Customer Retention

Back when the economy was flourishing and consumer spending was at an all-time high, many businesses were content with customers that were merely satisfied, not truly engaged.  Today, money is much tighter across the board, and these same businesses are realizing the importance of building strong and healthy relationships with existing customers AND employees.  Research shows that an organization's health directly correlates to how well they engage these two groups.

So how do you ensure your business is retaining clients and not losing them to competitors?  Perhaps the most important facet is providing exceptional customer service, and this level of service stems from employees who are passionate about their job role and their company.  They know that employee opinions are valued when management makes decisions. They are loyal, often times reccomending their organization when asked about their job.

Because these employees are guiding the customer experience, it is critical to keep them engaged.  Passionate and dedicated employees make for passionate and dedicated customers who are willing to purchase more and promote your business.  Companies who have such an engaged workforce are constantly collecting and analyzing employee feedback about their day to day experiences on the job.

In addition to collecting feedback from employees, it is extremely important to gain customer insights about their thoughts and experiences.  This information can help you make important business decisions, but can also help you to win back the favor of clients who may have had a recent negative experience.  Keeping a pulse on your client base to ensure high customer retention is simple and easy through the use of survey forms.

The most important thing to remember is that it is not the data alone that will help you to retain your clients and employees.  Being able to synthesize the information and make the appropriate adjustments is the key to improving employee morale and client satisfaction.

I recently read an interesting state on Drew's Marketing Minute: 70% of business lost in America is lost due to post-sales apathy. Now, I don't know where that 70% number came from, but it's terrifying. Too many organizations are out there just focused on bringing in more customers, not worrying about keeping them (happy). When it costs ten times more to acquire a new customer than keep an old one, it's shocking so much business would be lost because you ignore a customer post-sale.

Drew says, If you don't have a customer retention program - one that turns your clients into raving fans... you need one. And you know what? I agree.

Your retention program should be simple and easy to implement. If you make it too difficult, you're probably not going to want to do it. After you implement it, consider doing a post implementation survey. Find out if your program is working, what changes you need to make, what isn't working, what's going great?

No CEO wants to see clients leave because your sales staff or client services team wasn't paying enough attention to them. As always, I'd love to hear about client retention programs you've implemented, what worked and what didn't?

When working with a client who has already built a strong customer base, market researchers are often called upon to create surveys to aid with customer retention programs.

Customer retention surveys are a bit different than a new product or service launch survey because the survey respondent sample must consist of product users. There are several things you need to ask this group so your client can formulate the best customer retention strategies, including:


The recommendation sample customer questionnaire question is important. Often, this can be a company’s bread-and-butter when it comes to retaining customers and gaining new ones. If a good amount of current customers would recommend the product to a friend, that speaks volumes about the quality.

It is also wise to include some open-ended questions. Find out why people use the product, and would continue to do so. If they wouldn’t recommend the product, or use it again, it is important to know why. Your client can use the information to persuade customers on the fence, and keep current customers coming back.

Before creating a poll online for your client survey, sit down and gauge initial opinions and move forward from there. If there were original product launch studies done, it may be helpful to revisit those results as well, just for comparison purposes. Approach the questionnaire research with care and the resulting data analysis will provide information to create customer retention techniques and marketing strategies.

Generating new customers is much more difficult than retaining current customers. Businesses can stay afloat in a time of recession by leaning on those current customers - the downfall: they must do everything in their power to keep them as customers. One of the most effective ways businesses have successfully had good customer retention programs is by surveying customers.

By using the net promoter score (NPS) question type, a company can survey customers using a 0-10 point scale with 0 indicating the extreme negative and 10 extreme positive. There are three categories: promoters, passives and detractors. Promoters are those who rate a 9 or 10. Passives are those who rate a 7 or 8. Detractors are those who rate the organization a 6 and below. The total NPS score is determined by subtracting percent of detractors from percent of promoters- with 50 and above considered a good score. The NPS survey question asked is: How likely is it that you would recommend this product to a friend or colleague?

With promoters, there are two main types: high-profit and low-profit.

High-profit promoters are those individuals who buy the most, most loyal, and essentially make up the company’s revenue stream.   But low- profit promoters are loyal customers who are restricted from purchasing as much as they like (typically due to budget). In the end, high-promoters are essential to company’s profit because if you believe the 80-20 rule (80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers), then you certainly want to survey to find out who those high-promoters are in order to keep them happy.

Like with promoters, there are the high-profit and low-profit detractors.

Customers who are high-profit detractors are still very important, because they are still high dollar clients. Companies must give them a lot of attention as these are the people who your competition will want to steal. Low- profit detractors are those you cannot please within reason. However, while you may lose these as customers, it’s important to maintain professional relationships as well a good company image. You don't want to give your detractors any additional reasons to say anything negative to other potential customers. 

Something to keep in mind: dissatisfied customers will eventually tell 9 other people about their problem with satisfied customers will tell 5-6 others about their positive experience. Having customers that are willing to promote you are the biggest indication of a high customer satisfaction.

In the past, if one of your customers had a bad customer experience with your product or service, it certainly wasn’t good for you business but in most cases the potential impact was limited to an extremely small audience. Today, the reality is much different thanks to Web 2.0 applications including Yelp, Facebook and of course, Twitter. These websites, and others like them, expand the reach of a single customer’s opinion, effectively giving them an oversize soapbox to espouse their opinion on your product, service or employees. If these cries are ignored, or more cries of the same creep up, you have a problem. The customer complaints will gather momentum and begin to spiral, that is if you're not doing anything about it. Monitoring and measuring customer experiences and satisfaction ratings is definitely one step business can take so they don't have an explosion of bad buzz.

In order to protect themselves against these unilateral attacks, businesses need a robust partner to help them improve customer relationships. Cvent’s web based survey software and enterprise feedback management solution can be one of these invaluable protectors. Cvent’s real-time email alerts leverage the effectiveness of conducting surveys. Take the following sample customer satisfaction survey question, “How satisfied are you with our latest product upgrade?” you can have an email sent to your Director of Client Services whenever somebody responds that they are unhappy or dissatisfied.

By proactively reaching out to clients, you are able to simultaneously improve relationships with customers and protect the value of your corporate brand. Even better than simply helping everybody breathe easier, these types of customer satisfaction initiatives can fatten the organization's "wallet," as research indicates increasing customer loyalty and customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 75%!

According to a survey conducted by virtual events provider Unisfair, customer retention and acquisition are top priorities for marketing departments in 2010. 60% of the marketing survey respondents polled said new customer acquisition will be a critical focus next year, and 48% said there would be increased focus on customer retention programs.

So what are you doing to acquire new customers and increase retention rates? Marketers who were polled planned to use social media, search and email strategies. But what about surveys? I hope some of these marketers are including customer and client surveys in their marketing mix. If surveys aren't part of your 2010 plans, you definitely need to consider adding it.

Do you know why customers choose you over a competitor? What about why they stay with you or why they chose to leave? If you don't know the answers to these questions, then how can you possibly achieve your 2010 goals of increasing new customer acquisition and improving customer retention efforts? The answers to these questions should impact your marketing team and the decisions they make. If you find a lot of people are leaving because you're too expensive, you need to figure out how to provide more value. Your current customers can help guide you to where you provide them the most value - then you can hone in and tweak your messages.

No one expects you to magically know all the answers, that's why having an online survey program is critical. Conducting client surveys gives you a chance to get a better understanding of your current customers and profile the types of organizations and professionals who make the best customers. Then, you can create campaigns to go after those types of people.

I came across 10 Tips for Impeccable Customer Service at Customer Service Manager. Thanks to Bill Hogg for sharing these insights, I've added some of my own comments and customer service tips along the way as well:

1. Figure out how to prevent the problem from happening again. It's not productive to just field a customer call solve their immediate, on the surface problem, then do it again and again. Something caused the problem to arise in the first place, it should be part

2. Treat customers like a human being. Ever have a call where you felt you were interrupting the support rep's day? Big no-no. Each customer should be treated with dignity and more importantly, expect them to act like responsible adults. It's amazing how when you expect someone to act a certain way, they usually do.

3. Go beyond the minimum. Taking a few extra moments to go a little further and improve the overall customer experience is going to have big payoff. Customers wont dread calling you, or even purchasing your product again because of dreaded support issues. The word of mouth you'll get wont hurt too much either.

4. Don't play the blame game. A sure fire way to get your unhappy customer even more fired up is to play the blame game. Instead of pointing the finger and blaming the customer, circumstances, vendors or anything else, simply take the steps to fix it.

5. Don't take it personal. Customers are angry at the situation, not specifically at you. When customer service reps begin to take it personally more anger gets added to the conversation and everyone loses. The problem is very unlikely to be fixed, the customer is going to hang up angry and the rep will probably answer the next call still angry. Causing a vicious cycle to start.

6. Listen. A common mistake is to hear a few buzz words and assume you know what the customer's problem is. That's not always how it works. People use different terminology when explaining things, really listen to what's going on.

7. Don't make promises you can't keep. One of the most important things sales people learn is to "under promise and over deliver." This is true for customer service departments as well. I'm not saying don't promise an excellent customer experience, but don't make promises you wont be able to keep either. Sometimes this can be a tough one, you get caught up in the call, you're trying to go the extra mile, you let the customer talk you into something the organization can't do. Remember the customer is reasonable and don't over promise.

8. Make customers a priority. It's important in every customer interaction everyone in your organization (sales, client support, etc.) allows the customer or client to feel as if they're a priority. Don't do four other things while talking to a customer. Believe me, they can tell the difference.

9. Deal with problems immediately. Putting off investigating customer complaints isn't going to make the problem go away. The only chance you have is the customer will forget - but even more likely they will get frustrated with you. And frustrated customers share their frustration with friends, family, colleagues and random people they meet in the grocery store. Why subject your organization to that kind of negative word of mouth, when you can just investigate the cause and come up with a solution.

10. Follow up. It's important to call or email customers back after the problem has been resolved, or if it's been awhile and you're still working on it. calling after a customer should have received a big order will certainly not cause a loss in any goodwill either. This is not an upsell opportunity. This is a chance for you to just see how things are going, make sure the customer is happy, show customer experience is important to you. You may even get some great customer feedback out of the interaction.

People under estimate how quality customer service can increase customer loyalty, boost customer retention program ROI and impact the bottom line. Think about it, how many good customer service experiences have you had lately?

An online survey conducted by market researcher Crowd Science between May 19th and June 8 found 40% of smartphone users, who don't currently use have an iPhone, said they would switch to Apple with their next purchase. This is in stark contrast to the 14% of survey respondents not using Blackberry devices who said they wanted to switch to Blackberry.

With RIM recently tooting that 80% of recent customers are consumer or small business users, Blackberry might have a tough time beating out Apple. Blackberry has had such a hold on the enterprise market, there are few people who don't have a Blackberry who wants one. On the flip side, Apple's iPhone is getting new customers from the consumer and business side - particularly with the release of the iPhone 3GS. Blackberry also has to battle the customer retention and loyalty Apple has built, 80% of survey respondents who own an iPhone said they would buy an Apple handset again.

Seems super simple to add this example survey question to any type of online survey - right? Yet, it's a frequently forgotten question. I'll admit even I forget the need for this type of question. I'm usually focused on keeping my questionnaire as short as possible by limiting my survey questions to only essential ones.

However, when I'm filling out a survey, I typically look forward to those comment boxes so I can provide additional customer feedback. Particularly when I'm filling out a feedback form measuring customer satisfaction. For example, I was watching a TV episode on abc.com and was having trouble with their media player (I always have trouble with their media player, and they are constantly changing it!) When I finished watching and closed the browser, I received an invitation to complete a customer satisfaction questionnaire. I was expecting one of the customer satisfaction survey questions to be an "Additional Comments" box, since none of the questions centered around my viewing satisfaction. No such luck. I was seriously disappointed. I wanted to give my feedback so hopefully, next time the viewing would be better.

Most people agree to fill out your survey because they believe there's something in it for them. You don't have to offer an incentive to make people think there's something in it for them. Simply asking for customer or employee feedback implies that you're ready to make changes, that you want to identify problems and fix them.

If you fail to offer a "last ditch effort" with and additional comments (optional) question, you could be making a huge mistake. Depending on your survey design, it may be the only place a survey respondent can give you truly honest, unprompted feedback. While you can craft technically perfect questions, they still limit what you can find out from questionnaire respondents. The additional comments section may bring to light something that wasn't even on your radar: new product enhancement requests, process changes that ultimately could boost employee and customer retention, customer service issues, website design flaws, etc. Some organizations have gotten great ideas to improve their retention programs from consumer feedback.

Including an additional comments section is even more important with online surveys, because with telephone or paper surveys the respondent has the chance to at least tell the interviewer or write in extra answers. It's always possible the extra comments may be discarded, but the respondent can still try to give additional feedback. There's no extra chance with a web based survey. Adding this one extra question wont destroy your response rate or cause your survey to be bad. In fact since it's such a common question type, I would guess if the respondent doesn't have additional comments, they hardly even notice the question.

I was reading through Bruce Temkin's 6 Laws of Customer Experience (CxP) yesterday, and I was struck by how well a survey program fits in with his CxP laws. I talk about implementing online survey programs to gather customer feedback all the time, to the point that I sometimes feel like a broken record. Often though, employees are overlooked as an essential part of the customer experience especially if they aren't front-line employees. For that reason, my favorite two laws are numbers four and five:
Obviously, conducting client surveys to find their satisfaction levels is important for customer analysis, product enhancements, customer service feedback, etc., but checking in with employee's satisfaction is equally important. Here are a few of the highlights from Bruce:

Various types of employee feedback and HR surveys can include questions to evaluate how your organization is doing when it comes to fostering the correct environment for providing amazing customer experiences. A quick online survey can show management if they're doing a good job communicating organizational goals, motivating employees, boosting morale by celebrating their successes, etc. One of the best ways to measurce customer experience is to measure employee loyalty and morale using surveys.

Employees are an organization's biggest asset; but if employees aren't motivated, don't understand or are just expected to churn through tasks, they could also be your biggest liability when trying to boost customer retention. A good first step to checking in on your customer experience is to check in with your employees through some type of employee satisfaction survey.

If your organization doesn't currently conduct employee surveys or conducts paper based surveys, I'd recommend signing up for one of our online product demos or a free trial of the Cvent Web Survey software.

Netflix was ranked #1 for customer satisfaction for the fifth consecutive year, beating the other Top 100 online retailers. The new customer satisfaction survey, released by FGI Research, has Amazon falling a short second, and Avon.com, DrsFosterSmith.com, Newegg.com and QVC.com tied for third. The FGI survey report estimates a single point increase in customer satisfaction could result in an increase of 9% of the online retailer's year-over-year sales. Furthermore, satisfied online visitors are 44% more likely to make purchases through the retailer's other channels (like in the store). More importantly, they're 72% more likely to recommend the brand. Customer satisfaction has a direct correlation to customer loyalty.

These survey findings are very similar to another FGI Research report we shared with you back in December 2008. While Netflix and Amazon still top the ratings, other rankings have shifted - for better or worse. Back in December Apple.com, Barnes & Noble, LLBean.com, Newegg.com and Wal-Mart.com shared the number three spot. Everyone except Newegg.com saw their rankings fall a few points. If FGI's estimate holds true, those fallen points could translate to drops in year-over-year sales figures.

What does this mean for you? Just because you have a high customer satisfaction ranking today, it doesn't mean you'll be able to hold on to it tomorrow. Netflix is continually improving their offering and delivering on their promises. Competitors will always try to best you to gain market, wallet or mind share - or perhaps all three. Don't sit back and rest on past rankings. Organizations should be trying to improve, always offering a better customer experience, always trying to boost customer retention.

How does your customer satisfaction compare to last month, last quarter or last year?

I cannot begin to explain how frustrating I find telephone surveys. They drive me crazy. I'm always happy to share my opinions with organizations but don't waste an hour of my day on a bad telephone survey. A bad survey experience reflects on the brand. Respondent's experiences converge into the customer experience, they don't keep the buying and the surveying experiences separate in their minds.

It's easy to create a questionnaire online with web survey software and finding online survey tools that fits your needs is easy. So why are there not more online market research studies being done? Why does my phone ring every night, while I'm eating dinner, with another request to complete a telephone survey? Technology improves the respondent experience tenfold. As I hinted at above, respondent experience impacts customer experience, which influences customer loyalty and retention. If you think you need additional channels for your data collection other than online, here are a few telephone survey tips to help the respondent experience:

1. Training is essential. Make sure your interviewer is well trained and understands their job. For open ended questions, have the interviewer read back the response, ask for more details, and clarify the response they have recorded is exactly what the respondent said. Interviewer bias has a tendency to creep into open ended questions and training is the best way to combat bias.

2. Vary the question type. Asking more than a few of the same question type in a row becomes tedious for the respondent. Respondents also lose interest and you begin to lose their focus. Alter your question types to keep respondents engaged and giving honest feedback.

3. Speak English. With more and more organizations and market research agencies offshoring their telephone surveys, it's really important to ensure your interviewers speak clear English. It should not, at any point, become the respondent's responsibility to try to figure out what the interviewer is asking. Remember, you called them and asked them to help you. In most cases, the respondent isn't getting anything out of it.

4. Only ask important questions. This is a best practice for all survey types whether its a web based survey or a paper feedback form. If you don't need the answer to the question, take it out. If the question does not directly relate back to the survey project objectives, take it out. Do not ask the same question three different ways, one way is good enough. Respondents completing an online questionnaire may be more forgiving of extra questions than in a telephone survey, don't waste their time with extra questions.

The only time I recommend using telephone surveys is when you're trying to build a relationship. Asking for customer service feedback or conducting customer satisfaction surveys are excellent opportunities to take the time to call your clients. The personal touch can go a long way to improve customer retention programs and consumer loyalty.

Customers have higher standards for organizations than 20 years ago. Why? We want more. We live in a world where we want (and can usually get) everything instantly, one could argue both a blessing and a curse of the internet. As a result, customer service has become a critical part of any organization. Do you remember your last experience where you didn't feel satisfied with the resolution? I can name a handful without blinking.

You can measure all kinds of stats surrounding your customer service department: number of inbound calls, time spent on hold, call length, etc. You can also gather customer service feedback through surveys to get your customer service score. If you receive a low customer service score, here are some possible reasons:

1. Training. Organizations need to take the time to adequately train their customer service staff. If they aren't trained, they wont be able to give superior customer service because they simply wont have the necessary knowledge. Training should include explaining organizational goals and a basic understanding of all products. Obviously more extensive knowledge is needed for products they support.

2. Indifference. Some staff members just wont care. Customer service requires more than just a skill base, it also requires certain personality traits. Make sure you have a program in place to identify the correct people for your organization.

3. Burn out. It's hard to work in customer service. Reps field complaints and deal with negativity all day. How often are you in a good mood when you call customer service? Probably not very often, usually callers are already frustrated and in a bad mood. Dealing with that same negative caller over and over again will impact anyone's enthusiasm. To try to combat the effects of the complaints and negativity they face, provide recognition and incentives for excellent reps.

It's important to identify what your organization does well and needs to improve when it comes to customer service. After all, customers who receive poor service have a decreased opinion of the brand and the organization. They become much more critical and chances are soon as they have an alternative, they're going to leave. On the other hand, when customers feel they received white glove service, they tend to value the brand over competitors - isn't that the goal of all organizations?

I asked in the beginning if you remembered any bad customer service experiences. Are you still a customer? I know in most cases, I'm not. For most customers, it's not whether there was a problem, but whether it was taken care of quickly and had a satisfactory outcome. By having an excellent customer service team in place, you may find increased customer loyalty and higher customer retention rates. When was the last time you conducted a customer service survey to identify how your customer service department was doing?

A recent customer satisfaction, complaints and loyalty study in the UK discovered over half of respondents would rather take their business elsewhere than complain. A similar number of respondents expressed their desire to make a complaint but said it was too involved and time consuming.

Do you want the first sign of a problem to come from customers walking away? Of course not. With the growth of online channels (social networking sites, blogs, YouTube, etc.) to give feedback, it's even more important to take the time to listen. Customer frustration is no longer an individual struggle, but rather a shared conversation across members of online channels.

Surveys such as the UK customer loyalty online survey should tell you something: surveying customers and taking action based on the gathered data is essential. Online or Internet surveys are a great channel to gather feedback from customers and clients. If you're not asking if there is a problem, chances are they're not going to tell you first—they're just going to leave.

With high customer acquisition costs and the current state of the global economy, customer retention should be at the forefront of every organization's business objectives. It's not as difficult as you might think to get a customer survey program in place. With a web based customer survey software such as Cvent, getting an online survey launched can take mere minutes. Why wouldn't you put a customer survey program in place when it could increase revenue in the long term?

Last week, we blogged about how conducting a survey creates expectations, whether it's a staff opinion survey or a customer service feedback form. Regarding this topic, Seth Godin's recent Direct from Consumer Marketing post caught our eye. 

In this post, Godin asks if organizations really want to hear from customers and clients—particularly if they're unhappy. If you're in the business of selling something, we assume you would respond the way Godin anticipates: of course you want to hear from them!

Still, actions speak louder than words. If you conduct a survey and ignore the responses, you send the message that you're not interested in what customers have to say.

Beginning a conversation with a client is sometimes the hardest part. Online surveys to measure customer satisfaction or gather product feedback are an ideal way to open the lines of communication and learn more about your customers. But you have to analyze the data; you have to act. You have to listen. Meet the expectations you create through a survey campaign and listen to your customers, and you'll increase customer loyalty and customer retention. 

We recently came across an article in Customer Service Magazine that pointed out that your customers are not just comparing their experience with you to your competitors, but to any outstanding experience they've had with any company. This should prompt you to wonder, How does your customer experience stack up to organizations such as L.L. Bean, which recently ranked number one in retail customer service?

Customer service should be important to every organization because it links back to customer retention and customer satisfaction. Using customer satisfaction surveys is a great way to find out how your customers feel about your service and their experience. To find out how measuring customer satisfaction can lead to increased customer satisfaction and retention, sign up for one of our best practice webinars.

If your clients are unsatisfied, do you know why? Customer retention should be a huge focus for any organization, if for no other reason than that acquiring new customers is five times more expensive than keeping a current customer.

As many HR executives and relationship managers know, employee satisfaction has a direct link to customer satisfaction. An employee who is satisfied with his or her job and work environment is more likely to work to keep customers satisfied. So, when it comes to increasing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, take care of your biggest asset: your employees.

Consider conducting an employee satisfaction survey. Just the act of running a survey has been shown to boost employee satisfaction. It lets employees know that management is listening and considering their concerns.

If they have valid concerns about overtime expectations or incentive plans or a range of other issues, just running an employee survey won’t solve those issues. It will, however, allow you to to identify issues affecting various parts of the organization and take steps to improve the culture and environment.

Unlike what some organizations have come to believe, each department does not live in a vacuum. If your marketing department is unhappy, it will affect your sales and client services teams. If your technology department is unhappy, it will affect your accounting and marketing departments. If your customer service employees are unhappy, look out! You may have a hard time renewing current customers and winning new clients.

Instincts tell us that poor customer satisfaction is linked to problems with your product offering or customer service, but it could have wider implications. Before investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in R&D to improve your offering, consider implementing a survey program to help identify the true cause of your customer retention problems.

In a struggling economy, high customer retention is critical to your organization's success. A surefire way to improve and maintain your customer retention is to offer great customer service. After all, keeping customers satisfied with your support services increases loyalty and makes them want to stick around.

Web based surveys are an easy, efficient way to gauge customer satisfaction. User surveys can easily be implemented by sending a quick email survey invitation to customers after each customer service call you receive. You know you're reaching customers who had a need for customer service, so a follow-up survey invitation is a great way to capture their thoughts immediately after receiving assistance.

Customer service satisfaction surveys sound like a fit for your business? Here's the catch: some survey companies only allow respondents to submit questionnaires one time. That means users reaching out to customer support more than once—whether for related or unrelated issues—can only give their input and respond to user satisfaction surveys once. You'll never know if their satisfaction level stays the same or changes, and why.

Recognizing this problem, Cvent's online survey tool allows for multiple responses from the same respondent. You can easily specify if survey respondents can take the survey just once, an unlimited number of times, or a specified number of times.



If your customers don't have a good experience with your customer care department, you can expect to see a drop off in contract renewals and a diminished reputation in your industry. Offering exception customer service is an excellent way to add value to your offering.

Contact Cvent today to find out how you can benefit from our online survey experience with an all-encompassing toolset of survey templates, question libraries, the assistance of a Professional Services Group and more.

Sales guru Jill Konrath recently had Charles Green, author of Trust-based Selling, write a guest blog post about some great ways to quickly gain trust in the process of selling professional services. Charles shows the relationship of four factors that play into building trustworthiness, and talks about ways to build them up. Here’s his formula and an excerpt from his post:

The Trust Equation

Trustworthiness = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation

8. Always context transactions within relationships

Don't approach sales, or negotiations, or even meetings, as if they were stand-alone events. Link them to future sales, other negotiations, future meetings. Doing so demonstrates collaboration and a commitment to client focus—all of which helps raise credibility and lower self-orientation.

It’s so refreshing to see people approach sales with the client in focus. Sales has gotten such a bad rap over the years; it’s about time people recognize that sales is all about relationship building, not cajoling.

To address some of the things he mentioned:

In order to provide a meaningful context within relationships, it is almost necessary for a sales organization to utilize certain technology solutions that facilitate this practice. Transactions, without a doubt, are excellent data points to demonstrate customer-centricism. However, effective customer retention marketing strategies incorporate all types of other data points, or “customer knowledge,” to maximize the level of personalization—or in your words, raise credibility and lower self-orientation.

The guys at Aberdeen released several great research reports about customer feedback, and how leading companies are really leveraging robust customer knowledge repositories (databases) to create a deeper and more meaningful context than was ever possible before.

When you have a good base of knowledge about your clients, you can build credibility and intimacy, and lower self-orientation by showing them that you’re taking the time to actually draw insights from the data (history) you have. Our survey system, for example, not only collects transactional information, but also allows quick and easy cross-tabulation and time-based trend analyses. Having such information goes beyond the typical acknowledgment of their last purchase or inquiry.

True credibility is established when the client knows you’re putting in the effort. Intimacy is fostered by the personal touch, while self-orientation is done so properly by ensuring a professional focus on the client’s business needs, rather than your own sales goals. Sure, we’ll still be looking out for our own quotas, but having good reconnaissance about clients' needs is your best ally in something my colleague in sales likes to call "benign manipulation."

Hey, it is sales after all.