Article by Carolyn Higgins
When I’m giving speeches to groups of small business owners or working with them to build their own marketing systems, I tell them everything we do in business is marketing; from how we answer our phones, to our billing, to how we treat future and existing customers. Marketing is about more than attracting new customers to do business with us – it s about keeping, nurturing, and “wowing” the ones we have so they buy from us again and again and rant and rave about our company to everyone they know.

I had some customer experiences lately that I thought I’d share and see what you all think….

I recently moved into a new apartment. It’s one of those large apartment communities with an onsite office and a team of people to assist tenants and run the property. Here’s what my experience has been like in my short stay here so far:

I just want clean jeans!

We have onsite laundry facilities, which is nice. Before I moved in they told me the machines take cards which you can pre-load with cash to save you the trouble of having to scrape and buy quarters! “This is convenient”, I thought.

Well what they didn’t tell me is that you have to actually purchase the card for $5 and you can’t just go to the laundry room and use your ATM card to load this laundry card, no, you can only load it at the office during office hours and you can only use fives or twenties; no ones, no tens, no change. – Oh and the office does not provide change – I walked in with a ten dollar bill my first time and was told I’d have to walk a block to 7-11 (and buy something) to get change.

Frustrated, I thought “the heck with it, I have enough quarters lying around, I’ll just use my quarters to do my laundry today”. So I go back to my apartment, gather up my laundry and a handful of quarters and head to my new laundry room for the first time. Well didn’t I feel like quite the fool, the coin operated machines DON’T TAKE COINS! So they got me – I HAVE to purchase their little card and I HAVE to play by their rules if I want clean clothes. So this is how it’s going to be, huh?

So this “convenience” turned out to be an inconvenient money-making opportunity for the management company… not a great start.

Rip me off – please!

Next, I left my keys in the lock of the front door after walking my dog Capone one day and they were stolen right out of out of the door…( I heard the “perp” take them…ok, too many detective shows! ) In a panic I called the office, which is about 100 yards away from my front door. I told them the story and asked if they could change my locks right away. “Sure”, they said, “just come to the office and give us a check for $95- you have to pay up front.”

Me: “Umm, but someone has the key to my apartment, I don’t want to leave…”

Them: “Well, we can’t change your locks until we have a check – and it has to be a check from the bank account on file; no cash, no money orders and no cashier’s check.”

Me: “Umm… but someone has the key to my apartment…”

Them: “Well you have to pay up front or we can’t change your locks”

So this is what I heard: “Our $95 is more important than your safety and this is your problem, figure it out”.

They wouldn’t change the locks first – or offer to come and get the check, or even have the maintenance guy get the check from me before he did the work. NO, they insisted I leave my apartment, to which a stranger had a key and hand deliver them payment… I’m not sure which part of “a stranger has a key to my apartment” they didn’t understand.

Alternate scenarios

I’m not writing this to complain or vent about less-than-great customer service (OK, maybe I am a little), I’m writing this because these are perfect examples of the little things businesses do – or don’t do – that influence customer experience. These are 2 great examples of where a company could have “wowed” me but instead made me feel like a mere cog in their gigantic cash-wheel.

Imagine how delighted I’d have been if upon move-in they handed me a laundry card loaded with $10 and said, “Here is your free laundry card to get you started” (you could even bury the cost in the security deposit, if you must!). Instead of feeling nickel and dimed, inconvenienced, and sorry that I’m living in a place run by a huge faceless, uncaring, inhuman corporation that only cares about the bottom line, I’d have been happy and thankful.

Or what if one of the three women who work in the office had offered to walk the 100 yards to my apartment to pick up my check for the lock change fee so that I didn’t have to worry that I might be walking into an ambush when I came back to my apartment? Imagine how I’d have felt if they put my safety ahead of their lousy $95 and “corporate policy”. Do you think that would have made me a raging fan? I probably would have been writing a very different blog!

A lesson for all business owners

So I challenge you to reflect: what do you do in your business to make your customers feel special? To make them feel taken care of? And, what do you do to make them feel put out and inconvenienced? It may be the little things you never even considered. I advise business owners all the time to think of ways they can ‘wow” their customers every day – it isn’t easy and you need to step outside of your business and look at it with a fresh set of eyes (customer surveys are a great tool to do this). But I guarantee, if you can achieve that your business will thrive!

Do you know what your customer’s buying process looks like?

If you sell professional services, or other complex and\or expensive products and services, your customers probably view buying as a process rather than as an event.

If buyers go through a process to make their decisions then it makes sense that the more closely our marketing system is aligned to their process, the better our chances of being selected by them to provide our service. The key is to provide the information they need at each step of their buying process, so they can move forward to the next step.

In her book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale (Amazon affiliate link), Ardath Albee outlines a 7 step buying process.

1.    Status Quo – Beginning to experience a problem, but not ready to do anything about it
2.    Priority Shift – actively interested in learning what change might mean for their company
3.    Research – committed to resolving the problem and is focused on building a business case. Looking for experts and realistic outcomes he can plan for
4.    Options – Narrowing focus to develop a short list
5.    Step Backs –New information or concerns are causing hesitations
6.    Validation – Has a short list and needs to make sure his assumptions are true before making a final decision
7.    Choice – Ready to make a purchase decision

Your customers may go through a slightly different buying process, but I think this is a good place to start, particularly if you sell professional services.

One of the challenges that we face is that today’s customers perform much of their research and early decision making before we ever know about them. They research on the internet, talk to their friends and colleagues, read newspapers and magazines, etc., all before they speak to a sales person. In the buying process outlined above, it is not uncommon for buyers to be at step 4 (or further) before they ever have a sales conversation with someone at your company.

Our job as marketers is to provide the information that customers need at each stage of their buying process. By providing this information we help them move from one stage to the next, shortening their buying (and your sales) cycle.

The more complex the sale, the more decision makers and influencers will be involved. Don’t forget to provide the information needed to answer their questions as well.
KEY – We must provide the information prospects need to meet their goals and where they are at in their buying process.

Steps to take:

1.    Take the time to learn about your ideal customers and their goals
2.    Learn more about how your customers make buying decisions. Does the buying process outlined above hold true for your buyers? Who else helps them make their decisions to buy your services?
3.    Determine what information your prospects need to know at each stage of the buying process.
4.    Begin to update your marketing materials to
5.    Get in the habit of reviewing and updating your assumptions and materials on a regular basis.

Bill Brelsford is the owner of Rebar Business Builders. As an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach, Bill works with professional service firms and independent professionals who want to spend less time chasing business and more time serving profitable customers.
phone: 913.962.9261
email: bill@rebarbusinessbuilders.com
web: http://www.RebarBusinessBuilders.com
blog: http://blog.rebarbusinessbuilders.com

If restaurants operated like phone companies, you’d never know where to go for dinner.

My family has a favorite little burger joint. Even with lots of similar places in town to chose from, we go there often. We know their food and their service, and we’re comfortable there. They recognize us as regulars, so every now and then one of our favorite waitresses will bring us a free order of hush puppies or a beer on the house. It’s not why we go there, but it sure is nice when it happens.

Compare that to how cell phone service providers operate. First of all, once you’ve chosen one, that’s it. You’ve committed to years with them and them alone.

Then, every time you turn around, you see ads offering better terms, cheaper phones, newer services. But not for you, Mr. or Mrs. Locked-in-Customer. Those specials are for new customers only.

To some extent, it makes sense. Each provider is trying to lure customers away from the competition, or to attract brand new cell phone users. In a recent post on his Planning Startups Stories blog, Tim Berry talked about this temptation to focus on the new customer at the expense of your existing ones.

The message this sends to current customers is just terrible. Back in September, my wife and I decided we needed to upgrade our phones and our service plans. But a call to our provider informed us that if we wanted those low prices on cool new phones, we’d have to wait until our contract on our current phones was up in January. And our service plans didn’t end until May, which meant we couldn’t change providers (and thus reap the rewards of their new customer offers) until then.

It’s sort of crazy, isn’t it? I’d been giving them my money for two years. Now, I not only want to give them more of my money for a new phone, but more money every month for a new, pricier plan.

But they wanted to charge me $400 in September for a phone they’d give a stranger off the street for $100 — a phone they’ll let me buy for $100 in January.

We limped through the next several months, using phones that were practically held together with duct tape, and paying the company less money each month than we would have if they’d let us upgrade. They were practically punishing us for being their customers! (And punishing themselves as well, in lost upgrade revenue.) It doesn’t make sense as a business decision or from a customer service perspective.

Now, can you imagine if restaurants worked that way? What if your reward for being a regular customer at your favorite burger place was to pay more for lower quality food? What if you ordered a dinner special and were told “Sorry, that dish is for new customers only”?

You’d probably head right to another burger joint. They’d have to make you sign some kind of service agreement to treat you that way.

Think about it. When was the last time you heard anyone rave about how much they love their cell phone service provider, the way they might about their favorite restaurant? I’m thinking there might a connection here.

A business needs new customers to survive, as the cell phone guys obviously know. But any good business person also knows that the customers you already have should be equally valued. As Tim Berry said “repeat business is golden.”

Sarah Lanphier was a sophomore at Elizabethtown College competing on the triathlon team. When the squad needed to raise money to attend a national meet, she thought outside the (cookie) box.  “Instead of selling cookies or something like that, I had this recipe for granola. So I packaged it and sold it. And it was very successful.”

Since then there’s been no stopping her. By the time she graduated from Elizabethtown in 2009, she and her mother, Gayle, had turned a one-time fundraising scheme into Nuts About Granola LLC, selling hand-made granola at farmers’ markets throughout South Central Pennsylvania and online, at www.nutsaboutgranola.com.

Getting Organized

Sarah was still in college when she decided to get serious about granola as a business. In December, 2007, she realized she needed a business plan. “The purpose of my plan was not to take to a bank. It was more to gather my thoughts and try to lay them out — to organize my thoughts and put them on paper.” It was a somewhat daunting

prospect, she remembers. As a business major, she was aware of a course called New Venture Creation, which took students through the process of writing a business plan.

“I thought… I have to write this 30-page document [for my business], I might as well get credit for it. Plus, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know how to write a business plan. I didn’t even know what-all was in a business plan!”

So she signed up for the class, and discovered Business Plan Pro. “We used the program as a step-by-step tool to guide us through the entire process. It made it easy; you’re not just pulling things out of thin air.”

Sarah says the examples found throughout the software were particularly helpful. “You could see the general descriptions that the software gave you. But it was sometimes difficult to… translate that into your business. Then you read a couple of examples of other businesses and how they interpreted the guidelines and it was really easy to then write it for your business.”

Fresh, local, and real

Sarah and Gayle Lanphier

Part of Nuts About Granola’s mission is to support local businesses and farmers. In addition to selling their products at farmer’s markets and online, they do sell their products wholesale. But the company requires vendors to be independently-owned businesses — no big corporate chains for Nuts About Granola, says Sarah. “It’s very locally focused.” As supporters of the Buy Fresh, Buy Local movement, Nuts About Granola products contain only all natural, local ingredients and have earned the “PA Preferred” seal from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

Sarah creates all the granola recipes herself, and one of her favorite parts of the business is interacting with her customers at the farmers’ markets. “It’s fun for me to develop those recipes and test them out. I really enjoy that aspect of it.” With flavors including “College Staple,” “Lover’s Combo,” and “Orange Creamsicle,” her goal is to create unique flavor combinations that are delicious served with milk or on top of yogurt or ice cream, or eaten right out of the bag.

Nuts About Granola seeks to create support for local businesses and bring healthy, natural products to consumers who might be used to something more processed and artificial. “We’re trying to bring back the local bakeries and the local stores by offering fresh product. We serve real food. We don’t use preservatives and artificial ingredients. It’s just food. We want to bring back real food!”

There’s more than enough bad news in the world.

That’s basically how Paul Gerstenberger used to feel. Murders, fires, wars… Gerstenberger started feeling like the purpose of the daily news was just to make him feel bad on a regular basis. “I decided then to start trying to change that, and at least give people the option of also seeing some good going on in our world,” he remembers.

In 1996, Paul and his wife Celerina started GoodNewsDaily.com, a website dedicated to sharing only good news. “Since that time we have worked every day, for free, to find and post the good news of the day — not religious or politically leaning, but simply good news.” The site now receives stories from readers across the globe, and covers topics ranging from U.S. and international news, to sports, entertainment, even good weather news.
“We have grown to almost half a million readers….without any money or any advertising,” Paul notes, adding a television pilot for a 24-hour Good News channel is currently in the works.

Paul began using Business Plan Pro in 1996, and has written business plans for a number of businesses he has launched. Calling himself a serial entrepreneur, he says, “I have used Business Plan Pro for many years and within many different ventures. I have raised millions of dollars using the plan [software]… It is great and really gives the professional investor an insight into your company and your ability. It helps so much, I would be lost without it.”

The business plan for Good News Daily was an interesting one, Paul says, because it was the first one he’s written in which making money was not the objective. The process was, as always, a valuable one. “It helps me to clarify my thinking and to think of things that I did not consider,” he says. “The business plan process through Business Plan Pro is without any doubt the best available to help get your business on track.”

Paul’s ventures run the gamut from car rentals to self-defense classes, non-profit children’s health research to diamonds. He says he’s written plans for about 16 businesses, and hasn’t always used Business Plan Pro. The stories he could tell about those plans written without Business Plan Pro definitely would not be appropriate for his GoodNewsDaily.com website. “Frankly,” he says, “trying to write a plan without Business Plan Pro is a major mistake.”

It sounds like a movie about the American dream. A native of Kenya moves to Massachusetts. He dreams of opening his own business, and begins writing his business plan on his commute to work at his first job in the U.S.

But then the economy falters and our hero gets laid off. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he sees it as an indication that it is time to get serious about his dream.

It’s not a movie premise. It’s Njoroge Kabugu’s life. “I decided that this was a great opportunity. I had to be able to dedicate the majority of my time to completing my business plan and working on my website.”

After his layoff, Kabugu got to work on the plan for Kijiji Republic, a website selling handmade African crafts, baskets, sandals, jewelry, personal accessories and home decor. The company, started in 2008, builds long-term relationships with the artisans whose work they sell. Kijiji Republic not only markets and retails the crafts, but also maintains a non-profit branch which reinvests money back into the communities where they acquire their products. The goal is to help the artisans meet their basic needs, such as providing clean drinking water, building and supporting schools for children, and providing health facilities. Kijiji Republic also helps its artisans establish their businesses in their local communities, providing them with additional revenue possibilities.

Kabugu feels so strongly about the connection to the villages where the artisans work that the name of his company actually means ‘village’ in Swahili. “The creation of Kijiji Republic LLC was based on the concept that a village would be elevated… by empowering the people.” Selling products in the previously untapped U.S. market was his goal, and in writing his business plan and doing the market research, Kabugu realized he was on to something. “I came to realize I was the only Kenyan selling the products online directly from the U.S.,” which helped give him the security to move forward with his plan.

Kabugu says that one of the greatest values of using Business Plan Pro was what it helped him learn about his business. He particularly appreciated being “forced to think systematically throughout the process.” He strongly encourages anyone starting out to do as he did. “It is important not to shy away from an idea. Put the idea on paper by writing a business plan. It helps you to be able to see those areas which you may otherwise not realize when you carry it in your head.”

With a story that sounds like it’s straight out of Hollywood, it might not come as a surprise that Njoroge Kabugu is a big proponent of following through on your dreams.

And of having a plan.

To read more stories about how Business Plan Pro has helped businesses success, click here to check out our Customer Gallery.

Ok. Maybe the title is a little bit harsh, but it got your attention, right? Why is it that more and more these days I feel that companies I purchase products and services from are telling me to “shut up and take it”. Let me give you just a few real examples of times I have felt disrespected as a customer in the last few months:

1. I recently bought some plane tickets for my family to go to London over Thanksgiving. The tickets were not cheap, as traveling from Oregon to London these days is simply not affordable. I spent over $1,000 per ticket. Children under 12 years old are supposed to receive a 20% off discount on international tickets. My boys are ages 2 and 4. I purchased the tickets, and there was no discount. I called United Airlines. After the ridiculous amount I had just spent on tickets I was told that I bought tickets that were too “cheap” and for a class that does not allow the 20% discount. I could though, buy a different class and spend $450 more per ticket, and get the 20% discount on 2 tickets. I am no math genius, but seriously, how dumb do they really think I am? An almost 50% increase in price to get 2 tickets at a 20% decrease of the new higher priced ticket???? Shut up, you stupid customer!
2. Our company uses a service provider to handle some of our marketing to customers. I won’t be specific here on purpose. Through an error that happened due to a bug in THEIR system, they discontinued our account. We are paying customers, paying them roughly $500 per month. They chose to drop our account rather than fix the bug. Shut up, you stupid customer.
3. Our TiVo, which was less than one year old broke. It was still under warranty. First it stopped recording programs, then it refused to re-boot. We simply could not get it to turn on. My husband called as was told that they could replace it under warranty, for an up-front fee of $350. They would ship us a new unit, and then credit us $300. The remaining $50 would be a “repair” charge. Last I checked a one-year warranty should simply replace the unit. What’s this BS about a repair charge — when nothing was repaired. The unit simply stopped re-booting. We were sent a NEW unit as per the warranty. Shut up, you stupid customer

So I could go on. But you get the picture. More and more companies seem to be taking this approach. Charge the customer everywhere and anywhere. Promise them one thing, deliver another, and then be annoyed that they point it out. As you think about your customer interactions, I challenge you to create policies and customer experiences that put the customer first. That goes back to the old adage that “the customer is always right.” I can guarantee that you will see a positive change in your business if you re-think the customer experience. Don’t join the new line of thought that treats customers like they are idiots to be taken advantage of. Think about how you can make sure that your customer is truly always right. Listen to your customers. Give them what they want. Your business is sure to be better off because of it.

Sabrina Parsons aka MommyCEO

www.emailcenterpro.com