Sophisticated CRM software is all very well, but there are lots of simple things you can do to make a positive impression on your customers.
1. Create a quality shopping experience
The Benetton Group is present in 120 countries around the world with 6000 outlets selling clothing. Increasingly, these outlets are large megastores that concentrate on offering high quality customer service. Benetton’s spokesperson says that its network of stores id run independently with each having its own set of policies. However, Benetton has two overriding principles that govern its customer retention activities.
First, it concentrates on maintaining good quality – price ratio for all its products. Second – and this seems to be something Benetton is keen to emphasise – it has worked hard to create a “quality shopping experience” for its customers.
This has included the introduction of Benetton megastores with cafes and reading areas where customers can sit and relax and even play areas for children.
The stores have been designed to create a relaxing environment in which people will enjoy spending time. The spokesperson says Benetton still has “gimmicks and giveaways” to attract customers, but the thing that keeps customers coming back in the long term is that they enjoy shopping at Benetton.
2. Ask your customers what they think
Clarins, the French beauty company, values its customers. With 16 subsidiaries across 150 countries, employing more than 4000 people, Clarins has a turnover of 4 billion francs per annum.
What’s their secret? International PR manager, Sylvie Sola explains Clarins treats each customer as an individual. “Every clients is unique,” she says.
In addition to offering its customers free samples – Sola says they give away more free samples than any other company in the world – Clarins has also introduced the ‘Client Card’.
This card invites customers to tell Clarins what they think about its products. For every product sold, Clarins includes a response sheet that invites customers to send in their feedback.
“Everyday, all over the world, millions of customers send us their reactions, suggestions and opinions,” Sola says. These comments are communicated to the Clarins laboratory and every customer remark is given consideration and a personal reply.
3. Reward your customers
KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines – is an international airline that flies people to 500 destinations worldwide. It says that its Flying Dutchman frequent flyer programme is possibly KLM’s “most successful initiative.”
The programme is open to all customers with three different tiers of membership. Bluewing membership can be earned with just one flight per year. Silverwing membership is earned by taking 20 one-way flights per year and Royalwing is earned by taking 40 one-way flights each year.
Loyal customers earn points each time they fly with KLM or any alliance partner regardless of the fare type. The points customers earn can be translated into a range of rewards or services, from upgrades, duty free vouchers, access to exclusive airport lounges, waiting list priority, guaranteed seats and free travel excluding airport charges. For KLM customers it really does pay to be loyal.
4. Provide your customers with one point of contact
Electrabel, one of Europe’s top ten electricity companies and the Belgian market leader, has done a lot of work to shift the mindset of its personnel.
Its spokesperson says it has made a concerted effort to become more client-friendly. “We provided customers with one point of contact,” she says. This means that regardless of which services customers have – gas, electricity, cable TV – they only have one point of contact. That means one address, one telephone number, one contact name, one fax and one e-mail for customers to use when they get in touch with the company.
We’ve all experiences the frustration of bring transferred from one department to another. At Electrabel this doesn’t happen. Customers call one number, send one e-mail or fax to get a response to their enquiry.
5. Take every opportunity to get to know your customers better
Eircell is Ireland’s leading mobile phone operator with a customer base of 1.23 million people. It claims to hold 60 per cent market share in Ireland where 54 per cent of the population owns a mobile phone.
Eircell says that its corporate philosophy – “coverage, care and choice” – underpins everything it does. More than half of its1350 employees work in customer care roles.
Mark Mellet, Eircell’s marketing communications manager, says that the key to successful one-to-one marketing – and so to keeping customers – is recognising and understanding your customers’ needs, then tailoring services to tie in with their needs.
He says that companies need to get to know their customers. Eircell aims to learn something new about its customers at every point of contact. The information collected allows it to segment the customer database so that it can target particular customers with relevant products and services.
Taking this one step further, Eircell asks its customers to take part in a questionnaire. Customers aren’t given any kind of incentive to respond and yet more than 30 per cent of people do. Mellet says that offering an incentive would “tarnish” the results because they wouldn’t know whether customers were bring honest or whether they just wanted their free gift (probably a cheap luggage set or towel bale).
The questionnaire asks customers to comment on the service they’ve received from Eircell.
They’re asked questions about their business, number of employees and what they use their mobile phone for (business or pleasure). Eircell asks them about their technical know-how so that it can tailor services to their needs. Mellet says there’s no point trying to sell a WAP service to someone who isn’t interested in the Internet.
Customers are also asked to specify their contact references so that they are only ever contacted via their preferred channel. Mellet says that all this information helps to create a profile of your customers, which better equips you to meet your customers’ needs. And if you can meet your customers’ needs then it’s simple – they’ll stay.
6. Keep your customers informed
Audi, the German car manufacturer well known for its ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ (advancement through technology) slogan, believes that the most important thing any company can do to help retain customers is keep them informed about their products and services.
Adam Chamberlain, a member of Audi’s product marketing team, says Audi uses a company magazine to tell customers about the latest Audi news and developments.
“This keeps our customers close to our brand,” he says. If there have been new developments on an existing model then customers are told about it.
In addition, each Audi franchise organises customer loyalty events: things like golf tournaments, gourmet evenings and special car previews.
Chamberlain says that these events are all about Audi becoming part of the customers’ lifestyles. Ultimately, Chamberlain says that companies are “only as good as the information they have on their databases”. It’s using the database well that will provide a company with the key to customer loyalty.
7. Create memories for your customers
Happy ones of course. Customer satisfaction is such a serious issue for Sol Melia – a Mallorca-based hotel chain with 350 luxury establishments spread across 30 countries – it took the step last year of introducing a guest satisfaction assurance (GSA) programme.
It called on all 33,000 group employees to work hard to “create memories” for hotel customers. It spoke about a change in culture which the “creating memories” initiative would bring about and urged all departments – especially its food and drink department – to be part of the change.
Sol Melia’s Judith Gonzalez says that the focus on food and drink is because this is one of the areas on which customers place most importance. Even things like the presentation of meals can help make a lasting positive impression on guests.
The group has made a new appointment of a GSA representative for each hotel in the chain. These are people who have the task of spreading the GSA message throughout every part of the hotel so that “the whole team will be able to anticipate customers’ needs and therefore create memories”.
“It’s about being attentive to each customer,” Judith explains. “Maybe a customer’s coffee has gone a bit cold at the end of a meal and we offer to bring another without waiting to be asked. Maybe a guest’s seat at a table has become uncomfortable because the sun has become too strong and we offer them some protection or even a change of table.”
Sol Melia reached the conclusion that it was becoming impossible for its customer care team to deal properly with a complaint. “In some cases,” Judith says, “it could take a few months to settle the matter by correspondence. We reached the conclusion that having someone on hand who can deal with the situation at the moment it arises is a good way of avoiding complaints and of creating a positive memory for the customer of their meal or of their stay in one of our hotels.”
8. Make sure your people are part of the brand
It’s difficult for some companies’ employees to be part of the brand – toilet paper manufacturers, say, or the producers of bitumen or certain types of furniture polish. But ar Swatch, the Swiss maker of watches for the young, it’s very much part of the culture for employees to be what a spokesperson describes as “positively provocative and colourful.”
She says this reflects that Swatch people “belong to the brand and are part of it; fun, enthusiastic, colourful people who are perhaps just a little bit coco-loco.” Very much in keeping with the image Swatch tries to convey to the market.
You are, you see, unlikely to find Swatch as the official timekeeper of a provincial chess championship or an international gathering of croquet’s elite. Instead, it’s busy sponsoring, and even organising, wild snowboarding jamborees in Switzerland and all over the wacky world of winter sports. This is the image its retail representatives have helped to convey.
9. Be flexible
The Halifax Group’s telephone and Internet bank for the IK, Intelligent Finance, says that the best way to keep customers is to be flexible. It’s chief executive, Jim Spowart, believes that flexibility of access channels is vital because it allows customers to choose how they want to interact: by phone, Internet or mobile.
He says that, no matter how a customer chooses to contact them, the company must have a full history of the relationship with that particular customer.
10. Never sacrifice quality for cost
Like most people in business, Iain Henderson believes he is offering a quality product. Unlike many other though, the head distiller of Laphroaig mail whisky on the Isle of Islay off the west coast of Scotland has a string of awards and even a seal of royal approval to prove the point.
“A quality product will always sell,” he says. “That’s why you should never sacrifice quality for cost. After that, as long as you communicate well and treat your customers correctly, your business should grow.”
Laphroaig’s business has grown from selling 240,000 bottles each year a decade ago to the present annual total of 1.2 million bottles.
Henderson’s efforts to communicate well with his customers include a fabulous web site that can whisk you off to the Western Isles on any dreary afternoon. Lovers of this distinctive dram – it’s described as ‘liquid smoke’, ‘the peat reek’, and as tasting of seaweed and iodine (and this by people who can’t get enough of it ) – have formed an online community called the Friends of Laphroaig with access to special newsletters and to a chat room devoted to their favourite whisky. There are now 151,000 Friends of Laphroaig around the world.
But Henderson clearly believes all his efforts on the communications front would be in vain if his commitment to maintaining the magic of this malt whisky were to falter.
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