Four focus areas for Customer Loyalty – “main ingredient is Experience”

From small businesses to huge corporations, everyone wants to know the secret to keeping customers. How do we earn repeat business for years and years to come?

If you take away anything from this fantastic Infographic, from the guys at CustomersThatStick, it is the experience that the customer receives that defines whether they remain loyal to you or if they take their business elsewhere.

A staggering 82 percent have said they stopped doing business with a company due to poor customer experience. To keep your customers happy what are the four elements you should focus on?

– Friendly employees or customer service representative – ensure your employees are engaged

– Personalise the client experience. Let’s start a conversation about the revolution in business that requires engaging customers as individuals, at every level and how we can get there.

– Ability to easily find information or help. Share what you know, now that’s power!

– Good reputation – In my opinion (as always) if you do the above you will gain the reputation

Take a look at the infographic below and open the conversation by dropping a note in the comments.

Sources for the Customer Retention Statistics Above

While the convention on most infographics seems to be generic, non-specific sourcing, we wanted to provide actual sources for the statistics used in the infographic. We attempted to find primary sourcing as much as possible. In cases when we relied on secondary sourcing that did not seem definitive, we notated that fact after the citation.

Why Customers Leave <<TweetThis>>

82% of consumers in the U.S. said they stopped doing business… > Citation
73% was a reaction to rude staff… > Citation
78% of consumers in the U.S. said they have bailed on a transaction… > Citation
68% of consumers leave because they were upset with treatment… > Citation (Note: Primary sourcing could not be found, though this statistic is widely quoted through secondary sources.)

Why Customers Stick <<TweetThis>>

What parts of the customer experience cause customers to stick… > Citation
92% of consumers said they would go back after a negative experience… > Citation
What happened when an organization responded to a customer’s negative comment… > Citation
85% of customers are willing to pay more… > Citation

Retained Customers Mean Money <<TweetThis>>

The cost of bringing a new customer to the same level of profitability is up to 16x more… > Citation
10x more expensive to acquire… > Citation
4-6x more expensive to acquire…* > Citation
5x more expensive to acquire… > Citation Alan E. Webber, “B2B Customer Experience Priorities In An Economic Downturn: Key Customer Usability Initiatives In A Soft Economy,” Forrester Research, February 19, 2008
89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor… > Citation
Increasing retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25%-95%… > Citation
2% increase in retention has the same effect as decreasing costs by 10%.. > Citation (From the book, Leading on the Edge of Chaos)
Loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much… > Citation (Note: Primary sourcing could not be found, though this statistic is widely quoted through secondary sources.)
Repeat customers spend 67% more… > Citation

Category: Sales, Smarter Business | No Comments »

My Dad’s bigger than your Dad – “the social taunt”

Perhaps some have of us have moved on from the playground taunt of “my Dad’s bigger than your Dad” to “I have more followers than you”. In fact just yesterday I was listening to a webinar where the speaker went into bragging mode, I hope it was not just me thinking – “so what?”

I relish getting more followers, that instant fix that justifies why I am here in the social arena. If they then share my content, that is what I call success, that is what I am addicted to (see previous blog) So having a huge following does not really count for much unless they can move your content for you, does it?

So my first question to you. Does the size of some ones following impact your decision to click the follow button?

For me, in some small way, it does. But I also consider the other numbers that are displayed, like how many tweets versus how many followers. For instance :-

So here we have someone who is either providing great content, or they deemed it necessary to purchase fake followers. How do you know if this entity is able to provide value to you and strengthen your reach. I use StatusPeople, its a great tool, to help me decide the answer to that last question. So in regards to the above twitter user this is the view StatusPeople provided:

With that kind of information I can make an informed decision to follow, either they have some great content and or they can help move my content (if they like it)

So let me give you some other examples

and StatusPeople said

***************************************

and StatusPeople said

Perhaps I am just too cynical in my old age, but if you cant provide me with reciprocal value, then that is why I don’t follow you back.

Does size matter? Please leave your comments below as to how you make a decision to follow or even like someone back. Do you use another tool you would like to tell us about?

Category: Twitter | No Comments »

Tomorrow’s cities: How big data is changing the world

Here is a very insightful and interesting article from the BBC about Big Data and how it could be used to shape the nature of cities in the future. It includes a nice mention for the company I work for – IBM. There are also some great factual snippets which you could use in conversation.

Each engine of a jet on a flight from London to New York generates 10TB of data every 30 minutes “TweetThis“

In 2013 internet data, mostly user-contributed, will account for 1,000 exabytes “TweetThis“

Open weather data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has an annual estimated value of $10bn “TweetThis“

Every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data “TweetThis“

90% of the data in the world today has been created in the past two years “TweetThis“

Every minute 100,000 tweets are sent globally “TweetThis“

Google receives two million search requests every minute “TweetThis“

Category: Smarter Cities | No Comments »

Stand Out on LinkedIn with Rich Media

LinkedIn profiles can be so more than just a boring online version of your résumé.

Use LinkedIn profile like Coke, Ford and many others do: to promote themselves. Company websites and commercials contain customer testimonials, product demonstrations, and visual proof of their products. They use video, presentations and images to convey their message.

So can you! It just takes a little creativity…

What Media Can You Add?

LinkedIn now supports images, video, audio, presentations and documents by certain providers listed here; others may work too. You have the choice to upload a file or use a URL if already published to the web.

These nifty media clips can be placed in various places in your profile. They can be part of your summary, incorporated into each position listed in your experience section, and in your education section. Just go to edit your profile and look for the little blue box. See image below.

What to Showcase?

Think about the problems or challenges of the audience you want to do business with. Does you company already have assets you can use, perhaps on YouTube or perhaps they have material available on Slideshare. What value can you provide that differentiates you from the hundreds and thousands of other people who have the same job title as you?

LinkedIn is one of the first stops your client will make when they look you up. Why not go one step further and create you own original content. You can create a PowerPoint highlighting your knowledge or accomplishments and publish it to SlideShare. This is fairly simple to do. The most difficult part is figuring out what you will put into your PowerPoint presentation. Search around SlideShare and get ideas from other people who have created online content in your area of expertise. If you are interested in creating something a bit jazzier than PowerPoint, you may want to test Prezi.

Think of your profile as you window of credibility, what would you want someone to find if they were searching for you on the web?

Make your LinkedIn profile rock… with a media rich profile!

Category: LinkedIn, Sales, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Inside Sales and the IT Buyer: The shift of communication [Infographic]

Inside sales and web are the mainstay of the purchase process for many buyers of hardware, software and services. The use of the web in every step of the buyers journey is increasing, even down to executing the purchase. Clients are now demanding and expect their suppliers to provide web experiences that provide them immediate access to information. Encompassing the initial search phase, such as guidance and help on address challenges being faced, all the way through to pricing information and even transactional history.

The data and trends below where identified in a marketplace study, led by Market Development and Insights, conducted in November 2012 through to January 2013 to understand client usage of inside sales and online commerce throughout the decision making process.

Category: IBM, LinkedIn, Sales, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Has LinkedIn lost its way? The culling of value

LinkedIn has just notified its members via its help center, that LinkedIn Signal (recently renamed “Updates”) is to be sunset on the 29th July. (Update 23/07 “Signal” or it’s latest name “Updates” is 100% being sunset)

To me this is yet another blow in using this tool to engage with like minded business professionals. If you do not know what Signal is, it provided a great way to listen for certain updates relating to keywords you where interested in. They could come from status updates, profile updates, group updates. In essence providing a great way to connect and reach out to another and have a conversation.

What else have we lost, all of the applications. I used the WordPress application, a lot. They kept the events application for a while and then it was KIA. Answers was another great area to connect and build your expertise by helping others – KIA,

LinkedIn have been talking a lot about “Social Selling” and how their platform best suits this buzz word. So why oh why LinkedIn are you taking all the parts that suit, engagement, credibility and social selling, out.

Which element have you missed most as a result of the LinkedIn firing squad?

01/08 Update: A variation of the functions Signal offered will be available in LinkedIn’s Unified Search Engine – the date for this yet to be advised.

Category: LinkedIn | No Comments »

You’re busy, but still want to build online credibility – here’s how

Finding time these days to create or add to your “digital” credibility is a huge challenge.,

Perhaps you’re in a role that requires an almost constant attachment to the phone. Or maybe a lot of your time is spent on site visits. I have heard all the explanations, so I know it is difficult for you to find the time to build your authority through content and online contribution. However, not contributing in the social space can be more damaging and costly in the long term.Building credibility, authority and demand for your knowledge will result in a massive return for you, your company and the client experience. For example, a sales person can spend less time prospecting and reinvest the time saved into other areas. I am also a great believer that everyone is in sales regardless of where they sit in an organization.

Here are some activities sorted by time that you can consider to start building your credibility:

Minimal Time Commitment:

Take 30 minutes at the beginning of the week to schedule tweets, LinkedIn posts and even Facebook if you must! (see my previous post, They asked “Do you Facebook? I said no”), all about the areas of your expertise. These can be original ideas that provide value and helpfulness or links to useful content from other locations.

Medium Time Commitment:

Start contributing to groups, forums, or blogs that are in your focus area. Offer your thought leadership. Answer questions and resist the desire to sell or promote your company solution if it is not relevant. Be genuine and authentic and the readers will find you.

Develop relationships with other influencers or content creators in your field. This can be achieved by simply commenting on their posts, connecting at events, reweeting their content and following up. They will expand your reach and send recommendations your way in the long run.

Large Time Commitment:

Start and maintain your own blog on the area of your expertise, or offer yourself to be a regular contributor to a third party site. This does require a larger than average investment in time but research shows that creating regular content will generate upwards of 55% more visits to you and increase your visibility for search engines. Blogging will help you build the top of your funnel to pull in more prospects and hopefully more quality leads.

From my experience the “I don’t have the time” excuse underpins the biggest reason that people don’t participate and that reason is, people have no clue what to write about. There is this shortage of ideas. Equally challenging is the time factor of course, as we all have so many other things we have to do.

So start by committing some time, your competition are! Think about the wealth of knowledge you have and the value that can bring beyond what a website can do. Take part in conversations, start conversations and to coin Nike – Just Do It.

Category: Social Media, Strategy | No Comments »

☞ The Tech Wrap by Ben Martin☜

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