Hello strangers!  I appear to have committed the cardinal sin of bloggers and forgotten to blog for over a month. Shame on me!

Alas I have been snowed under getting the web site skin rehashed, tweaking and fine tuning, as you do, trying to create perfection when perfection doesn't exist.

Nevertheless, here I am with this months customer-focused gem!

How's this for an amazing statistic?  When you send emails out to customers, just general marketing stuff like newsletters, how many of these emails get opened and read? Apparently anywhere between 0 and 40%. 

So if you're having a blinder of a marketing day, you've smiled at everyone in the street and given all your coins to the beggars, you're still only going to get 4 out of 10 of your marketing emails opened and read. Wow, that's a bit of a let down in the marketing department.

I conducted a little experiment a few weeks back. I gave 28 people a greeting card. Each was individually signed, and sealed in an envelope with the recipients name.

I asked everyone at the end of a small speech, how many had opened their envelopes and looked at their cards?

Just about 100%

I think you just can't beat good ole one-to-one, personal communication for getting your point accross.  The Personal Touch.  Try it, it works!

Ok, I've been holding off on this for some time. Kind of like going to the dentist. Something you don't like doing.

I've talked previously about how poor service and/or just a lack of customer appreciation can kill your customer relationships. Well yesterday I was tipped over the edge by my current cafe, and welcolmed with open arms by my new choice.

The old cafe is young, hip, small, funky, edgy...all those cool words you know. A place that a 43 year old feels slightly out of place in, but willing to give a try. Hey I might pick up some fashion tips....haha.

I've been going there a year. Probably averaged 5 takeaway flat whites a week. That's about $900 worth of business. Oh, plus about 10 baguettes at $8.50 each. Steep price for a baguette I know but they are REALLY great.

Slowly I've come to realise that I don't feel very appreciated by this cafe. It's hard to pin down why. The guy who runs it is a bit humourless.  His staff member is friendly enough but it feels contrived. You know, short and sharp, no feeling in it.

Well yesterday I went accross the road to the opposition. Blimmin heck the two staff members I've met a few times before both have beaming smiles, both say hi with energy and enthusiasm, plus they've got the local footbal teams scarf draped over the coffee machine.  That's enough for a mad football fan like me.

It took me a month of feeling ill at ease with my old cafe before I decided to change. I like to give people a fair crack.  Hey, they are entitled to a few bad days.

If my old cafe had shown some sincere appreciation of my business, $1,000 of it over 12 months, I would have stayed. 

It's a really, really good idea to show appreciation to your customers. Otherwise they might just one day walk away .

Do you keep in touch with your customers? Or do you simply accept an order, complete the work, send your invoice and then wait for the next job to roll in?

Sure that's the easy way. Simple. Nothing to remember. Just do the jobs as they come in.

But have you noticed that you go through periods when you really don't have that much work to do. Or have you noticed that, say Tom Jones, that customer you really got on well with, has never come back to you for more?

The problem is not your quality of service or product. Tom Jones thought you did a great job and charged a fair price. The real isssue is that just the other day, actually whenTom Jones needed your service, he had a flyer on his desk, with a great offer, from your opposition!

Tom's a great guy and you liked helping him. But he's like you and me, indeed everybody else. His memory is only so long.  He may have even thought, "Now who was that I used last time?".  But he couldn't remember. And his attention was distracted by the flyer in front of him.

So Tom just thought "Hey, I'll try these guys"

And there goes Toms business, away from your business.

Keep in touch with your customers. Tom would have used you again if he could just remember who you are.

Here's a great card from our range that would be ideal to send to one of your "Toms"

I always remember those stores I go into where the staff pay attention to their customers.  These can be small shops that specialise in a few things, or large department stores that have a huge range of products.

The small stores usually do a great job at customer service. I suppose they have to to survive.  I mean we all know, as customers, how easy it is to walk out of a store because you are annoyed at the lack of service. A small store might only get 50 walk-ins a day, so they really have to convert as many of those into sales as possible.

The larger stores that do it well either have systems that develop great customer service, or sometimes you can strike quite mixed service, depending on which person happens to be helping you.

The one thing that really impresses me is when the staff show honest appreciation of your business.  Now sometimes this might mean they throw in some freebees, or give you 10% off, etc etc.  But when the staff actually say  "Hey, thanks for coming in", I think that goes much further than any other offer of gratitude.

Tim

Hi and thanks for viewing the Personal Touch blog. 

For those new here The Personal Touch designs and sells unique greeting cards with a slant towards business to customer relationships.

How often do you call your customers and have a chat? Do you just do a job and then wait until the customer calls you back for the next one?

Don't be too embarrased if that's what you do, because you are in a pretty big majority. I don't have the statistics to prove it but I'm sure that well over 50% of businesses have no contact with their customers inbetween actually doing assigned work.

Ok, I'm not into 'shoulds', so why do I think it is a good idea to keep in touch with your customers, even if they haven't assigned you any work to do?

It's because business is not really based around 'business'.  It's based around human interaction. 

You are way more likely to give someone busineses if you know them well, trust them, and have regular contact with them.

Just think of it, the opposite is the cold-call on the telephone.  How often do you jump at one of those deals?  If you're like me then not very often!  I don't know them, I don't trust them, and if they ring during dinner...usually the case...I don't even like them!

But what if you build up a relationship over time, and express some genuine thanks to your customers for coming to you?

This kind of happens in a small way with reward programs.  You know, buy 9 coffess and get the 10th one free!  I like that because I like my coffee. But know it's done just about everywhere.  If you're like me you need a suitcase rather than a wallet to carry around all these loyalty cards!

Funnily enough, the cafe I go to regularly has one of these loyalty programs.  There 'difference' is that the cards are left there in a file - so you just get your out and stamp it each time you go in. That's kinda cool bacause it make you feel a little special - like you belong to the club!

But this cafe has never, ever said "Hey, thanks for coming in everyday and spending $3.50" (you can do the math for a years worth!)

What if they did? How would that make me feel?  Damn good I reckon!  And probably turn me into a fan rather than a customer.

The difference between fans and customers is that fans tell other people about your business, and so on and so on....

Does your business have customers or fans?