Attracting customers is time consuming and expensive, but obviously necessary. To reduce time and money, companies work hard to keep customers and turn them into repeat buyers. If you do this exceptionally well, you’ll probably earn a few life-long customers or at least extremely loyal ones.
What is beyond even that? Raving fans and brand ambassadors are the zenith of customers all companies hope to reach. Moving customers to a point they feel compelled to share about your products, employees or customer service is powerful. Not only will your brand benefit, you’ll have a great marketing and sales tool at your disposal. There are millions of daily social media posts made. So, imagine the magnitude of what a few gushing posts about your Middle Market firm could bring.
So, how do you go about creating raving fans who are ambassadors for your organization? How do you keep them engaged and active in these roles?
Identification
To be effective you’ll need ways to identify who is likely to become an ambassador for you – statistically, there aren’t many of them in your customer base. For any number of reasons, someone might only make a single purchase or feel compelled to use your products without being in love with them or your organization.
Any employees who have customer contact should make a point of asking routine questions to gather data. You will also need a CRM or tracking tool capable of storing, sorting and reporting. Initially, you might want to track how customers found you, how they decided on your products or services and any issues they have encountered in the past with your competitors or with your products.
As you build data about each customers’ sales history, a pattern of who return customers are should emerge. You might even be able to extrapolate where your return customers are most likely to originate, which could drive your sales and marketing efforts.
Taking it even further, big-data software and systems can provide more granular information, but you can learn a lot without those measures.
Moving Beyond Loyal To Raving
Certainly, your Middle Market organization wants to provide all your customers with exemplary products and services, but brand enthusiasts’ needs go beyond that.
The connection necessary is emotional and customers tend to become emotional when they get exceptional above-and-beyond service. When they stop feeling like a customer and start feeling like a partner who is wanted, who has respected opinions and who is appreciated they will have this connection.
How can your company create these feelings?
⦁ Pay attention to their needs
⦁ Listen to their frustrations
⦁ Work towards solutions that make them happy
⦁ Give many avenues to communicate with you
⦁ Connect with them outside of making a sale
⦁ Provide more than they ask or pay for – always
⦁ Ask for their feedback regularly and show you take it to heart
⦁ Educate customers whenever you can
⦁ Be open and proactive about problems
⦁ Occasionally ask for reviews and ratings
Keeping It Going
Once you have someone so enthusiastic about your products and services that they are willing to share it socially or endorse your company, you obviously need to keep them in this state.
Monitoring social media and creating RSS alerts for notification when your company is mentioned on the internet are necessary ways to track what’s being said. You’ll need to develop protocols for responding to negative and positive feedback online.
A process for thanking loyal customers and those that give you referrals is imperative. Customer appreciation events and charitable donations that involve your customers can go a long way to creating and promoting your culture and brand.
Make sure you maintain regular communication and gather feedback consistently. Once someone has given you a rave review it doesn’t mean they cannot become disenfranchised down the road.
Tracking and identifying your loyal customers and working to cultivate long-term mutually beneficial relationships with them is the beginning of the journey to developing raving fans and brand ambassadors. The work is worth it when you consider the rewards.
So what’s in the Mighty Middle Market for me? — get it right now at www.Go4ROI.com.