How Do You Know If Your Customers Are Raving Fans?

Ever see a Buckeye fan at an Ohio State game in the 4^th quarter.  How about a fan supporting Barcelona in the second half of the UEFA championship?

What if our Customers felt this way about our company?

Brand loyalty is at risk with digital technologies enabling Customers to easily research and switch to a competitor, so unless you are innovating and investing in better solutions for your Customers, that Customer can easily be gone tomorrow.

Your Customers and the relationship you build with them are critical to your company’s success and for you as the leader. The key to this success, based on experience as a CEO and business coach, is to build up an inspired group of Customer advocates that I simply call ‘Raving Fans’.

It all starts with focusing on Customer retention.  But it’s not just about that.  Because you can have Customer retention and not grow your company.  If you want to grow your company, you must continue to invest in new technology and strong people and key programs. 

Think about yourself.  Are you an Apple Customer; maybe one of your friends?  Why is it that Apple Customers want everything Apple?  Apple has not invented technology, but they have been innovative, and they know their Customers, and they understand the importance of Consumer Experience.  I think we can all admit that Apple has developed a group of Raving Fans – Customers obsessed with their latest products and just have to have them!

HIRE AND BUILD GREAT PEOPLE

Inspiring Raving Fans in large part, involves people.  As I have written about in a couple of recent blogs, our associates and the products and services they develop – are going to create the Customer experience for our company.  And our front-line associates and the products they made are touching our Customers many times a day.  When you walk into an Apple store, how are you treated?  That is an Apple Customer Touch Point.  Those Customer Touch Points are where you need to concentrate as a leader.  Each Touch is both high risk / high reward.  So building associate loyalty and enthusiasm directly translates to improving Customer loyalty and enthusiasm!

INVEST IN CURRENT CUSTOMERS

Why do we all naturally accept that it is more expensive to win a new Customer than it is to keep one?  Is this even true?  And if it is true, is it possible more of our investment should be going into the current Customer needs?  We cannot just magically create Customer advocates.  This take a great product; great service; great solution.  And you get that through investment.  What if you sold a product and never enhanced it; never supported it?

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is this: If we can dedicate more of our leadership time into the areas that drive our Customer’s success and inspiration, and invest in the people and solutions that can help solve our Customer’s challenges, we will unlock the growth potential of your company.  A CEO business coach is an excellent resource here. By starting with a company goal to ‘Create Raving Customers’, we set the tone with our associates that the Customer’s success is paramount, and by moving the whole company in this direction, we can inspire new levels of growth for our company and take it all the way to the top!

Ready to explore your potential? 

1. 1-on-1 Coaching: Gary has implemented the ideas above successfully with his own teams, and he is actively refining them today with his CEO coaching customers. Can we help you implement positive results in your company? Contact Gary directly: gary@inspireyourselftoday.com
2. Learn at your own pace: Join The Growth Cube Academy – a training school for small business CEOs that includes 20-minute video workshops conducted by Gary that you can listen to at your leisure, and focus in on specific topics.
3. Think – Order Gary’s book, The Growth Cube, or join Gary’s newsletter and stay up-to-date with new successful models and tools!
4. Learn more about how Gary is applying these principles real-time in his startup company. Go to www.woundwiseIQ.com and sign up to see a demo or invest in Gary’s AI and imaging analytics software products that help improve patient wound healing.