Are Your Customers Coming Back?

"Fine." If your customers say this, everything is not fine. What's worse? When they say nothing at all. Most customers won't tell you when they are unhappy. They'll tell everyone else though. Depending on how unhappy a customer is, they could just keep telling people bad things about you right up to the point that they completely forget you. This may be the only time it is good for the customer to forget about you and your business.

I think that it is fairly well understood that unhappy customers tell a lot more people about your business than happy customers do. What is usually missed, are the very fortunate subtle hints you get when an unhappy customer decides to speak up. And, these hints usually sound something like this: "fine." "How was everything Mrs. Jones?" "Fine." "Is there anything else we can do for you?" "No thanks. I'm fine."

Guess what's next? You never hear from that customer again, but depending on how not fine things really were, all of her friends will hear about you for quite a long time. Those friends might even pass the word along to their friends too. Not so fine, huh?

So, here's what you have to do. Wow them! Work like crazy to make your customers enthusiastically happy. These customers will turn into walking advertisements, except these advertisements will also have some level of influence over those they are advertising (talking) to. It's not enough for you to personally wow them. You must also train all of your staff to do the same. In fact, this must be a part of each person's job description.

Finally, survey your customers. Find out what they think about everything that's going on in your organization. Don't do anything without the customers' approval. Add this to an enthusiastic experience and you won't have to worry about whether or not your customers are coming back. They'll be back and they'll bring others with them.

To get started, read "The Fred Factor" by Mark Sanborn, and "Raving Fans" by Ken Blanchard. These easy-to-read books will set your organization on the right path to creating enthusiastically happy customers.