Customer Appreciation!

New customers are the lifeblood of companies. Or are they? Lately, marketers have been spending more time on current customers – revamping what customer service means, investing more in customer relationship management (CRM) systems and building teams to improve communication with customers.

In this age of social connectivity, customer loyalty has become more valuable than ever. Consumers share stories of their interactions with businesses on social media, meaning that word-of-mouth is especially valuable.

Since customer loyalty can be critical to making a sale, ask yourself what you’re doing to cultivate it. Many might argue that a focus on customer appreciation isn’t just a best practice – it could mean the difference between failure and survival in today’s word-of-mouth driven economy. Most of us have a Web page or email that thanks our customers but chances are good that the “thank you” could use some work. Because the thank you is seen by every single one of your customers, you should ask: Does it put your best foot forward?

Then opitimise feedback as you may not be fully using your customer information. Many companies tap into what their customer service department is hearing but they are less likely to proactively survey their website visitors or to analyze their cancelation and return forms.

While you need to know how many of your customers are cancelling, it is a reactive performance indicator. In addition to monitoring your customer loss, you can gauge loyalty by tracking how engaged customers are and how likely they are to recommend your company and you can get a more complete measure of their loyalty. So you need to assign someone to manage all of the information.

When was the last time you spent money or resources on making your customers feel appreciated?

From a blog by Joanna Lord