Sales Training Tip - Keeping Customer for LifePosted by Nick Niesen on October 28th, 2010 Marketing and sales will, of course, be of the utmost importance to the success of your small business. However, do you even know the difference between the two? Marketing is everything your company does to reach out to the consumer and find potential clients. Marketing is preparation for sales. Sales is everything your company does to actually sell your particular product or service to the consumer and usually involves meetings with clients, calls on prospective clients, networking, and utilizing internet resources. When developing a marketing message, you are priming your customers to make a purchase. In order to do this effectively, your marketing message must have substance. Yes, the graphics and logos are important, but consumers want you to make you point as clear as possible as quickly as possible. In order to do this, address these six issues in your marketing campaign: 1)Capture your audience?s attention with a message that clearly defines who you are addressing. Customer Service One of the most important aspects of small business management is customer relations ? the interactions between customers and employees. As a small business you have to provide the customer with better, more personal service in order to compete with the larger, more established providers in the marketplace. You also have to look to the future and develop ways to keep your customers coming back year after year. When a problem does occur, take advantage of the opportunity to build not only customer satisfaction, but customer loyalty. Tips for Teaching Top-Notch Customer Service 1)Determine what you really mean by excellent customer service. You have to have a thorough understanding of what you want to provide so that you can provide it consistently. Keeping Customers for Life As a small business, you must cultivate relationships with your clients in order to ensure their continued patronage. Studies have shown that it is much easier to continue a customer relationship than to cultivate a new one. The first step to retaining customers is to keep your word. Do what you say you are going to do in order to make your business worthy of a customer?s repeat business. Expect that clients will return. Many businesses look to the customer to prove that they are worthy of their attention by returning on a regular basis instead of cultivating a relationship from the very beginning. Once you establish a good relationship, make it a policy to go above and beyond. The customer should remain your focus ? not your bottom line. Your bottom line will only come into play if you can establish a business based on long-term customers. Make sure that you are treating your employees as well as you are treating your customers. You want lifelong employees in order to provide a stable, consistent environment for your lifelong customers. Like it? Share it!More by this author |