How to win customer loyalty

Yesterday, I decided to try a new dry-cleaning service near my home… new to me, but as I learned later, had been in business for almost 25 years. I decided I needed to switch dry-cleaners because the one located on my work campus had shown atrocious service: they shrunk 5 of my pants and showed little remorse at having done so. In fact, the ballsy Asian lady had the audacity to say to me: “you gained weight, didn’t you?” No, this is not a fake story; this actually happened. Not only had she lost my business forever, she had guaranteed that I would pass on this ridiculous story to not only my colleagues but the world wide web.

So when I walked into that little neighborhood store, I was skeptical. When I walked out of that store. I was sold on making them my only dry-cleaner for as long as I live here in the Princeton-area. How did they do it? Well, let’s take a case study and blow it out to practical, tactical applications:

1) Make the first 10 seconds count. When I walked in, an elderly couple was sitting toward the back of the store. Once they heard the door open, the gentleman (in his 60’s) waved his hand, got up from his seat, and enthusiastically shouted: “Hello!!” I guess he recognized immediately that I had never been in that store before, and made the first 10 seconds count with a warm and welcoming greeting.

People will decide what they think of you in the first 10 seconds of your meeting. For small business owners, the product is you first, your service next. This man spoke good but not great English but was able to convey likableness with the best of them.

– Your greeting matters. A wave, a smile, a “how can I help you”, a “so nice to meet you” all count. Practice with strangers and you’ll master for prospects.
– Your personality shows. Don’t underestimate people. They’ll decide if they like you or not. The business-place is not the place to by shy.

I’ll admit I almost instantly fell in love with the sweet, vibrant old couple. Although they had not earned my loyalty in that first 10 seconds, they piqued my curiosity. It’s like when you go on a first date: you may think someone’s attractive, but you’ll know if you want a second date by how the rest of the date goes.

2) Get to know your customer. I then inquired about the cost of having my three pieces cleaned (because like everyone, I’m looking for a bargain). I wasn’t happy with the high cost but I decided that I would pay this one time and keep shopping-around. The lady started asking for my name, phone number, etc as she input the information into her computer. She then tried to get to know me in a friendly, non-intrusive way:  how I found the store, where I had my dry-cleaning done in the past, etc. She found out that I had dry-cleaned with the cleaners at my work and was able to take a casual conversation to a more personal level. The couple showed mastery of the art of profiling. Let’s briefly explore the two types of questions you can ask to get to know your customer:

– Surface-level, impersonal questions. Customers see these as non-threatening and necessary to your services: “how did you find out about us”, “what are you looking for?”, etc. Based on responses to this, you will get the green light on whether or not you may venture into the next type:
– Deeper, rapport-building questions. If asked before the green light is given, these will be viewed as threatening and intrusive. If asked after the green light (trust) is earned, these will be a method of deepening trust and demonstrating your genuine interest: “what do you do for a living?”, “do you have children?”, etc.

Through these questions, she was doing two things: 1) profiling me and 2) earning my trust. She saw that I had brought in a Limited suit jacket and two silk Ann-Taylor shirts. A young professional can be a good client for a business like theirs, and she explored the opportunity. When I told her that I had used the cleaners at work, she took it as a green light to ask about my type of work, how long I’d been doing it, etc. Had I been the teenager with a prom dress who came in ahead of me,  she may have provided polite, friendly service and sent me on my way, just like she did for the young girl. But once the teenager left, this shrewd couple offered me water, inquired about my life, my dry-cleaning experiences and befriended me. Seems so simple, but I had never experienced that walking into a store before. Knowing your client is the first step to any sales process. If you don’t know who they are and what they’re looking for, how can you claim you have what they need?

TIP: The powerful tool that so few people use effectively is asking open-ended questions to get your customer to talk to you. When someone is pouring out information about herself, she is showing trust. You solidify trust by later remembering these tidbits to deepen your relationship: “Hi, good to see you again! How is little Jimmy doing?” If you need to, write it down! Remember things about your customers! If you can’t, take notes and study your notes. This separates the excellent from the okay business-owners.

You can also show value by asking the right business-related questions: “what didn’t you like about the last service you tried?”, “what’s most important to you when looking for a photographer?” It shows that you care about their needs and making sure you can meet them.

3) Assess your customer’s profile and if s/he is the right fit for your business, which means determine where that customer fits in your model. The elderly couple recognized that the teenager had a costly problem with her dress, but was most likely not going to have a deep, ongoing relationship with them. The woman’s solution was appropriate: she balanced good service with setting of proper expectations. She knew she needed to make a good impression with any new customer, but she also wasn’t going to bend over backwards for a time-consuming, one-time problem. If she found herself spending more time on this dress than all of her ongoing customers’ weekly clothes, she had not assigned her time appropriately. On the other hand, she also recognized that in this day and age,  all it takes is one negative review anywhere, and she’s now taken her 5 star service to a 4 star one.  Poor service is never an option.

Clients fall within a pyramid. You’ve got the ideal clients on top: they don’t worry as much about cost, they’re looking for quality. They’re willing to spend more and are generally very easy clients to work with. They just want someone who will do the job. These clients are few and far apart. Then as you go down the pyramid, the clients become less and less ideal. They ask for more, they want to pay less. At the bottom of the pyramid, you’ve got the most number of people, the most needy of people. They drain your energy with questions and inquiries and demands. They’re fickle, one-time shoppers and sometimes unrealistic with what they’re looking for, within the amount of money they want to spend. We all know these people. You’ve got two options for them:

– Move them up. Determine if they’re a type of client that can go higher on the pyramid. If so, figure out the best way to move them up: discuss benefits, win loyalty, offer promotions, give a clear explanation of what comes with more frequent transactions, etc. This very business-minded couple moved me up from the bottom to the middle of their pyramid in the course of one conversation.
– Move them out. If they’re never going to be the right client for you, politely state that they might be better fit elsewhere. “It sounds like you’re looking for x, which I can definitely understand. I’m going to do my best for you but it’s generally not what I specialize in. You should try ___, because you’re going to get a much better deal for ___.”

This effectively frees up more of your time and energy growing clients or deepening clients. I heard the woman tell the teenager: “Ok, I’m going to try my best, but I’m not really sure what I can do here. If this doesn’t work, maybe you should try ___”.

TIP: This hard-truth is difficult for some people to face, but you can’t give everything to everyone. In your ideal world, you may want to help everybody. If your goal is non-profit, pro-bono, philanthropic work, this is fine. But, if your objective is to have a thriving, profitable business, be realistic about your abilities and how you should spend your time. Customers appreciate honesty and directness. You’re not doing anyone any favors by committing to a level of service you can’t sustain. Thus, see my last post.

4) Once your ideal customer is identified, educate, show your expertise, and value proposition! Don’t be afraid to brag! Let them know what you do! Like I said, once the teenager left, they showered me with attention (shrewd now to do so in front of the girl). By the time I left that store:

– I knew that this couple had been in business for over 25 years, that the gentleman had gone through a dry-cleaning certification course (ever hear of that? I never had. But now you can bet I’ll be looking for the certificate now, if I ever find myself looking for a new dry-cleaner!)
– I knew that this couple was the first to settle in this area, and over the past 20 years, they found more and more less pricey, lower quality dry-cleaning services popping up within a mile radius! They’d seen customers leave and return for one thing: quality services.
– They made sure I knew that they don’t offer one-day cleaning and explained why: they will do whatever it takes to get the clothes cleaned, however many tries it takes. Sometimes a shirt with a bad stain needs to get processed 3 times before the stain has been removed. How can you do that in one day? You can’t.
– They made me aware of the intricacies of textiles, treatment of textiles, how you handle less expensive garments versus more expensive. They educated me on the difference between “cleaning” a garment and “cleaning and caring for” a garment. Just because my expensive suit comes back clean doesn’t mean that it had been treated in a way to ensure longevity. I’m almost scared to go to any other dry-cleaner now!
– They made sure I knew that they charged higher prices than their competitors, but that they were not willing to sacrifice the quality to get more business. Now if I do pass another dry-cleaner, I will not surprised by the lower costs other places offer. In fact, I’ll expect it.

5) Make your top customers feel special. Make your middle customers want to be part of the elite top. They continued to tell me that they knew they were reaching a different audience than the service down the street with big “99 cents” signs plastered all over the glass. Hmm. It’s one thing to observe that about a business, it’s quite another to be told that. They intentionally kept the shop looking clean and clear of flashy advertisements and promotions. My initial reaction was “kind of bland in here”. But by the time I left, I somehow felt the need to be part of a more elite clientele who values class over flash. How did they do that? Somehow, they made me want to earn the right to be their top customer. They turned the tables in such a subtle way by telling me who they target versus who they don’t. They said, “our best customers are the ones who don’t care if it takes a week to get their clothes clean, because every week, they drop off a new bag of clothes and pick up their clean clothes. They know that there is no other dry-cleaning service that will do what we do.” And just to prove their point, right on the dot, a lady walked in with a bag full of clothes, dropped it on the counter without saying a word and said “Hi Y___, don’t get up, I’m just dropping this off”. It was a very curious experience, I hope I can recant this properly. The lady was clearly upper-middle class. Even her casual weekend, errand-running clothes were nice and well-fitted. She gave me the sense that she had known this elderly couple for years. She knew they were good people who worked hard and could be trusted. She did not want them to get up from their conversation with me, because she knew she need not say a word and her clothes would be ready in perfect form when she came back next week. She didn’t want to disturb them; she wanted to make the most unobtrusive entrance and exit possible. She is at the top of the pyramid. She probably spends well into the $1000’s a year on dry-cleaning with them, but is as low-maintenance as a fly on the wall.

TIP: Your bottom customer can become a top customer with the right cultivation of the relationship. Don’t rule anyone out until they’ve ruled themselves out! By deciding that I would continue going to this couple, I’ve probably put myself into the middle of their pyramid. Once I start bringing clothes weekly or even bi-weekly, alterations, and other garment-care concerns to them consistently, I will become their top customer. It may take a few interactions before I commit to that, but at least they’ve planted the right seeds!

So, long story short, the couple:

– made me feel good
– got to know me
– determined I was worth wooing- wooed me
– educated me
– made me want to be in their elite top

I think next week, I’m going to bring them the rest of my suit jackets and pants that need a good cleaning.

Next time: mega-company strategies for small business owners