One way to stop customer defections is to stay in touch at key times.
A recent article in Target Marketing magazine [ www.targetonline.com ] featured a story about Sky Alland, a customer relationship management company based in Columbia, MD.
They phoned members of an HMO medical plan two months before their re-enrollment plan was due for renewal.
They cite 77% fewer members defected from the plan as a result of the phone call. The client calculated a 583% return-on-investment from this simple program.
Implementation:
A great way to implement this into your business is to call clients
before their service agreements or Mfr warranties are up. If you spend
just 1 hour a day calling on your clients to follow up they will be
less likely to seek service elsewhere.
Some ideas on follow up calls/letters:
Call 1.5 months before their service agreement is due
Call within 48 hours after service was performed and ask them to
answer a few questions regarding the service they had. Then use your
Customer Satisfaction Survey to fill out the answers. This Survey
should also have some demographics of the clients so that you can learn
WHO is your client. This will help in future marketing of your
services.
Mail a birthday card to the major appliance you installed. If you
installed a water heater send out a birthday card to it 1 year later.
Include in it ways to prolong the life of the water heater, i.e.
replace anode rod (great opportunity to sell a water heater agreement),
drain every __ months, etc. Also, any tips on that appliance, do not
use HOT water for cooking, etc.
If a part comes with a manufacturers warranty and business is slow
you might call the clients and tell them the warranty is about to
expire how has everything been running. I would recommend doing this
with MFR's that will re-imburse labor on repairs.
BONUS TIP#1 - Through QSC (Quality Service Contractors) you can get
paid for labor on ALL parts through a program they have. If you want
more info call me.
How about you, what types of followup calls/letters do you send out?
Till next week,
"My goal is to translate response into results.
Some teachers teach for others to learn. That's not me.
Some teachers teach for others to accomplish. That IS me."
- By Jim Rohn
The views expressed in this article are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of MasterPlumbers.com
site.
