Jerry Maguire might have had Dorothy (in the movie Jerry Maguire) “at hello”, but I can assure you, if you want Tom Cruise style success, and you want to scream, “Show me the money” while jumping up and down in your kitchen with “your people” because your bank account just exploded with dollar bills, you better find a way to keep the romance. You better find a way to commit to customer retention.

How often as service professionals do we give all of our attention to that new customer? As soon as they commit their trust and finances to our ever so skilled hands, we leave in our carefully pressed logo-stitched polo to never be seen or heard from again…or at least until the anniversary, that once a year, guaranteed visit or service call.  You want to keep your customers right?  Then you’re going to have to date them rosy!  Not a once a year cabin in the woods either.  You want constant cash flow?  You want customer base referrals? You want success beyond the first initial crisis?  Don’t make it all business.  The customer has opened their home to you.  At times, even leaving the door unlocked for you to help yourself in.  If you don’t make the right moves, before you know it, your customer will have moved on down the road right underneath your one-year contract nose…generates

 

“According to the Harvard Business School, increasing customer retention rates by 5 percent increases profits by 25 percent to 95 percent.” Wow!  You can’t afford not to keep your customers.  We knew that right? Right?

 

 

Gregory Ciotti from Help Scout (https://www.helpscout.net) says, “Reciprocity is the social construct that makes the world go ’round … or in your case, keeps your customers coming back.” Give and get…give and get…give and get…you follow me?

So, how do we keep the relationship in a tango of sorts?  By Customer Retention.  Studies show that the more money a customer spends with us the more loyal they become.  So, longevity, aka Customer Retention will always pay more.  Longevity is propelled when their loyalty is met with ours.  What propels our loyalty? The bottom line. What propels theirs?  Our ability to meet the needs that are important to them.

keep the customer

Recently one of my staff shared the following story…

“I recently became a new homeowner to find out within the first three days I was not alone…I had a “MOUSE-guest!” My first initial response was to sell the house…but who was I kidding, I had only lived there for three days!  Being a first time homeowner and a single gal, I fled to social media for a referral.  Arrow Pest Control was referred by a close friend and my next phone call.  The service tech Jason was quick to respond and kind in all my hysteria.  Arrow was committed to bringing me peace in my new home…and proving their claim to rid my home of pests.  They came back three days in a row!  During all this, I went to wash my dishes for the first time in the dishwasher and to my demise it wouldn’t work.  Talk about feeling like I was in the movie Money Pit.  While on the phone with Arrow before the second visit, Jason heard my whoas with the dishwasher and said kindly, ‘I’ll take a look at it while I’m there today.” I came home to a washer full of clean dishes.  It was just the water connection!  It took Jason five minutes, saved me another service call, and set in stone my loyalty to Arrow.  I signed a service agreement immediately and will only refer them in the future.  All because of one extra gesture.” Michelle Thompson

Now, I know service technicians work long hours so, to take a look at something outside the realm of our profession is “not a good use of time” right?  Sometimes, yes.  But, even if you don’t fix it, your attention to what your customer wants and needs will always bring in more bottom line than only doing what’s in your bottom line.

What’s the gold at the end of the rainbow?  Or better yet, what’s going to give you that SHOW ME THE MONEY moment?  Customer love.  It will always benefit your customer longevity to give more than the other guy.

danielle