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www .businessabundance .online Hello and welcome
back to the Business Abundance Podcast. I am
here with Ian and Rowan and today we're going
to be digging into probably one of the most valuable
and underestimated assets in your business, which
is customer retention. We all know it's cheaper
to what generally cheaper to keep a customer
than find a newer. But today we want to go beyond
the loyalty cards and the birthday discounts
and talk about some different strategies that
we can. that you might not have considered before.
Ian, do you want to chat about why customer retention
actually deserves effort? I think you summed
it up pretty well there, Zee. The cost of not
doing it, obviously, is bums on seats. So not
looking after your customer and not retaining
your customer is equivalent of corporate suicide,
in my opinion. So why not make every customer
interaction amazing so that you keep them? A
perfect example is the small mum and dad shop
around the corner from me which I'm drinking
a coffee from at this minute. Just recently implemented
their little stamp card. Every five coffees get
a free coffee. I've been there a handful of times
in the last year. I'm on my second stamp card
for the last two months now. Something as simple
as that. And I don't just buy a coffee when I
go in. I'll probably buy a snack or something
as well. Do you go there because you get a stamp
card though? I think in this case I've chosen
there for my coffee more regularly over the last
two months than I would have. Because of the
stamp card? Because of the stamp card. Zara and
I both got the frowny surprise list with each
other. But if it was terrible coffee, you're
not going to go back? 100%. It's good coffee,
don't get me wrong. Do you like the people there?
They support the community, so yes. Like the
ethos. So is it the card that's getting you there,
or is it... Initially it wasn't the card that
got me there, it was the fact that they sponsored
a local event that my wife's involved in. I popped
in, said g'day, how you going? Had a coffee,
good coffee. And then they brought out the stamp
card, I'm like, I guess I'm getting coffee here
now. You're right. Convenient or out of your
way? Oh, it's reasonably convenient. If I'm heading
into town, it's out of the way. But if I'm just
popping out for a coffee, it's the closest one
to me. So that obviously helps. But yeah, the
stamp card's got that gamification, I suppose,
a little bit, which a lot of businesses will
use for customer retention in one way, shape
or form. It's cheap. I mean, the markup on coffee
is probably not... Not the same as if you're
just out there doing retail. Markup on coffee
is quite big, so you can afford to give one away
every five. But, again, the add -on sales, you're
in a supermarket -type, look, a minimart -type
place. If your merchandising's on point, you're
probably gonna get me to buy a packet of gum
or something for my kids or whatever it is. Something's
gonna catch my eye while I'm waiting for the
coffee. It's interesting, when I hear you talking
about this, I've got to remind myself that people
think differently. Like, I hate it when people
give me the stamp cards because I know I'm not
going to pull it back out. Like, I'll keep it,
I'll put my wallet because it's respectful. And
then, you know, he generally sits there because
you, well, I don't clean my wallet out very often,
nor do I have my wallet on me very often either.
If I get a coffee, I'm not going to pull my stamp
card out. Yeah. Like if I'm going to get a coffee
from happy to support you, you know, now you
need to give me a free coffee, but that's me.
And then hearing from you. So, okay, it's the
supporting the community. That's good. The coffee
is good. So that's good. But I'm going back because
I've got a stamp card. So obviously people do
think like that. And that's a very tried and
true method throughout the world as well. So
a lot of coffee shops will keep your stamp card
on a wall. It's an interesting thing, so what
you think might be effective, other people might
not think it will be effective, and your customers
can be made up of quite a variety of people,
so sometimes you've got to test and see what
works, and it might not work on everyone, but
it might be part of a larger mixture. Same reason
I shop at Coles. Flybuys. And same reason I fly
with Virgin. My status. Yeah, that's probably
fair, I'd do the same. Yeah, but they are introducing
the electronic rewards cards now, so you don't
actually have to remember them, you just need
your mobile phone number. I do like the automatic
ones, we went to a hotel a few months ago, and
they just said, oh, welcome back, and here's
a bottle of wine for being regular. Nice. I was
like, sweet, cool, yeah, I'll come back here
next time. I like the hotel anyway, so if I didn't
like the hotel, I wouldn't, but I like the hotel.
They're going to give me free stuff when I'm
there without me having to pull my card out or
whatever. It's like, yeah, no, I'm definitely
coming back. A lot of resorts do that. We've
been researching Fiji recently and there's the
repeat customer rate, which is quite a large
expense, but even they're doing it on a frequent
shopper method as a method of customer retention,
because there's a lot of competition in the marketplace.
What do you do? What do you do to differentiate
yourself and maintain those customers? Because
everyone's trying to get your customer. If you've
got a large customer network, everyone's going
to be trying to take your market share. So what
do you do? Just with your coffee. So how much
does your cup of coffee cost? They're cheap too,
they're $5. $5, so they're making about $3 .50
per cup. So then if they're giving you, that
means cost is $1 .50. And then one five they're
giving you a free coffee? So after five you get
a free one. So they're losing out on $3 .50 margin
plus 15. So it's a cup and a half roughly worth
of profit that they're giving away every five
cups. But they're a smaller sort of supermarket,
mini market, so their margins and their raw material
costs are a little bit higher on say supermarket
items than they are from the multinationals.
So if they can get me to buy a couple of packets
of chips or something else with a little bit
extra margin in that Yeah, where I was going
with that was that so it's an example of you
know, it's a not calling them a lot They're really
selling three cups not five Roughly rounding
up making sound worse than it is, but that's
pretty much it's not four cups Whereas the hotel
example, so I wouldn't use the card. Yeah wouldn't
affect them I wouldn't care whatsoever. It's
not going to change my decision, but then a bottle
of wine, which probably costs 20 bucks on a $350
hotel night, is peanuts in the margin. It's probably
a free bottle of wine they got from their supplier
anyway. But then I fully appreciate that. Yeah.
So that's enough make me book. Yep. So I guess
my point is that it doesn't have to be a huge
thing. It can be something very tiny or could
be very inexpensive compared to what you're doing
that actually creates that feeling of being valued
in a customer. Isn't that interesting that it
doesn't take world -beating offers to make you
feel valued as a customer? That's how simple
it can be. Here's a bottle of Plonk. Might be
a really good bottle of wine. We'll say it like
that, it sounds a bit different, but it's the
recognition of, hey, you've been here before,
we appreciate you coming. That would have been
fine if I'd just got that note up in my car.
I know, that's great. I don't need them to go,
hey, here's a mat. but just a little bit of,
hey, we know who's actually coming to our hotel.
That's good. Yeah, it's the same as when I get
on a plane and they say, oh, welcome back, Ian.
Because they can see your status on your boarding
pass. Here's someone who flies with us a lot.
We make sure, and they do, they go over and above
and make sure that you feel comfortable. And
from the moment you get to check in, all the
way to baggage claim. So there's a lot of businesses
that deal with sales reps. I've come in and talked
to you for quite a long time, and if you're lucky
or unlucky, depending how you look at it, but
Christmas time, a lot of business owners in their
office, they'll be surrounded by cartons of beer
and bowls of wine and the standard gift for Christmas.
Rep comes in, drops off a carton, and thank you
and see you later, and goes to the next place,
drops off a carton. So that's something people
do once a year to touch base. Makes people feel
valued. obviously has some sort of effect because
everyone does it. But then also what's the underlying
reason that they would be doing that? What's
that doing for the business owner they're dropping
off to the present to? Again, letting them know
they care. It's just a connection. It is. And
maybe, maybe that sales rep's the fifth generation
sales rep and this is just the way we've always
done it. Possibly, yeah. We had a sales rep when
I was working for a heating and cooling company.
He'd come in once a week with a big box of doughnuts
for the staff. He was coming in, he'd stop at
the local bakery, supporting local again, come
in with the doughnuts. We knew it was his day
to come in, everyone's in the office, excellent,
it's doughnut day. And then he'd say, what do
you need? And he'd just top up the shelves with
all the bits and bobs, take our orders, anything
extra I can do for you. widely renowned locally,
I think he's retired now, but has one of the
better sales reps in that field because he always
went above and beyond. I don't know whether it
came out of his pocket or not, but you were always
looking forward to the day that he came. That's
interesting. Yeah, just for donuts. Good donuts.
We used to, in an office I worked at, we used
to receive a stationary order. and they changed
suppliers and then they came with a few chocolates
and lollies in the box, the weekly office order,
and that locked that supplier of six years. It
took a fair bit of resistance. It was a new company
that was all flash and shiny and pretty exciting
and no one in the office wanted to change the
ordering because they got the lollies and chocolates
every week. So that was, again, something pretty
low cost that just made it a bit exciting and
a reason to stay with the company. And when you
think about it, the person that was doing the
ordering wasn't paying the bills. So the price
wasn't a factor so much. And the service and
the timeliness had to be timely. It had to be
quality products and all that sort of stuff.
But then the lollies pushed it over the edge.
It's not hard to, it's not expensive. to keep
existing customers. It's very risky and expensive
to, well, potentially to get new customers. It's
not risky to get new customers. It's time consuming.
If you miss the markets in expense, you might
spend a lot of money on an advertising campaign
and look back at our data podcast. You might
not have read the data. or hang on this one's
for our American listeners, the data. Well, you
can do your maths for a new customer. So what
was the advertising? How many leads did we get?
How many sales did we get? How much time do we
spend on sales? It's going to be hundreds of
dollars per client for most businesses, if not
more. So yeah, you can spend a fair bit to maintain
them. Sometimes you don't need to spend anything
to maintain them. Sometimes it's just a phone
call. But yeah, talking about costs, then if
you're a business and your margins are reasonably
tight or you don't have a huge profit margin,
you've got 100 customers. Like if you drop off
a hundred cardons of beer, for example, that's
a bit of money. What are we talking about for
a hundred? It's five grand. Five grand to eight
grand. Five to eight thousand dollars per year.
And if you think you do, we don't have a really
good margin, then you drop that into one month.
Are you really going to want to do that? Especially
at Christmas time when you're probably going
to have a slow month after it. Yeah. You don't
have to do those sort of things. Like you can
look at creating a little community on Facebook
or something, or joining a VIP email list where
you get stock update drops before they actually
happen. If I open my email right now, I'll have
20 promotion emails in my Gmail. Just got to
make it better. Yeah, so let's just unpack that
a little bit though. So Z just gave a few different
examples with what sounded like one thing, but
the... the exclusive sneak peek or early access,
that's a status. So it's not about the sale,
it's the fact that that customer now, we're important.
So I'm the first person to know. I know a client
that's, I just want to be the first. So when
the service comes out, I want to be the first
one. That was my uncle. First of everything.
Yep. And then you're saying, I want my frequent
flyers or whatever. So you skip the queue. It's
a bit of a status thing, you know. That's what
I'm saying. Okay. That's just teasing. So that's
an interesting one. So, okay, well, how can we,
if we're going to do something for retention,
it doesn't have to have a cost like Zee said,
but how can we give someone a little bit of status
for dealing with us? Which then makes you feel
good. Yeah. It's like the AFL Grand Final. Like
if you're on the team of the people that are
the team that's in the grand final, you get early
access to the tickets. Doesn't mean you have
the earliest access to the tickets, you have
early access. Depending on your tier membership.
Yeah, exactly. You're a tier one, tier two or
tier three member. That's status again. Yeah.
It can also build hype within, which is an advertising
thing, but we're talking about retention. So
the status is important. But I think we've talked
about it before, the Maya Angelou people will
forget what you did, but they will always remember
how you made them feel. Again, that's talking
to your limbic brain. So if I'm making you feel
good as a purveyor of some product, you're gonna
remember that. Was it cheap? Don't remember.
How did I feel after I bought it? Well, I didn't
feel ripped off or I felt like they went above
and beyond. I felt like, I felt, I feel statements
as a customer is exactly what you're looking
for as a business owner. Feel valued. Yeah. How
do they feel? Creates that like emotional stickiness.
Yeah. And then at every touch point, at every
touch point that they have with the business,
are we doing our best to retain that customer?
Or is there somewhere in the process where the
customer walks away and goes, oh, that could
have been better. I actually, I don't feel so
good anymore. We need to be tracking that. And
I'm sure people know my, my feelings about too
much. data retention, but the data's there. The
data's there. You can see where it's breaking
down in the chain, generally, if you're a small
to medium. At what point, especially with websites,
at what point are they bouncing? Oh, that sort
of thing, yeah. But change the topic a little
bit. The second thing, not change the topic,
going back to Zee said a few things in one very
concise sentence. She's good at that. But she
mentioned groups. Yep, Facebook groups. Yeah.
So what's that allowing for people? What's that
giving them? Community. A place like a, what
they set? A tribe? Yeah, a tribe where people
are involved with people like them or have the
same common interests and can communicate. Can
lean on them. Yeah. Can discuss. things about
the product that they've been providing or have
easy access to ask questions or Troubleshoot
things like it's just just a community where
people can like that's why events have groups
so that you can post and build hype and Promote
really easily all it takes is one little graphic
from Canva and you've got a conversation starting
again, so Yeah, anything anything, whether it
be on Facebook or WhatsApp, I know a lot of people
using WhatsApp to draw in their customers as
well. So yeah, just making sure that you keep
the conversation going so that they're front
of mind. Because as soon as that conversation
stops, people like there's such an attention
deficit. So if you're if you're not front of
mind, then then they're going to forget about
you pretty quick. Yeah, being front of mind is
extremely important. I know a good friend of
mine, obviously I own an accounting firm, and
a good friend of mine got a company set up somewhere
else. He's telling me about it and I need you
to help with this, this, this. I'm like, why'd
you do that? You need to have to deal with me,
but why? He's like, I just actually forgot. You
did that. And he's like, oh, I need to change
that back to you. But you know, it's pretty funny.
Like, you know, you think you're... Everyone
knows what you do, but they've got their own
life going on that's got this boy Look at the
kids or whatever like that. Let's forget what
you do. That's so But um, just these the groups
they're like, I just think of a couple of different
examples Loosely connected but Jim's pretty low
price point pretty high competition People get
bored pretty easily between the whole, yeah,
going to the gym's hard work and the, you know,
I'm sick of doing the same exercises all the
time in the same place. It's very common for
people to change. And every time there's a new
gym, everyone wants to go try it. So they have
a couple of different services and ways to deal
with some of these things. But you'd have to
see like an eight week challenge or a 12 week
challenge, which you think is a product. It is
a product, but it's also custom retention. through
the groups because they put you in a group with
other people doing the challenge in the gym at
the same time, they put you into chat groups,
they split you into teams to compete against
each other, and they turn into a bit of a game
or a bit of a support group, lots of different
things, but then you find that you start getting
to attach to the people that are at the gym.
So now you're paying the gym because you like
the people that are there that are also paying
the gym. So they build the community in that
way, which is quite interesting. The tribalism.
Yeah. So I think when we talk about the loyalty
cards and VIP lists and all that sort of stuff,
we're just forgetting what the actual process
is, but what are we trying to instigate with
that person? The second thing I thought of with
that was the Taylor Swift concerts. Don't get
me started. I don't know much about them, to
be honest. Couldn't get tickets. Well, you'll
know about this then. So there was people, a
friend went to one and she made bands. Friendship,
bracelets, bracelets. Okay. Tell us, tell us
about the friendships. Well, Tate is the master
of marketing. She's incredible and like her music
or hate her music. So friendship bands. That's
the tribe. Uh, these kids and adults. Adults,
only new adults. Lots of, lots of people. So.
They make friendship bands and they share friendship
bands and they've got their name on them. They've
got a little saying on them or whatever it is.
And you've got this... They spend weeks making
these bands before the concert. And they'll have
them from... I'm currently pointing at my wrist
to my elbow. Bands to share with people that
go to the concert. They'll meet up outside. While
they're in line, they're sharing friendship bands.
If they get an opportunity to see one of the
family of the Swifts or anyone who's attached
to the entourage. They're like, oh, please, come
on, take my friendship band. It's just this thing
that seems to have grown organically. It started
out as Tay Tay with some friendship bands and
her friends, and then all of a sudden the fan
base have got hold of it. And now it's the thing.
Everyone shares friendship bands at the Taylor
Swift concert. And it's awesome. Again, it's
a community, it's a tribe of people who all love
this singer who's... Like it or hate it, she's
awesome. Like what she does, she is the pinnacle
of her. Pretty successful. Yeah. Yeah. Like I
actually do like some of her songs now because
I've had to listen to them on repeat for the
last five years. Anyway, so they started a process.
Yes. A suggestion which created a bit of a community.
Yeah. And you can say that was community for
attention. You could also say it was a value
add. Yes. So it's now making the tickets more
worthwhile. And then you also mentioned it grew
a life of its own as far as the people in that
community then started taking that to the next
level. Yeah, and I like to think that it was
less intentional than... Look, the cynic in me
says, oh yeah, this was a brilliant marketing.
Brilliant marketing ploy to... They know their
demographic, they've done all their research
and they've gone, how can we do something that
is low cost for these fans that will build a
tribe? I choose to believe that it was kind of
like accidental brilliance and they weren't so,
so Machiavellian in their processes. I think
100 % they've gone, what can we do as a value
add to build some hype, get people talking, get
people involved, like get people invested. Yeah.
And it's a great way to do it. And it's not like,
that's not a negative thing. That's delivering
for your customers, a good experience. It's low
cost. So customer attention wise, are they more
likely to go to the next concert? because they
had a whole lot of fun before the concert, after
the concert, around the concert, three weeks
before the concert, probably pretty highly likely.
And it's just going back to those couple of points
that he flippantly mentioned in one sentence,
which is impressive. That I think what's pretty
clear is we talked about, we mentioned being
first of all, hey, customer retention, we can
do a discount card. And then Z and I looked at
each other like, what? That obviously works.
So that's part of the strategy. But then we were
talking about what's the coffee like? What are
the people like? What's the experience like for
you? It's actually a lot of the things you're
doing to deliver value actually results in the
customer retention. Taylor Swift's a perfect
example. There's no discounts there. Yeah. They're
the most expensive tickets in the world. And
they sell out in a heartbeat. Yep. And the value
is very high. People are happy to pay it. But
so Z is saying when she brought that up, it doesn't
have to be expensive. Yeah. It can be free, but
it's mainly around delivering value and extra
value to people. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have more
ideas. Excellent. Good, because that one sentence
was lots of ideas. That was 20 minutes of ideas
right there. When it comes to, so for example,
let's say it's a landscaper, they can offer seasonal
guides. after the work so that they know how
their customers can grow their lawn. That, like,
is massive. Yeah, simple maintenance programs
for the seasons, as you said. How to care for
retaining walls, all those sort of things. Like,
if you just send out a brochure with a here's
how you do that every season. four times a year,
people are going to know who you are and you're
going to become a trusted advisor essentially
because what that one brochure can do is they
then get in contact with you and say, actually,
I need help. I didn't even recognise that. I
haven't checked that in a while. Can you come
help me? There we go. And the people that are
going to do it themselves, they're not clients
anyway. I just think it's important to add to
that. Some people would go that's too simple.
It's too basic. It's not very often, but you
don't have to be complicated You don't have to
be all in every time something is simple for
a landscaper of saying front of mind as far as
hey this season you can plant these trees you
need to trim these things and see how you do
it is Enough to make people prompt to go. Oh,
that's right. That was a good landscape and my
friends got that, you know, cuz people forget
and People like dealing with people they like
so I can trust you. I prefer to deal with the
person that sends me information once a year
or once a season rather than the guy that's dropped
something in my letter box. It's so easy to personalise
now the CRMs as well so if you've done a job
for a over 60s grandmother who's downsizing her
garden and you've updated a rose garden for instance,
you've planted the roses and you put a tag on
her CRM to say okay six months from now those
roses are due to be pruned. Here's a personalized
call or text message or email or whichever way
she prefers to communicate. Hey, it's time to
prune your roses. Are you capable of doing that?
We're happy to come around and do a maintenance.
Your retaining wall is two years old now. We
better have a look at the mortar in there. Whatever
we need to do, we can... Should we did a good
job on that retaining wall two years later? But
you can personalise that follow -up contact so
easily now. It's not the 1980s anymore. It's
a touch of a button. But if you can't personalise,
just do something. Just say, hey, it's time to
frame your things. That's better than nothing.
Link it to your website. Have the guides on your
website. Have your knowledge base. Build your
knowledge base up on your website. I'm going
to throw one out there. I found out about a company
that got a lot of market share in a certain industry
recently because the buyers were companies, business
to business. The people organising the orders
were employees and they basically just started
dropping around six packs to those employees
every week, which basically meant the head office
couldn't control who the orders were going to
because everyone on the tools was... wanted to
do that because of a six pack. So price was no
longer an issue and competition or company policy
was no longer an issue because of the sheer numbers
and people problems that have caused not getting
a six pack. So that's an interesting customer
retention. It cost a bit but the margins were
there but you're not targeting the actual people
you think you would target. targeting much lower
down the chain. And then just the culture that
creates and the mass appreciation for Friday
beers within those businesses outweighed anything.
It resulted in a fair few new clients. The Friday
barbecue. And clients that couldn't be taken
back. Yeah. You mentioned at the start that with
a hotel, like you would have been happy if they
just wrote you a note, for example, and that
wine bottle was just an unexpected surprise.
Like that's also not a hard or expensive way
to go about it either in the sense that like,
let's say someone buys a product off you and
there's a small $5 addition that would upgrade
that product or compliment it. If you just send
that three or six months down the track, just.
just so they know, like I know there's studies
that show that like those unexpected surprises
actually make a massive difference. And they're
gonna remember that because they weren't expecting
and it's just one of those things like, oh, that's
really nice. Everyone loves gifts, but most people
like gifts. Yeah. We went to a cafe on the weekend.
We were traveling around and you know, if we're
in the area again, we'll go back So this is good
customer attention in that regards But we ordered
what's food we ordered, you know, I'd raise my
files was whatever cool. Yep, and the food came
out And then some more food came out that we
didn't order. Oh just you know, we'll be showing
the kitchen in 45 minutes I just thought you
might want this we had too much food at this
point and I'm trying not to eat as much so that
was a bit of a problem but um it was nice and
then we're getting near the end of the meal and
then some um I think it was date loaf was what
Claire said told me it was I thought it was for
a cake but um it was very nice it was the best
cake I've had for a long time and um it just
came out near the end of the oh you almost done
oh here's a little slice of this for you too
you know are we going to go back if we're in
the areas a long way away from our house? But
what if we go back if it was close by? Yeah,
definitely. So, you know, that's probably could
be go down to wastage for them, or maybe they
were going to take it home or whatever it was.
But and they're doing it for the tables around
us as well. But you get that sort of easy giveaway,
like you mentioned in there, Z, creates a bit
of one, leave a good review, no brainer, but
much more likely to come back. Yep. When when
a business for example like everyone makes mistakes
and I think it's pretty People can assume that
when when they make a mistake that customers
not coming back But that's not necessarily the
case because it could actually give you a it's
a good chance to be transparent and quite vulnerable
in the way that you help fix that problem, which
then builds a better relationship with that customer
because they know that you're reliable. Humanises
the brand. Yeah, exactly. It's not the mistakes
you make, it's how you respond to them. Yeah.
Again, people like dealing with people. So if
they, like they can't... That's a good quote,
Zee. Thank you, came up with it myself. I've
seen a graphic, it must be true. But yeah, they
don't expect perfection. They just want you to
be honest should a mistake be made and I don't
think that a mistake is the end of the world
Especially when it comes to customer retention,
but if you're not making mistakes, you're not
trying anything new Well, it depends on your
history You probably don't want to make mistakes
if you you know sending bits out of space or
whatever But even then Elon's making plenty of
mistakes and blowing up rockets and he's trying
to blow up rocket correct but I think Some people
might be able to go well, we don't want to make
mistakes just to retain customers So we can show
that we're good at making fixing our mistakes,
right? Yeah, but I think it's how you communicate
so it's been clear to your customers who you
are and how you deal with things because People
don't know sometimes unless you tell them or
they experience it if they don't experience you
need to tell them and then remind them and and
continually remind them but I say to people within
our business and being exact and precise is very
important, but so look we have a variety of of
people, a variety of experiences. And everyone's
going to try their best and everyone's going
to try to get everything right. But if we do
get it wrong, we're going to fix it. We're going
to make sure it's fixed and we'll make sure it
doesn't happen again. And people with that upfront
expectation go, I like that because other firms
would go, we're not going to make mistakes. But
that's not true. Sometimes you do make a mistake.
And the only difference is the customer never
finds out. So is that a good thing or a bad thing?
If it's to do with confidentiality, it might
be a bad thing or a good thing, but it could
just be there's a mistake made, doesn't get fixed,
they just don't tell the client it was a mistake.
So the client's missing out on, let's say, accounting
terms, they could be missing out on $10 ,000
worth of tax deductions every year. They never
know because they think that their accountant's
good and the accountant never said, oh, we actually
need to go fix last year because we made a mistake.
And I think it's that retention policy better
communicated up front. Here's how we do things,
here's how we view the world. When we do go wrong,
blah. Transparency. And then being real. Yeah,
clients, then we don't necessarily need the bottle
of wine. We like dealing with you because we
trust you. Yep. So we're looking at building
emotional connection, essentially, like that
seems to be the theme across all of the solutions.
We're trying to get past the cognitive and talk
to the limbic from a psychology of sales. Yeah.
Yeah. That's the, it just feels good to shop
here. Yeah. And you can have the people that
walk in, walk out, no problem, get what they
want. Transactional. Yeah. Whereas you can greet
customers by name or you can write thank you
notes for people that have come back on a second
visit or you could do the early drops so that
they become involved and feel really valued.
There's something about walking into a store,
whether it's your local coffee shop or it's your
local hardware store, and they're like, g'day
Ian, how you going? It's just something about
the staff know you that makes you feel special.
And that's probably going right back to the start
of where we started talking, was it makes you
feel welcome. It makes you feel special. It's
your status. Yep. So, yeah, make people emotionally.
invested, give them the status, give them that
priority, make them feel like they're important
or they have something, you know. And from a
purely clinical standpoint, take emotion out
of it as the person selling the product. It's
not that hard to do. People buy what they want
to buy. People will buy what they want to buy,
but also people buy what they didn't know they
wanted to buy. There's plenty of times that every
single person on this planet has walked out of
his shop and gone, why the hell did I buy that?
What was I doing? An emotional purchase. And
you look at it and go, there's a couple of hundred
bucks I didn't need to spend. What was I doing?
That was an emotional purchase. How's that retaining
someone? It's not retaining someone. That's that
buyer's regret. But from a hacking the brain
point of view, it's not that hard. It's not that
hard to manipulate a very very nasty word but
manipulate someone to be in a buying mode which
again is not retention and it's probably not
going to retain business but we see a lot of
people use those tactics. So what you're saying
is that you can do good and you can do bad. So
when we're talking about customer attention,
we want to emotionally make people feel good
in whatever way that is. So some people are just
going to want to get a bargain and that makes
them feel good. Just count, you know, you've
got your coupon. Some people want to just a bit
of status as far as I can skip the queue. I can
know early, I can board before everyone else.
Some people want to just pat on the back and
say, thanks for shopping. Hey Z. Welcome back.
But then you're saying people can also use those
emotional things for the bad way. But I think
what we're trying to say is that with customer
attention, probably number one is we want to
make people feel good and we want to make sure
that's well communicated. That's what our goal
is. And understanding. Then you're probably going
to retain most of your customers. Understanding
the psychology of it is of the utmost importance
because Yes, you could use that for evil, if
you want to call it evil. But understanding how
to help your customers feel better about your
brand. Well, it's not, there's no manipulation
involved whatsoever. It's people want to feel
good. People want to deal with people. They want
to buy what they want to buy. So we're just trying
to make that the best experience possible. 100%.
So if we do this, we know this will happen. Yeah.
Add a bit of an idea when it comes to just the
final thought, I guess. when you're not really
sure what people would appreciate. So if you're
stuck in that situation where you're just not
sure, what you could do is, I'm sure there's
like five, maybe 10 customers that you know are
regulars and they constantly come back in, you
could... for use of a better word, an advisory
team, where your customers come in a couple of
times a year, just tell you what's going well
and what's not going well. I mean, that's literally
gonna... The customers that deal with you all
the time, your best customers know exactly why
you're good to deal with and why they keep coming
back. Say, hey, why do you love dealing with
us? We like this, this, this, this, there you
go, communicate that to everyone. And the most
important question in that is what could we do
better? Yep. because the what could we do better
is why some customers aren't shopping with you.
An interesting conversation yesterday, I answered
a phone call I wouldn't normally answer and anyway
it was a person talking about payments and what
was overdue and what was not overdue and I said
well I'm here and may as well sort that out and
put a different hat on and I said I'm a bit confused
about this and I paid that and I paid that, can
you tell me? I said okay, this one's this one,
this one's this one, this one's this one, okay
you got two outstanding. Oh yeah, just, it's
really frustrating with this new business, how
it builds. Like I can't figure it out. What?
Oh, okay. Well, what could we do better? You
know, happy to take on feedback and change your
thing. Oh, no, nothing really. Just, it just
seems like a lot more than what I'm used to get.
I'm like, oh, okay. And then I mentioned, so
we'll just clarify that this one here is from
whatever before that was late. This one was here
and this one's the one you get every year. So
it's just. sort of time to be all at the same
time, which would be unusual. So that's probably
why, but it was that communication of what could
we do better? That client's not feeling great
is their perception is not great. If you ask,
what can we do better? And then she's gone, Oh
yeah, I knew all of that. So there wasn't actually
a problem. She knew everything was right, but
she just wanted to grizzle. But that acknowledgement
of the grizzle. hopefully then helps. Yeah, hopefully
helps. Whereas if you don't acknowledge that,
she's going to continue that feeling until she
has a good experience. So that might be a positive,
it might be a negative, but that acknowledging
or asking what can we do better is very good.
If you hadn't had that touch point, that could
end up six months from now, a year from now,
two years, five years from now, someone leaving.
For essentially no difference in a price, no
difference in a service. And maybe not saying
nice things. Correct. for a simple phone call.
So we want to leave our listeners with a few
questions to reflect on. So we've got, what are
you doing to make your customers feel seen or
important? What could you do to build a customer
journey beyond just a single purchase? And are
you creating little moments of surprise that
your customers will tell their friends about?
I think those are the three reflection points
that you can take in action. And simple. Very
simple. Yep. Yep. Make it simple. Have a conversation
with your team. Yeah. Otherwise it will become
exhausting. Just make sure that it has that emotional
impact. It's not about what you do. It's the
result it gets. So. Yep. Awesome. All right.
That's a tagline if everyone. We'll wrap it up
there. See you everyone. Cheers. Bye.