New Year's Resolution: Fostering Loyalty
At the risk of sounding materialistic, I love spending money. Nothing beats putting on a new pair of jeans or sunglasses. During this time of year, that part of my brain goes into overdrive; which got me thinking about retailers and the particularly tough year their sector has experienced.
Why were major retailers like David Jones and Myer battling it out for a bigger slice of the consumer pie by offering huge discounts? Was the higher cost-of-living really to blame for our frugal spending? Perhaps we could point the finger at the media for peddling this economic doom and gloom? Or maybe the problem is closer than we think.
It’s hard to deny customer service standards are declining and consumers are voting with their feet. After years of below par service and high prices, they’ve said ‘enough is enough’ and turned to the welcoming – and favourably priced – online stores like eBay and Amazon. The products are cheaper, shipping is relatively quick, and you don’t need to fight the crowds or deal with a store clerk who makes no effort in hiding the fact they’d rather be somewhere else.
At Messages On Hold, an end of year analysis revealed that for 2011 sales were up, as were our salespeople’s conversion rates. Just like Myer and David Jones, people continue to shop us around. But they also continue to choose us in the end because our product is backed by strong and attentive customer service.
From the moment a new employee joins the Messages On Hold team, we instil a culture of going above and beyond the norms in terms of service. It might be something proactive like providing each client with a bullet point list of their latest production’s messages so they don’t have to read through the entire script, or providing clients with complimentary seasonal messages on a regular basis.
This begs the question: what are you doing to retain your clients and how can you improve your service to gain new ones?
- Lachy Banton
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