organization?
To make this work, every client is connected with a service team; in addition to a client liaison who is their main point of contact. The client liaison and the entire team are dedicated to anticipating and responding to client needs and questions. We are convinced that our customer satisfaction ratings remain consistently high because of this person-to-person interaction and continuous feedback.
To truly achieve a goal, you must have a way to measure it.
- In order to consistently and regularly measure our performance, we have established client retention programs. For example, we survey our clients on a monthly basis, and we seek input from client employees at every level of the organization.
- From the C-level employee to the receptionist, we need to hear how we are impacting and cooperating with all agents of their business. We want to uncover any communication gaps so that we can prevent problems rather than simply react to them, which can often be too late.
- We also hold stewardship meetings with selected clients every six months to review their strategic plans and goals. In today’s business climate, a business may have to completely readjust their growth plans and tactics, and we must be fully prepared to respond to their changing needs and plans.
The bottom line.
When everyone in the organization commits to making all the communication channels work together for the client or customer that organization is rewarded with more customer advocates.
Advocates are not only satisfied customers, they become loyal ambassadors for the organization's services and products.