Are Your Customers Raving Fans?

What are Raving Fans? According to Ken Blanchard, "Having raving fans means that you have achieved the kind of service excellence that turns a customer into a lifetime customer. A raving fan is an advocate of your products or services in the marketplace." Ken and Sheldon Bowles co-authored "Raving Fans," A Revoluntionary Approach to Customer Service. This book is so revoluntionary that one local business in Saint Louis required all of its employees, from sales to warehouse delivery, to read and pass a test about its content.

The core focus of their book is going that extra 1% in everything you do, to ensure each contact with every client is memorable.

If You Don't Take Care of Your Customers, Someone Else Will

We've all heard this phrase before, because it's so true. In contrast, according to Bain & Company, companies can boost profits as much as 255% by retaining merely 5% more of their existing customers.

In business, we're all looking for that strategic advantage

Prospects and clients are demanding more than ever, expecting to get what they want, when they want it, and customized to their requirements - at the least expense possible. In the web hosting industry, many providers have resorted to offers of unlimited space and bandwidth at ridiculously low prices (an overselling marketing strategy) to give them a strategic advantage of perception. In the industry, we all realize that "unlimited" is not possible for space and bandwidth, but the perception to the general public is quite different. At odds to these offers are clauses in their respective Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policies that, in fact, prohibit certain types of services, or place 'real" limits on their offers - but who reads TOS and AUP statements? At odds with the Raving Fans theory, their strategy is to get the prospect in the door, sell them, then deal with overages in space and bandwidth on the backside. It's no wonder I see so many complaints in forums on the Internet from users who thought they were buying into a fabulous deal, only to have their 'budget' host terminate their services.

What is the better strategy?

Is it better to employ strategies to convert prospects at the cost of higher churn, or is it better to manage your prospects expectations, in a manner that makes sense to both their business and yours - that provides a solution to their needs?

Are cold leads or warm leads more profitable?

That's an easy question to answer. I'm not aware of any sales rep who doesn't prefer warm leads. Clients who have already bought into your services and products need to be your Raving Fans. They need to be your advocate in the industry. When you improve your client's satisfaction, you drive repeat business.

Customer Support

Its simply not enough to receive a support ticket, fix the issue on your side, then close the ticket. Why? Support tickets are created by clients who have some issue with your product or service. That specific issue may be very minor or could be critical to their operation. When you're working on a support ticket, do you make an assumption of revelance, or do you communicate with your client to gain a comprehensive understanding of the issue, from their point of view. Are you professional in those communications? Do you accept responsibility if the problem is on your end? Do you go that extra 1% to assure them that their business is important to you?

Do you want to boost your profit by retaining a larger percentage of your existing clients?

Yes?! It starts by creating a culture of 'I Care." I strongly recommend reading "Raving Fans." Its a little quirky, but very insightful. What do you have to lose - except a few clients? We all want our businesses to boom, in spite of our current state of the nation. Align your business to ensure seamless customer service is delivered consistently. Manage your prospects expectations - don't promise the world, then pull the rug from beneath their feet.  And empower your employees to know when and where they can make a difference.