I often wonder how some businesses can spend so much money trying to attract customers while spending so little time on the customer’s experience once they have them.
Marketing is not just getting people to your location, or getting people to buy your product. Marketing is the whole shebang, it is how your customer is greeted when they walk in the door, it is how they feel once they have made their purchase, it is even as simple as saying thank you.
Have you ever been ready to check out and the clerk was on their cell phone? How did that make you feel? Did it make you want to do business with them again?
What you must remember is that every time you or your employees interact with a customer or a prospect, what you’re really doing is marketing. It doesn’t matter if you’re conducting a survey, delivering an invoice, delivering a product, or fulfilling an order, its all marketing. So if your spending all sorts of money to attract customers to your business and not spending any on their experience once they walked through your door, you have missed the point of marketing.
Want to have customers that are loyal to you and not your competition? Make sure your employees know that marketing is part of their job. Go above and beyond what everyone else is doing and your customers will reward you with their loyalty.
Marketing is how your customers perceive your business. So remember that marketing is also:
- Follow-ups – Making sure your customer was happy with what they purchased. Make sure they know how to use what they bought.
- Your Invoices – Don’t just send your customer the invoice. Send them a thank you note, bring a piece of candy with the invoice, include something that makes you stand out from every other bill they have to pay.
- Saying Thank you – Saying thank you goes a long way. Make sure your salespeople thank your customers for ordering.
- Appearance – Sloppy employees, a dirty store, clerks on their phones are all a reflection on your business. No one wants to walk into a place of business and wonder what did I just walk into.
- Attitude – Everyone has a bad day, but in business, a bad attitude could kill. Remember that your customers have many options, if you or your staff makes them feel unwelcome, they will go somewhere else.
