When you think about customer retention, you must work your butt off to get “top box” results on your structured feedback, i.e., surveys. And when you get verbatim feedback (unstructured comments), you must try and earn comments like “best,” “greatest,” “amazing,” and “outstanding.” In both cases, you must earn these accolades; no matter how good you think you are, you are not entitled to these results. The results must show you that good enough is not good enough.
You will only enjoy the highest praise as a reward for consistent hard work by you and everyone in your business. Without these outstanding results, your business is vulnerable to losing customers and the referrals that come with them.
Why are we vulnerable?
Unless your customers are truly loyal, they are always open to a sales pitch promising something more than they currently get. We know they can get more because they are not telling you that your business performance is the ultimate they can imagine; they are not rating your business “top box.” Of course, people don’t always tell the truth and sometimes don’t know how well off they are when dealing with you. But they are willing to find out, and you will then have to lose a customer, try and replace them, and possibly win them back with mutual feelings of uncertainty about the damage that may exist in your relationship.
How do we measure loyalty?
We can ask the following questions, which are usually considered strong indicators of loyalty:
- On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely are you to recommend XXX to friends and associates?
- On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely are you to continue doing business with XXX?
- On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely are you to increase your purchases from XXX?
- On a 0 to 10 scale, how likely are you to switch from XXX to another supplier? (In this case, a low number is good).
How good do we have to be to generate high levels of loyalty?
Let’s answer this question with an example. On average, I start my car five times daily, 365 days a year. Some days I run errands, and the number is very large, and some days the car is parked in my garage because I am traveling. I think I turn the ignition key (it’s an aging car) about 1825 times per year. If the reliability is 99% (a historically “good” number), then 18 times per year, it will fail to start on the initial attempt. If that were my experience, I would paint the car yellow, name it LEMON, and tweet like crazy about my piece of junk. Since I cannot remember when it failed to start on the first attempt, I enjoy more than 99% reliability.
The following table has three additional examples demonstrating that 99%, or even 99.5%, reliability does not come close to what we experience and need. Therefore, 99.5% reliability is still below our expectations!
This all means that your business must strive for perfection! I know it is a never-ending quest, but anything less will fail to meet some customers’ expectations. This lesson must be constantly and positively communicated to your company and key business partners.
And thus, the title of this post, good enough, is no longer Good enough!
Related article: Why Improving Product Quality & Reliability Depends on Effective Service Feedbackhttps://wp.me/p9ciCs-OY
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