All businesses should yearn for high customer loyalty. Loyalty, after all, means repeat-business and word-of-mouth. The sales that come from returning customers and referrals don’t come with the typical cost of customer acquisition that eats into the bottom line. In a sense, customer loyalty is a lot like free advertising.
When many of us think about earning the trust of our customers to ensure that repeated patronage and evangelism, we think about how important it is to give them the absolute best customer experience every time they visit. Efficient and friendly service, high-quality products, and overall value are how we keep existing customers and lure in new ones.
One aspect of maintaining customer loyalty, especially insofar as the customer experience is concerned, is employee retention. While many of us should want our customers to receive excellent service regardless of who takes care of them on any given day, there’s no denying the fact that customers form bonds with individual frontline staff: they are the face of your business. The old adage about familiarity breeding contempt may hold true in some personal relationships, but in business, it’s quite the opposite. Familiarity is reliability.
Understandably, many business owners do not want individual employees to be the make-or-break barrier of entry for their companies. Employees come and go, right? But we also know that a bad experience with an employee can kill a sale no matter how fantastic your products are; on the other hand, a great experience can guarantee that opposite. We often trust our employees to explain and extoll our products and services, to explain their value, and to facilitate the transactions.
The net result of all this is that businesses need to keep their best employees. This may seem like a no-brainer, but business owners and managers need to consider what steps they’ve taken to actually ensure their employees stay with them. Raises, bonuses, and commissions are always welcome, but there’s even more you can do: public recognition of hard work and investment into their development are critical, too.
When employees hit sales goals or receive positive feedback in customer comments (such as in online reviews), those moments should be celebrated by the team. Even more importantly, offering training programs to employees is tantamount to a vote of confidence in their long-term partnership with you. It’s like saying you trust them to take on more responsibilities.
One way to make sure employees receive recognition for their hard work and demonstrate how seriously you’re taking their training is through mystery shopping. While mystery shopping is often used for accountability on offering upsells and add-ons, it’s also a perfect way to gauge how well employees are doing with customer service in ways that aren’t always reflected in the sales charts. That represents an opportunity to celebrate an employee, both verbally and with possible incentives. And when there’s room for improvement, such as when an employee forgets to make the right offers, then that represents the opportunity to train. Mystery shopping s most effective when it is used as a training tool and not a cudgel.
Cheering on employees when they do well and helping them train to get better when they don’t will help ensure their long-term commitment to your business. In turn, that stability will help foster long-term relationships with your customers, which will be the foundation for their loyalty.
In addition to offering highly customizable mystery-shopping programs, The Brandt Group also offers leadership training as well. If you want to go the extra mile and really demonstrate your investment in a great employee’s future with your business, talk to us about enrolling them in one of those classes. Learn about mystery shopping, training, and more by contacting us today.
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