Customer Service

The reason is simple. Finding new customers is expensive and time consuming. Many companies consider a "get new customers" campaign successful if more than 5% of the customers contacted end up buying.

By contrast, selling to existing customers is cheap and easy. Sales campaigns launched at a base of existing customers often have success rates as high as 70%, according to the fascinating book Customer Winback.

That's why losing a good customer to the competition is always a bad thing: You have to work more than 10 times as hard to get enough new customers just to make up the revenue that you lost -- and forget about profit.

Why Customers Leave You
Curiously, most business owners and managers have the exact wrong idea about why customers leave. Most people believe that customers leave because:
            1. They found a lower price elsewhere.
            2. Their needs changed.   "Wrong"

According to a classic study by the research firm CRMGuru, here are the reasons that customers give for jumping ship (respondents allowed multiple selections):
            75% Bad Customer Service
            52% Poor quality
            25% Price
            15% Functionality or needs have changed

As you can see, when it comes to keeping your existing customers, customer service is three times more important than price--and five times more important than functionality.
That's ironic, because most companies, especially smaller ones, are obsessed with functionality and price. Quality and customer service are often afterthoughts.

If you want to keep the customers that you've got, you should reverse priorities and pay more attention to customer service and quality -- and, consequently, less attention to functionality and price.

Regardless of what you're selling, your long-term profitability is largely dependent upon your ability to keep current customers, rather than your ability to acquire new ones.
And that means keeping your existing customers happy -- which is mostly about how you treat them once they're already customers.


Customer Service The reason is simple. Finding new customers is expensive and time consuming. Many companies consider a "get new customers" campaign successful if more than 5% of the customers contacted end up buying. By contrast, selling to existing customers is cheap and easy. Sales campaigns launched at a base of existing customers often have success rates as high as 70%, according to the fascinating book Customer Winback. That's why losing a good customer to the competition is always a bad thing: You have to work more than 10 times as hard to get enough new customers just to make up the revenue that you lost -- and forget about profit. Why Customers Leave You Curiously, most business owners and managers have the exact wrong idea about why customers leave. Most people believe that customers leave because: 1. They found a lower price elsewhere. 2. Their needs changed. "Wrong" According to a classic study by the research firm CRMGuru, here are the reasons that customers give for jumping ship (respondents allowed multiple selections): 75% Bad Customer Service 52% Poor quality 25% Price 15% Functionality or needs have changed As you can see, when it comes to keeping your existing customers, customer service is three times more important than price--and five times more important than functionality. That's ironic, because most companies, especially smaller ones, are obsessed with functionality and price. Quality and customer service are often afterthoughts. If you want to keep the customers that you've got, you should reverse priorities and pay more attention to customer service and quality -- and, consequently, less attention to functionality and price. Regardless of what you're selling, your long-term profitability is largely dependent upon your ability to keep current customers, rather than your ability to acquire new ones. And that means keeping your existing customers happy -- which is mostly about how you treat them once they're already customers.
Indianola News Update - Friday Flash 09.06.13