Tweet

"Don't Look for Customers, Look for Fans"

Guest post by: Eric Garner

Article Overview: What level of customer service are you operating on? Find out here and how you can transform ordinary customers into diehard fans.

"Don't Look for Customers, Look for Fans"

The other day I had a really nice email from a customer who wanted to thank me for the products they had bought. As I started reading the email, I thought, "hey, that's kind of nice" but then, when they ended their email with the words, "I just love your stuff!", I thought, "Wow, that's amazing!"

That was when I knew that this person was a bit more than a customer and even a bit more than a regular. They were a Fan!

On our Customer Care courses at ManageTrainLearn, we train people to distinguish between 4 levels of customer service.

At the lowest level, there is customer satisfaction, which means making sure that the product or service you deliver to the customer does everything it's supposed to. This level is not much above the legal requirement of normal day-to-day trade and requires little extra effort on your part.

At the next level up, there is customer care, which suggests doing something a bit extra for your customer, such as making sure they get what they want, can get the best out of it, and hopefully will come back to you again in the future. You can do this by paying attention to good customer care policies and procedures such as guarantees, returns, and complaint resolutions.

At the third level up, there is customer delight. This is where we enter new territory. For delight means a mixture of joy and surprise. This happens when the experience that your customer has simply overwhelms them. It's not likely they will react this way to your policies. It is more likely they will react this way to the way they are treated by you and your team.

At the top level of our customer pyramid comes customer loyalty, the domain of the Fan. When customers love what you do so much that it goes beyond caring, policies, and one-off experiences, you know you've got a friend for life.

So, how do you turn your customers into fans? By doing the following 3 things:

1. Love What You Do. When you love what you do, your customers don't just get a great product or service, they pick up on a powerful energy as well. They see the "you" behind the product and service and that's what they buy into.

2. Put Your Heart and Soul Into It. What your fans want from you is the real authentic you. Even when a new product or change in service doesn't come up to scratch, and maybe even disappoints, your customer fans won't leave you. They'll stick around knowing that the next time, things will be back on track.

3. Give Them Value. A customer doesn't become a fan of yours if you simply see them as a source of revenue and profit. When what you deliver exceeds what they pay at the till, and even goes way beyond, then you'll have a paid-up member of your fan club.

What's great about having fans rather than customers is that you don't need to sell or market to them. They're even likely to be ahead of you eagerly awaiting your next product or service before you've even created it. And for one simple reason.

Because they "just love what you do".

Related Articles
  What is the best way to develop my sales skills?
  How can you make more of your customers open your emails?
  Profitable Online Business Ideas and the Recession Part 2
  Ignore your critics
  Contribution

Article Tags: 3 things, care courses, care policies, customer care, customer delight, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, customer service, email, experiences, guarantees, legal requirement, mixture, new territory, next level, paying attention, policies and procedures, pyramid, resolutions, surprise



Related Forum Posts
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Re: How to Promote Your Blog – The Definitive Guide to Promoting - Great Post! Dont forget to put your blog in Anchor Text For SEO purposes for the keywords you want when getting backlinks (for example with article marketing)...Very important. You can conquer quite a few small Niches and get your site on the number 1 spot in Google!
Re: Due Diligence, Market Research.. Ahead of the curve. - Congrats! A few months ago I wrote extensively on market research. Check in the Inventors corner for the posts. Let me know if I can help further! Dont spend a dime on a protype or advertising until you do some research! Jude
How to Do Great Marketing with (Amost) No Money - I've given this presentation to CEOs many times. Now i can share it with you. But I cannot because I do not yet have 20 posts. Jeff Ogden, President Find New Customers
Re: Who hates cold calling? - I saw this and had to chime in. I HATE COLD CALLS. lol its terrible and a wast of my time. Something i have done is gotten online and found all the networking event happening in my area for the next 2 months and i try and go to about 3 a week. Even just for an hour. Dont bring any business cards. Just meet new people ask them alot about what they do, not too much about what i do and follow up the next day or 2. Has worked well


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

African Technology Development

How do I finance a franchise?

10 Golden rules to survive the Global Crisis

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.