Remember the days when some companies couldn’t help but retain customers no matter what they did? If you are older, like me, you remember when the phone book was twice as thick, when people bought and used encyclopedias from a door-to-door salesperson, and when people would actually mail letters. There was no internet yet to compete and then eventually become the norm. These days rarely is a company that fortunate. Instead companies must plan, strategize and compete for every dollar.
Your business has worked hard identifying key customer segments, learned what they do and how to best reach them, created a great multi-media campaign, utilized social media, planned and executed great promotions and brought shoppers through the doors. Doing all of this work has attracted shoppers. So now you are done, right?
Ask yourself these questions! Will those shoppers return again? Will they recommend your business to others? Can you definitively answer these questions?
As Carol Tice, a contributor on Forbes.com writes, "how can you know which sort of customer experience you’re giving your customers, the great one or the awful one? Are they raving fans of your brand, haters or somewhere in between? There’s a way to find out that’s fairly quick and simple." Read Is Your Customer Service Broken? How To Know, And A Simple Way To Fix It for a great insight on this topic.
Knowledge is power, so identifying where you stand will allow you to focus on improvements and/or identify ways to build upon what you are already doing well and incorporate it into your marketing. Either way your business wins.
