Creating long lasting customer loyalty is becoming alarmingly scarce in our business environment. So what do we do if we must change that experience? Let me suggest to you the three Ts of business retention.
To maximize customer satisfaction, we must DEAL in the three “T”s – Time, Treasure and Trust.
DEAL IN TIME: Very often we find that business people are so in a hurry to get the next deal that they forget to concentrate on the one at hand. It is for this reason that customers are not given the attention they need. We rush them off the phone and out of our offices in a bid to “get back to work”. But what is “work” in the first place? Is it not attending to customer’s needs? When you come to that realization you will listen more, be even more patient knowing a rewarding end lies ahead.
What happens when you fail to give your time? You give the impression that the customer is not your priority and that you have no business being in business.
DEAL IN TREASURE: The great painter Pietro Perugino had a student who was overwhelmed by a work he had done so much so that the student would sit idly by just to gaze upon his work of art. The master observed this for some days and then decided to liberate his student from this “bondage”. How did he do it? He did it the hard way; the master destroyed the work of art that his young student had started to idolize. True, the student was hurt but more importantly he was driven to do more. This student went on to create more works of art, several of which became classic master pieces many of which are in museums around the worl. That student was the great artist, Raphael. Imagine for a second that Raphael stuck furiously to his initial works, he would never have gotten offers to paint for the great men and institutions of his time.
When you fail to give your treasure, you remain a mediocre and lose the opportunity to reach a greater and wider client base. If your goods or services have class, you would not have to worry about publicity; your customers will do it for you.
DEAL IN TRUST: When you make shoddy sales or lie to a customer in order to secure a sale, you have traded the future of your business for a single day’s sale. No customer returns to a business place where trust is betrayed. Interestingly, the reverse is also true; if you tell a client you don’t have what they are looking for but offer to give your professional advice and point them to a place where they can get their needs met, you only lose today’s sale in exchange for a life time of customer loyalty.
Opportunities are not scarce, it is faithful men that are rare. If you find a man whose word is his bond and whose private life is consistent with his public life, wouldn’t you do anything to keep him around?
Adams Allison.