How Do You Treat Your “Super Patrons”? – Guest Post by Ryan Snethen

June 22, 2010 on 8:00 am | In customer engagement, customer service | 1 Comment

There is a question everyone in business for themselves should consider: “How do I treat my Super Patrons?”

What is a Super Patron? The “Super Patron” is the model customer, someone who not only values your product or service; they don’t only religiously visit your blog, website, store or place of business. The Super Patron sees the true value in what you have to offer and appreciates it so much that they promote you and your business to their family and friends. They go to serious trouble to be sure that the people around them at least try your goods or services for themselves.

Unfortunately, because the Super Patron is so rare, they can sometimes be lost in the shuffle, being seen as simply a “good customer”. There is an easy way to tell a good customer from a Super Patron. A good customer comes to you when they need something. Once their needs are satisfied, “thank yous” are exchanged and until next time, communication is severed.

A Super Patron does more. They introduce you to those close to them and most likely, show their gratitude in some way: they give you referrals. They pass on information that could be of value to you and your business. Even small thank you gifts or cards, while rare, are not unheard of.

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The Problem With Building Herds

June 17, 2010 on 8:00 am | In HERO, Small Business Success, customer engagement, customer service | 9 Comments

A lot of people responded to a post I wrote last week about marketing like a douchebag.  The post was written in response to an e-mail I received from someone who wanted me to come to a “herd building day” at an upcoming seminar he’s hosting.

While much of the feedback I received was in the form of objections to the use of the “d-word”, there were a couple of questions that jumped out at me that I wanted to take a few minutes to address.  WARNING: the aforementioned “d-word” might pop up a couple of times in this post, so I’ll get that one out of the way first.

Question: Why did you describe the offending info-marketer as a “douchebag”? Answer: First of all, it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s an information marketer.  I have no problem with information marketers, especially since I consider myself to be one…or at least I’m testing the waters.  What I object to, and what inspired the name-calling, is bad information marketing practices.  More on that later.  The reason I used the word “douchebag” is that’s the only one I could think of that captured the visceral reaction I’d had to the email I’d received.  I spent a good two minutes trying to find another word that captured the feeling.  I couldn’t.  Moving on.

Question: What is a “herd building day”?  Answer: I have no idea.  I tried to figure it out, but the page that the email linked to had very little information about what the event actually entails.  Maybe you can figure it out.  I’m not going to dignify the page with a link; just google “herd building day” (with the quotes); it’ll be the link right under the post from this blog.

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Answering the Question of Whether the Customer Is Always Right

April 6, 2010 on 8:00 am | In customer service, mindset | 7 Comments

This started out as a reply to a comment left by my buddy Jim Kennan on yesterday’s post about rising up against bad customer service, but somehow it turned into another post. I want to thank Jim for chiming in and for bringing the other side of the discussion up. Here, in part, is what Jim had to say:

“Jerry, I’m behind you on poor customer service. BUT- I don’t believe the customer is always right. I don’t believe we need to just fall to our knees to the customer is KING, my lord and master.

There are customers I don’t want. Customers are not all the same. They don’t all have the same value. They are not all worth the same.

Every customer deserves to be treated with respect. NO QUESTION about that. But, we don’t owe customers anything more than respect.

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An Open Letter to Crappy Customer Service Reps and the Companies Who Employ Them

April 4, 2010 on 11:59 am | In attitude, customer service | 21 Comments

I’m increasingly disturbed…OK, appalled would be a better word…by an attitude I’m seeing crop up more and more frequently. As you know from reading this blog, I’m kind of a fanatic about customer service. As a result, when I encounter what I percieve to be bad customer service, I’m vocal about it.

What concerns me is the growing number of people who react negatively when I point out bad customer service. Many of them say things that basically amount to “that’s what the stupid customers get for being so stupid and stupidly calling with their stupid complaints!”

More and more, people in general (and customer service reps in particular) are defending the right of businesses to provide bad service. The icing on the cake was an article I came across via Dan Waldschmidt’s blog about Dell charging a monthly fee for customer service. Have a look at the article here, and pay special attention to the first dozen or so comments. You’ll read things like this:

“I whole-heartedly agree that most calls to tech support should be charged a service fee. Especially if the caller is someone whom is too stupid to actually read the instruction book or has absolutely no common sense. I mean, we are here on the phone trying to help them fix a problem that is usually created by the customer in the first place. Should we really have to waste our time fixing your mistakes for minimum wage with you complaining in our ear and saying how crappy support is while we can still hear you?”

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Are We Having Fun Yet?

December 17, 2009 on 12:05 am | In customer service, social media | 6 Comments

I wanted to talk a little more about the topic of customer engagement.  I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, in light of the changes that business is facing.  Social media, web 2.0 and a shrinking world are putting tremendous pressure on businesses to adapt to the new expectations of their clients.

Traditional companies, especially those who are looking for their customers among Generations X and Y, have a new challenge to rise to.  That challenge can be summed up in one question: Is it fun to do business with you?

There’s no denying it.  Baby Boomers have for years decried the fact that “kids these days” need to be constantly entertained.  And they’re right, of course.  Just look at phones: modern phones are not made for placing calls, they’re made for entertaining.  So if you’re selling a product or service to this group who need to be entertained, what are you doing to entertain them? Again, are you making doing business with you fun?  If you’re not, there’s a pretty good chance you’re not going to survive.

Tomorrow’s customer isn’t going to base their buying decisions primarily on things like features and benefits or price.  Their expectation is that every company will offer great features, benefits and prices.  After all, this is a generation of buyers who knows how to research, and if you’re not in line with the market, you don’t stand a chance.  No, tomorrow’s net-savvy consumer is going to decide whether or not to buy from you based on the entertainment value you provide.

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The New Rules of Business

December 15, 2009 on 12:00 am | In customer service, social media | 11 Comments

The old rules of business were pretty simple.  In fact, William Dillard once summed them up in three words: Location, location, location.  The idea was that any business could be successful, so long as it was located on the right street corner in the right part of town.  Well, things aren’t that simple any more.

With the rise of the internet and e-commerce, the physical location of your business is less important than it was in the past, especially when your business is service-related or when you sell intangibles or products (like software or web design) that can be delivered online.  Even traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are feeling the effects of this revolution, many of them adding an online store to augment their retail sales and shipping their products around the world.

If location is no longer of primary concern, what, then, are the new rules of business?  I call them the three Cs: content, connection and conversation.

Let’s start by saying that if your business hasn’t joined the online community and started participating in social media, you’re missing the boat in a big way.  It’s time to get on the bus.  That said, you need to pay attention to how you are conducting business online.

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