LizBizBuzz

How Important is an "Extra Nice" Salesperson?

I had the good fortune to meet a smart consumer while out on a carpet inspection recently. For this story she will remain "smart consumer" -- or SC.

By the way, this is a consumer with a problem.

The consumer had worked in high-end retail for many years and was in charge of training her salespeople, so for her, customer service was a no brainer. "Just give the customer what they want, period, and be nice to them," says Ms Smart Consumer. 

Apparently five independently owned retail stores didn’t quite get it, so Ms. SC purchased from Home Depot.

Here is a summarization of our conversation:

The customer had a preference for Stainmaster. The product came highly recommended so she went looking for the brand.  Her research showed that everyone had the brand.

Before shopping she went went online to update her carpet knowledge. Having purchased carpet several times before, she knew what to expect of the process.

She asked her friends in the neighborhood where to buy carpet. The Home Depot got good ratings, as did one of the Shop-at-Homes. For some reason, SC eliminated the shop-at-home.

Since SC was new to the neighborhood, she wanted to look around and decided to search a 40 mile radius. According to research this is very typical female shopping behavior—the journey is as important as the final destination. It’s all part of the experience. 

Ms SC’s three top priorities were

1. Customer service
2. Price
3. Quality

She wanted nice carpet, but was frugal with her money. She didn’t choose "designer shops" because fashion wasn’t really an issue. She knows she has good taste so why waste time. (After being in her house, I would vouch for this.)

A trip to the nearest Home Depot came up first. Why? Because of their size, Ms SC felt that they would be reliable and dependable. This is an interesting association with the size of the store. Her experience with the Depot and the associates in the carpet department were friendly. If they were not able to answer a question they knew where to get the answer. Basically they were friendly and she liked them. She also found the installation special very appealing. 

Next stop, the independent retailers.

I told you that Ms SC had been in charge of training in her last employment. What does she consider most important? Making the customer feel important, acknowledging their presence and making them feel smart. Her experience at the independent store? Not that good. Employees didn’t get out of their chairs to acknowledge her, they asked very few questions and most pointed to the carpet department and said call me if you need anything. She also remarked one of the stores also didn’t smell that good. SC mentioned the smell to her husband but this didn’t seem like a reason not to consider this store.

Bottom line, she wanted someone to talk to her, ask about her project and make her feel important.

Her evaluation: the prices were all similar and everyone had Stainmaster carpet. Where did she buy? 
The Home Depot, because everyone was nice and she liked the installation special. All of the pricing was the same or similar.

Okay, so this is one customer’s experience but it points up some very big issues. You don’t always have to be super smart, but you do have to be super nice. Customers want to feel special, if you make them feel special; you have a good possibility of making the sale.

Being reliable and dependable are two important traits. I’m pretty sure that the other stores were also both reliable and dependable but maybe it wasn’t obvious -- no customer testimonials or data on customers' experiences were available.

Customers will travel; in this case, since the customer was new to the area, she was interested in learning more about her area of the country.

How about some blogs? Blogs that welcome new residents to the neighborhood, provide warrantee information, stats on complaints, biographies of the salespeople and more, so that by the time the customer gets to the store the customers feel like they know the salesperson.

This of course is one customer’s experience, a customer with a problem. It does sound like being nice pays off.

In your experience as a customer, all things being equal, how important is an "extra nice salesperson?"    

Differentiation Builds Your Competitive Advantage and Delivers Customer Service

Flaunt It Honey!

My definition of customer service is giving the customer more than then they expect, i.e. Red Hot Customer Service. That’s exactly what JetBlue did Friday, October 30th at JFK International Airport.

Customers going through the terminal dressed in costume could show off their dance moves at the first-ever silent Halloween Eve disco. Friday I receive an excited call from Elin, designer supreme at Leader Carpet telling me about the event in J.F.K. Airport.

Elin’s comment: “Isn’t that cool?” I asked her what made it cool and she replied “It just is.” She’s right, it just is. 

Here’s how it worked: When you went through security you would be given a set of headphones. Through these headphones you could hear a deejay spinning music. Of course, no one else in the terminal would hear the music.

That's why it was called the “Silent Disco.” 


"Our Silent Disco is about giving customers and crew members the chance to tune in to some great music, to burn some energy before getting on a flight or to shake out the stress of the week," said Kim Ruvolo, brand manager for JetBlue Airways. 

The event was produced by JetBlue partnership with Super fly Marketing Group.

So what do Jet Blue’s customer s think? In order to find out, JetBlue took a poll:

Disco at JFK?

Would you dance in an airport lounge? 

• No: It is way too embarrassing 
• Yes: I've got it and I flaunt it
• I don't know: Depends if I've had anything to drink

I checked out the poll and 41% said yes and 37% said I don’t know. 

So, 80% of the customers will dance for one reason or another.

I call this customer service at its finest; assuming they got to their destination on time, no foolishness like overshooting the run way by 100 miles, or losing some serious luggage. This is just doing your job or the price of admission to be in the airline business.

Customer service is delighting your customer, making them smile, going beyond the call of duty, or doing something that makes you unforgettable. The key, as brand manager Kim Ruvolo said, is to give the customer something different.

Being different can also build your competitive advantage—but only if the customer loves it. My friend in Boston told me about an experience she had with her hair dresser of at least 20 years. It seems she showed up at her regular appointment to find the usual docile German Shepherd guarding the couch. The closer my friend came to the couch, the more menacing the German Shepherd became. She said it really scared the wits out of her; the dog had never exhibited this kind of behavior. Eventually the owner came to her rescue and asked my friend if she had done anything to frighten the dog! My friend, a little in shock, eventually got her hair done and went home. On her answering machine was a call from her hairdresser.

"It’s a good thing she called," said my friend. "She was about to lose a good customer." My friend, however, goes on to say there was no apology, just more defense for the dog. The dog also has a stomach problem, making it even more questionable whether he should be at the workplace.

What’s next? My friend called to tell me she has a new hairdresser, and she's done a marvelous job! No amount of silent disco dancing could fix this problem. What could they have done to make it better? 

• Leave the dog home; he’s obviously too sick to be at work. 
• Leave the owner at home, she’s obviously too sick to be at work also. 
• Stop defending the customer since the dog was already defending himself. 
• Give the customer a free trip to the Bahamas; I’m sure she would have invited me to go along. 
• Give the dog a gift certificate to the vet or
• Get someone to take the dog to the vet. 

 What would you have done to make this right?

Satisfied Customers Can Turn On You On a Dime

I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Stores will sometimes spend thousands on new racking systems or to repave their parking lots -- but not a dime to train their employees.

Joanne’s Fabrics is a national chain with great products for anyone who sews or does crafts. My friend Mary does both but sewing is more than her hobby; it’s her home-based business. Her store of choice for fabric and sewing machine? You got it, Joanne’s Fabrics. How long has she been shopping at their store? Probably 15 years. How much has she spent? Probably thousands.

Mary recently purchased two pens that are used to mark fabric -- the kind that within 10 minutes or so the ink dries and disappears. This is very useful when you are sewing and marking on light color fabrics. Unfortunately one of the pens was not working. Here are three important pieces of information to the story. 1. The pens are $6. 2. The week before, Mary purchased a new sewing machine for more than $1,000. 3. Mary does not have a receipt for the pens.

I probably don’t need to tell you anymore but it highlights some very important customer service issues. When Mary took the pen back, the salesperson was unwilling to refund her money. (Mary didn’t ask for a new pen since she wasn’t that thrilled with the first one.)

Funny the salesperson didn’t look for Mary’s name in the computer and Mary didn’t say, "Hey, I’m a great customer, I bought a $1000 sewing machine last week and spent $5000 last year in your store."

I decided not to add my two cents but asked Mary a few questions instead. She said she understood why the salesperson didn’t give her back her money: Mary didn’t have a receipt. I asked her about the sewing machine she bought for $1000, to which she replied that she forgot to bring it up.

Okay, so Mary is a more passive customer, not wanting to cause problems and doesn’t realize that she has leverage with the salesperson or clout in the marketplace. You can be sure if she tells this story to a few more friends she will have worked herself to a frenzy -- and then look out!

The real questions in my mind are:

• Why didn’t the salesperson ask the customer any questions before she said "no way"? A question like What’s your name? would have probably have given Mary the opportunity to talk about how much she likes Joanne’s and about her new sewing machine.
• Did she take for granted that Mary was a slacker?  I mean, Mary was wearing a picture of her dog emblazoned on her shirt, hat and socks.
• Did the salesperson assume the customer was just cheap? It was only a $6 item.

Mary doesn’t have a car so she takes two buses to get to Joanne’s to be dismissed. That may have something to do with Mary’s statement yesterday: why don’t we just go into New York City and go to the garment district to buy my supplies. What Joanne’s doesn’t know about Mary is that she’s a lot more sophisticated than she looks.

Are Your Satisfied Customers Putting You Out of Business?

They Could Be

According to a study conducted by two professors from Vanderbilt University, up to 40% of satisfied customers do not return to those businesses who gave them the satisfactory service. 

This means that almost half their customers wind up missing in action.

How would they know if they’re missing? 

They probably wouldn’t, because most businesses don’t track lost customers or try to find out where these customers went. 

If this is true, most businesses don’t even know if their customers are satisfied or not. In fact, a non-complaining customer may be interpreted as a satisfied customer. This may simply not be the case.

Check out these statistics. 

• The average "wronged customer" will tell 8-l6 people about it. Over 20% will tell more than 20. Source: Lee Resource Inc
• It takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident. Source: “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner 
• For every customer who bothers to complain, 26 other customers remain silent. Source: Lee Resource Inc. 

Customer service used to mean following through on your commitments to your customer and doing what you said you would do.  In other words: delivering on the promise. Here's my new definition on what customer service means to me:

I believe that delivering the promise is no longer customer service. Delivering the promise is the price of admission a company pays to be in business. The new customer service is what you deliver beyond the promise. It’s what you do to delight, excite and build relationships with your customers that make their experience memorable.

If you accept this definition it means expanding your thinking about customer service. This means knowing that every aspect of your business has an impact on customer service, not just face-to-face encounters but everything that happens in your business. To make it work, every employee needs to be committed to learning what your customers want and then developing action plans to make it happen. 

How will this happen? By determining what will astound your customers and then exceeding their expectation.

The bottom line? Satisfied isn’t good enough.

Keep Your Business Strategy to Yourself

I wonder if people know what comes out of their mouths or if mouths have their own strategies. Then I think maybe I listen or hear too much.

I found myself in the position of having to rent a car in the Pittsburg, PA airport. Unfortunately there were no cars to rent except at the Hertz counter. I said to the woman, "No one has cars to rent -- I suppose you’re out too?" She smiled and replied, "Oh no, we have plenty of cars to rent."

"I’m so relieved !" I said. "How much for a midsize?"

"They’re all the same price. It’s $300 a day."

"What? That's triple everyone else's price, isn't it?" 

"Sure it is," she replied. "But we’re the only one with cars!"

Yes, she really did say that!

Now I know you don’t think this really happened to me and even I wasn’t sure it was happening. So I said to the woman, "What makes you think that I'll want to rent a car from you after the 'car drought' is over?"

To this she had no reply, just the blank stare which said, do you want it or not? And then: "Like I said, we’re the only one with cars today."

It reminds me of what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina when bottled water was being sold for $10 a bottle. This will make you memorable, and not in a good way. A few thoughts:

• Customers aren’t stupid, for the most part. We know when we're being taken advantage of.
• Customers remember when they have a bad experience with your company. 
• A happy customer will tell a few people, an unhappy customer will tell the world—just like I’m doing now.
• Short-term thinking is just that: short term. Win the battle and lose the war.

Most likely people think that Hertz is simply the most expensive rental agency, which explains why they had cars left that day. Since there were only a few cars left, they could have confused everyone by sending the cars out at prices cheaper than their competitors! Customers would be in heaven, tell everyone and vow to at least give Hertz a try the next time. Hertz's competitors would have been confused when they learned that Hertz was suddenly cheaper than them.

At least this customer would have gone away happy, rather than vowing to take the nearest bus.

You Better Know Your Peas and Pasta (And Other Tales About Knowledge)

This isn’t about peas and pasta. It’s about beet greens. 

For the past two days I have been in St. Charles, IL with an upscale flooring retailer, and a product knowledge question comes up. "How much product knowledge do I need," asks a new salesperson? My usual response is "Whatever the customer needs to make a good decision." Then comes the awful look on his face, which says, how will I know how much that is? 

The answer: they’re all different. Maybe to be on the safe side you had better know it all. 

Which leads me to the real story about product knowledge. I spent many summers with my aunts and uncles, all of whom either owned restaurants or prided themselves on knowing their P's and Q's about pasta and sauce. Sauce starts with the best tomatoes. San Marzano tomatoes grown in the Agro Nocerino-Sarnese area of Italy are considered to be the finest tomatoes in the world -- and with a price tag to go with them.  As a kid you had to know your pastas from A to V -- anelli to vermicelli.

So I am in St. Charles, IL and looking for an Italian restaurant; a salad, eggplant and some pasta. One place I come across looks Italian, has an Italian name and the interior smells like garlic. A great start. The menu looks good and how bad can the tomato sauce be? Normally I don’t take any chances, what kind of an Italian would I be if I took the menu at face value? I ask the server would it be okay if I tasted the marinara sauce before I place my order? The reply is a hesitant yes and now I feel like I’m heading down the wrong road. Around the corner comes a formidable-looking Italian male, obviously the owner. He didn’t stop and talk, he obviously was just getting a look at the one who "dares question our marinara sauce." It reminded me of the movie "The Big Night." The movie is about two brothers from Italy who come to the US to open a restaurant. They are always angry with the customers because of their lack of respect for spaghetti!

Ok so the sauce is fair and I decided to order it with the chicken and ask that they spice it up! The salad is served; everything bright green and red like it should be and then I notice a strange green leaf with a red vein down the middle. Hmn, it doesn’t look the Romaine lettuce, it looks like a beet green. I know what they are but I have never eaten them raw. So I ask the server, do you know what kind of leaf this is and she says she doesn’t know but will get the owner. Oh dear, before I could say "don’t" that same man was standing in front of me with that look on his face.  I explain my curiosity about the color of the lettuce and he replies, it’s Romaine. 

Well, I should have let it pass but I didn’t. I said, I don’t think so. I knew it wasn’t Romaine. He then says, yes it is and what does it matter?  Well it matters to me, the salad maven. He then adds, "lettuce is lettuce." Maybe so but this isn’t lettuce.  So it’s at this point that I taste the leaf and realize it is a beet green. I explain my discovery and he shrugs his shoulders and walks away. It looks like a scene from "The Big Night." The two Italian brothers simply cannot hide their annoyance with the American customers. 

But let's put this in perspective. If you're a business owner:

• Listen to the customer, period. Maybe they know something you don’t.
• Don’t make up answers. The customer might catch you.  Hey, maybe if you listen you will learn something.
• Learn all you can about your products; you never know what will come up.
• Give your customers as many ways as possible to try your products. Taste it, smell it, walk on it. This helps customer make good decisions.
• Take your customer seriously. If you don’t get the question ask the customer why it’s important to them.

Isn’t a smart customer a better customer? 

It’s a good thing we didn’t talk tomatoes.

 

Resources:

The World's Best Pasta

San Marzano Imports

Pasta Blogs

Who Needs Ice Anyway? A Customer Service Tale

Forget customer service, in most of my encounters it doesn't exist. A survey of the airlines over 2007 - 2009 by BusinessWeek rated Southwest Airlines the Best Customer Service Champs. Was it 100%? No, not even close, but they still came out on top. And that leads me to wondering, is there such a thing as 100% customer service? What about 110%? Should a business strive for 100%? I thought we were supposed to strive better than 100% -- to over promise and over deliver.

It was also announced recently that the Chicago transit is doing customer service training with the drivers: they're going to teach them how to smile! I guess you have to start somewhere. If I was in charge of the Chicago transit I don't know if I would bother to do any training. I mean, what's the customer's choice, to stay home? That's probably what they're wondering as well.

Paying customers are in short supply. It's partly the economy, partly the abundance of merchandise, and partly the fact that we are tired of being tied to our credit cards. It would seem like a good idea to keep the customers that you have—happy!

Customer service is pretty limited, which is why I wrote the book, Red Hot Customer Service, 38 Sizzling Ways to Heat Up Your Business and Ignite Your Sales. Sales, as we once knew it, doesn't exist anymore. We don't sell anyone anything. In fact, the word "sell" implies convincing, making someone do something they don't want to do. Sales is an outdated word from the dark ages, but it certainly is not an outdated profession, it's simply been morphed into what we now call "customer service."

Customers are too smart to really be sold anything. Do you go into a store to be sold anything? I doubt it, by the time you’ve gotten to the store you probably have already decided what you want -- having tracked it down online. Or you wander into a store, see something you like and buy it. Maybe you have a conversation with a clerk or sales associate, or the concierge. (All clever disguises for the name "salesman".) Maybe you want to ask a question or just seek some knowledge, "Where do you keep the tuna fish sandwiches?"

What we think of as sales is what I call customer service. The process is simple: define the problem or predicament or desire with the customer and then help them make a decision. That's just good   business practice. The customer comes in for something, you have the something, or you have the solution. Hoping that your something is better, prettier, or smarter than the next guy's.

That's customer service.

So, the ice story. A perfect case of someone not delivering customer service but trying to sell the customer. Albany International Airport has about 4 or 5 places to buy coffee. One is Starbucks; the other is Mickey D’s, and then there are the no names. I love iced coffee. It's what I drink instead of soda or pop. And what's strange about that?

For the last three months I have been looking for iced coffee in the Albany Airport. No one except Mickey D’s has ice. But they're at the other end of the airport and I usually go the other way.

So I keep asking for ice coffee at the normal no-name place I go to and they keep making excuses or rolling their eyes. Today Ms. Salesperson points me to the cooler and says everything in there is cold. Now that's selling—and it doesn’t work. She dismissed my cries for help and tried to sell me a cold drink instead of what I wanted. There was no listening and no paying attention. So I explain it's been 4 months and there's still no ice at the coffee stands in terminal C. I ask her if she has ever heard of an airport without ice; to which she replies, "I’ve never been in any other airport!"

She tells me that McDonald's has ice. Which is great, but she's now sending a customer off to a competitor. If it were my coffee stand, I would have said "Watch my money and I will run down and get some ice." Maybe I'm kidding and maybe not but the customer would if nothing else have been impressed with my commitment to her.

So I head on down about 4 blocks to McDonald's and order a Big Mac -- hold the meat and cheese -- and an ice coffee, one pump of the flavored vanilla, 1% milk and the rest iced coffee, no sugar. I ask the cashier if she knows that no one other than Mickey D’s has ice.  To which she replies, how can you make your cold drinks really cold without ice?

My sentiments exactly.

Resources:

• McDonald's
• Customer Service Blogs
• Albany Airport

Are Your Salespeople Making You Money?

Legal Sea Foods Knows! 

So my friend and I decided to stop at a favorite restaurant, Legal Sea Foods. Legal Sea Foods started out as a market in Cambridge, MA and opened their first small restaurant next to the market in 1968. In 1994 they opened in Logan Airport outside of Boston. I have also discovered a LS in National Airport. The food is amazing and my friend who has eaten his way around the world says the clam chowder is second to none. I should also he add he never orders clam chowder—except at Legal Sea Foods. 

At this point they operate over 30 family-owned restaurants, a mail-order business and a grocery products division. The Berkowitz family is into the third generation, which in itself flies against the statistics that 80% of third generation business go down the drain. My first culinary experience with LS was in the Logan Airport—what a surprise! Which leads me to why we should all take note. 

Our server, Molly, was "texting" in our order. The device looks like a Blackberry but it's called the Siva and is designed by Microsoft. The software it uses is called PAR. Molly has been accused of texting by the blue-haired bunch plenty of times. But she's not -- she's doing her job the way it's meant to be done. The Siva links the order directly to the kitchen, and if a customer has allergies she punches that in and everyone is alerted.

So, is Molly a good server, and does Legal Sea Foods have criteria for good service? Does she treat everyone well, up-sell when appropriate, mention the desserts and know how to present the right wine with the right fish? Well, with this technology, you might think it doesn't matter so much. It's all in her computer. The Siva can tell how long the customer stays at the table and what Molly is selling. In addition LS uses Ing@nico, which they call "pay at the table" so your credit card never leaves the guest’s hands.

While the technology is all well and good, it doesn't replace the actual service and friendliness that Molly provides. She is a restaurant representative from their customer service department, essentially. And a large part of eating out -- no matter how much we deny it -- is being served and being served well. 

So, if your store is based on technology, or your sales staff is able to be much more efficient with technology, don't forget to check on whether they're still using the same customer-service oriented approach that you trained them in. A computer does much to increase efficiency and measurement, but it can never replace a genuine smile and genuine hospitality.

Want a "Legal Clambake?" Legal Sea Foods offers full event planning, menu, staff, and the right equipment for an old-fashioned clambake. Contact 617-530-9455 or www.legalseafoods.com.

Make Me Happy, I Dare You!

Everything I read and have thought about suggests that happy salespeople make happy customers. Lately I have begun to question that theory.  I know this sounds strange but I have been many places, seen happy people -- or happily appearing -- and they don’t seem to be doing any more for their customers than unhappy ones. A study by Cornell University in conjunction with  Fortune Magazine using the American Satisfaction Index measuring satisfaction  indicates in "some cases" a link between happy employees and happy customers. Another study conducted by Academy of Management Journal intimated that positive employee attitudes, in "some environments" directly effect attitudes.

What bothers me is "some cases" and in "some environments."

Why not "all" cases and "all" environments? Well, because it just isn’t so all the time -- and it can't be. An interesting article by Rosa Chun and Gary Davies from the Manchester Business School in the UK believes this to be the case. Actually they call the idea that happy employees always make happy customer is "wishful thinking." I knew I had a problem as do many other business owners. Most businesses would like to believe it's so but it "just ain’t necessarily so" (I think that’s the name of an old jazz tune). In fact their study showed the factors that increased customer satisfaction actually decreased employee satisfaction. So, who makes who happy and is it important?

In order to run a good business, you first have to know what "good business" is. To make money and have repeat business, customers must be satisfied. Granted some customers are a lot harder to please than others and some appear to not be interested in being satisfied, but that’s another story.

But there is plenty of data to suggest a link between happy customers and higher profits. What makes it work?

If satisfied customers are your goal then you will have to first define what satisfied means. Is a satisfied customer one who pays the bill on time, writes you a glowing testimonial or sends you a referral? It’s easy to see how these connections can make you money.  Creating satisfied customers is certainly a worthwhile goal -- it's doubtful that an unhappy customer will shop in your store.

Once you determine what you want you will have to teach it to your salespeople. Once you teach them, watch to see that they do it right.This is the place where many businesses fail; they fail in accountability 101-- keeping  track and rewarding performance. I knew a retailer -- now out of business for the third time -- who was never interested in making customers happy. Everyone including the salespeople knew his philosophy: get the money and get out of town. The US is a pretty big country and last I heard he was considering another journey around the perimeter.

Nordstom, on the other hand, has a long history of accountability to their customers.  From the legendary story of a Nordstrom representative taking back a set of tires from a disgruntled customer (Nordstrom doesn't even sell tires), to their policy of having associates come out from behind the counter to hand you your purchase, make eye contact and thank you by name, Nordstrom continues to live a philosophy of accountability and of service.

No More Excuses Fast Company
It is appropriate to reward employees for doing a job well; in fact tying customer service to your employees' paychecks is a great way to  "produce" happy customers. Too many businesses talk about providing customer service but don’t hold their employees accountable.

Salespeople are rewarded for producing sales, not necessarily happy customers. Occasionally I shop at this fancy clothing store; they really have the most interesting and unusual clothing. The salespeople are happy but that happiness never translates to how they treat me. A year ago I had an allergy attack in the store while looking at some dresses and my friend ran to the drug store to get me an antihistamine to stop the rash that suddenly was creeping from my arms to the rest of my body. It was  quite obvious that I was in distress but the best they could do was offer me a cup of coffee as they went back to their chit chat.

Remember, in business as in life, you get what you reward.

Resources

• Employee Happiness Isn’t Enough to Satisfy Customers
• AccountAbility

Having Trouble Doing Business? Maybe It's Not a Lack of Customers

I keep hearing how business is so terrible and how there are no customers. And then I run into retailers like Taylor Flooring and Homevalue who tell me there are fewer customers but they’re doing good business and are seeing new ones.

Of course during this time you have to trim down your costs but you still have to have a plan for attracting new customers.  As I recall, when times were good you didn’t need a strategy to attract customers; there were so many customers coming in the door that you didn’t even have to be a good salesperson to get these customers to buy. You just had to be there. You know the old "build it and they will come" saying. Well, it was true. They just came.

Now they aren’t coming, and for lots of reasons. Maybe it's a lack of trust in the "system" or less money and more re-prioritizing of their lives and financing. If you didn’t have a plan before, you’re in a pickle. Those who are doing well or getting through this recession without losing their shirts have always had a plan. Plans have to be altered but your plan should have the basics of what’s necessary.

So let’s talk about your "brand plan."

You’ve relied on your brand and others' brands to get you through but has the message changed? The customer sure has, so your brand must change if you’re going to connect.  Customers are worried, and certainly see trusted brands as a safe bet. They're comforting in times when everyone’s all wondering, who can I trust? For those of you who have taken sales training classes you all know that "empathy" is the most important trait of a good salesperson or anyone or anything who’s trying to sell a product.  

Reducing quality, changing prices, taking away "value" that you have always given the customer will not increase your brand value.  These empathetic messages must say to the customer, we understand, I’m with you. The message "you should buy because things are cheap" or "we’re the only game in town" just makes you look like you don’t care about what your customer is experiencing. Don’t take out your frustrations on the customers.

Tactics such as rewarding only big time spenders or reducing quality so customers get to play less won’t build trust. Expanding your product offering at lesser prices is still value added. But reducing quality on items when you know they need better is not a good strategy.  Quality is still quality and value is still value, always keep that in mind.

Educate your customers on how to shop your products. Tell them warranties do matter and installation standards certainly make a difference. It’s time to go back to those values. Old time, new customer service.  In my book, Red Hot Customer Service, I talk about things most people have forgotten but that can still impact your sales and bottom line.

Remind your customers that buying the brand certainly does matter because it can be trusted. Don’t forget in times like these, your brand and your connection is what really matters. What are you doing to support your brand?

• Look at your warranties, do you remember to give them to your customers after the sale?
• Do you explain to customers how to take care of the products they’ve purchased?
• Do you call them after the job to say hello and make sure the job is perfect?

Do you do small things like show up on the job and talk with the customer? If the customer isn’t home do you go to the job and video the rooms that are complete and send it to the customer while they are at work? (This is a very creative move on retailer’s part.)

Realize that consumers have changed and this shift may be long term. Customers are very unhappy and untrusting and may insist that you prove who you are. Customers tired of the greed and lack of company ethics will demand accountability. I saw an interesting ad for insurance company RM Global. They wrote about the tornado that tore through Atlanta in 2005, leveling everything including the Atlanta Motor Speedway.  Three-and-a half months later the fall race weekend opened as plan. How? Because of the partnership between the Atlanta Motor Speedway and RM Global. More and more ads are showing connections. Oil companies talk about how they can reduce carbon footprints; Men’s Warehouse is offering to let the customer "keep the suit" if they lose their jobs, and most car companies are willing to take the car back if you lose your job -- or help make the payments for you.

Will the recession end some day? Yes it will. The longer it takes the more damage it will do in the customer's mind. According to John A. Quelch, a professor at Harvard Business School, "During the recession of 2001, there was no decline in overall spending, although many cut back. It should be noted that this recession shows consumers being very frightened, which means that they will carry the sting for many years."

In other words, during the last recession we had, in 2001, consumers didn't change their spending habits! It's different this time, so it's time to get in step with your customer. We may be doing this dance for a while.

Resources:

• Age of Conversation 2 - Why Don't They Get It on Amazon?
• Harvard Business Review, How to Market in a Downturn
• Get to the Point: Small Business

Lis Calandrino is a sales trainer and marketing consultant who speaks around the country on topics ranging from retail sales to online marketing and social media trends. She can be reached at lcalandrino@nycap.rr.com or 518 495-5380.