by Matt LaCasse
I’m pretty obsessed with Walk The Moon’s “Shut Up And Dance” right now, which given my dancing ability is pretty surprising. If you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing this song yet, take the next four minutes and do yourself a favor:
That song is basically about a couple falling in love and the woman telling her partner to live in the moment (or, to shut up and dance). Because I have a chronic case of marketing brain, it clicked with me that this is how many brands interact with their customers. They’re so worried about building a relationship with them that they miss the opportunity to make that instant connection and create a lifelong loyal customers. That takes form in several different ways.
1. Ignoring customer complaints – Someone I know had a tussle with a local car dealer this week. They bought a car about six months ago from the dealer. Everything was cool until one of the tires blew along I-70 in Nowhere, Kansas. Turns out all four tires had dry rot and were ticking time bombs. The department head of the dealership initially tried to stonewall this person, even trying to bargain with him that if he’d take down negative social media reviews they’d pay him for the new tires. He turned that down and went to the president of the dealership. Not only did the president agree that his situation had been handled, he agreed to give him a loner car and take care of the new tires while they were being installed. An angry customer is the best opportunity you have to make someone a loyal and lifelong customer. People just want your product to WORK (whatever that means to them). No, the customer isn’t right every single time. However, telling them they’re wrong isn’t the way to go about it either. Treat your angriest customer with kindness, respect, and honesty and you’ll be on your way to the type of customer loyalty most organizations can only dream of. It is also very much worth considering using a really good call answering solution as these ensure you give your clients an excellent service.
2. Go The Extra Mile – Say you’re a florist and you have an order of fresh roses that aren’t going to look great if left on the recipient’s desk at work. Find out where that person is for lunch and go to the restaurant. Not only will the sender be more likely to do business with you again, but the recipient (and everyone in the restaurant) is going to have an awesome story to post about on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Do you HAVE to do something like that? No. But you won’t win as many loyal customers either. Almost everyone hates waiting, so if you ship your products, you could opt for the most reliable and fastest shipping services out there like this on-demand courier LA. I bet your customers would be happy.
3. Do What You Say – This seems logical, but if you say you’re going to provide a service a certain way, do it that way. When my wife and I were engaged, we ordered a wedding band for her from a well-known website. The way it was described led us to believe it would look very nice, and the price was something we couldn’t argue with. We weren’t expecting Tiffany’s, keep in mind. What was shipped to us was something that looked like it was pulled out of a box of Cracker Jack. We sent it back and I won’t do business with that website ever again.
What all this boils down to is word of mouth marketing. It was the first type of marketing ever invented, and it remains the most important form today because people will ALWAYS trust their friends and family more than you. How do you develop those loyal customers (or brand evangelists as we call them)? Take the advice in this post and then set up a time to chat with us.
