No B.S. Guide to Maximum Referrals and Customer Retention. Dan S. Kennedy

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СКАЧАТЬ more compliant; 80%+ completed their treatment programs on schedule or close to it, 70% referred, and about 25% referred abundantly, and stayed on after their primary treatment programs as lifetime ‘maintenance’ patients. That’s the power of prepay.

      Autocharge has a similar effect. The person getting his credit card charged $125.00 on the first of every month and getting $200.00 of vouchers for products and services is far more likely to use at least the $200.00 (but probably spend more) than the person paying as he patronizes. He is more likely to be exclusive rather than divide his spending in your category by whim and random convenience. Therefore, you are more likely to succeed at retention and a habituated pattern of patronage.

      Sometimes, one of these is helpful while one is harmful. For example, in the GKIC business, the bundled services of membership, subscriptions to newsletters, and other deliverables are autocharged monthly, usually after a free trial period. You can find the current offer at www.GKIC.com. This is contrary to the newsletter industry norm of one-, two-, and three-year pre-paid subscriptions. For GKIC, it works better than term subscriptions and renewals. Significantly, there is “Push,” not passive consumption of the goods and services involved. By that I mean, they arrive. GKIC sends Members two packages of newsletters, CDs, and other material each month that arrive at homes or offices, plus email series, calls from Concierges, as well as invitations to online and live events. Many businesses that ask the subscriber/customer to go fetch everything they’re being charged for, as digital downloads, content at membership sites, and benefits at physical locations, suffer a much higher loss rate when trying autocharge. Often, businesses built on passive consumption find prepay outperforms continuity.

      One way or another, or in multiple ways, the point is to get the customer committed.

      Consider visiting Disney World. We went about once a year and sometimes skipped a year and never went more than twice a year until we bought a time-share in the Disney Vacation Club. With that, we own a bank of points applied to lodging at our home-base Disney resort or at all the other Disney resorts, including a few not in Orlando by the parks. These points are added to our account but also expire year to year. We prepaid for them for life. It now feels free to go stay there, but costs out of pocket money to go anywhere else. We now go, on average, three times a year, sometimes four times a year. We are also more habituated: We have favorite restaurants there, favorite shops there, and we know the lay of the land. Every time we go, of course, we spend like maniacs at those restaurants, in those shops. They smartly seed that spending with discounts and promotions exclusive to Disney Vacation Club owners. To not go and let prepaid points expire is unimaginable! We are thoroughly committed customers.

      For guests who aren’t (yet) DVC owners, Disney is very aggressive in pushing the booking of the next vacation while enjoying the current one, with in-room, in-hotel, and in-literature marketing. They are also aggressive at converting resort guests and park visitors staying elsewhere to DVC. They are also pretty pushy about ascension. One-day to multiday park tickets. From park pass to express line pass. Up to use of private VIP guides. Very undemocratic. They understand the importance of the committed customer.

      My friend and great GKIC Member Alan Reed has hundreds and hundreds of committed customers for his dairy farm in Utah, hooked up to home delivery—by real “milkmen” in trucks with routes, some customers on autodelivery and autocharge. The customers with regularly scheduled deliveries and autocharge or billing accounts buy more, buy more consistently, and stay as customers much longer than those who “just call when they need something” or “swing by the store.”

      Many, many, many businesses have opportunities to lock in and automate certain kinds of repeat patronage from at least a segment of their customers, but never bother to figure it out and do it.

      The next Rubicon is between (just) committed customers and evangelical ambassadors. This is, by far, the highest level of customer and customer value. I’m a fine ambassador for Disney. Clients who come to my home office encounter a shrine of Disney collectibles, a talking Disney clock, and more, and ask me about Disney, and get enthusiastic testimony. I know of more than 30 people who’ve become DVC owners because of me. Others who’ve stepped up to using VIP Guides because of me. At one time, when I lived in Phoenix, I was an evangelical ambassador for my trusted car salesman, and brought dozens of family members, friends, and peers to him. Same with my chiropractor of that time. I liked telling people my stories about them and, in a sense, spreading their gospel. I believed in them—I didn’t just buy from them.

      You really can judge your efficacy and level of sophistication based on how many evangelical ambassadors you have actively working for you, for free.

      It’s easiest if this is personal, but companies and brands do achieve it. These are called “passion brands.” For a time, Cadillac was such a brand. Apple was and is such a brand. Walt is long gone and the customers don’t know Bob Iger, so Disney is such a brand. Good evidence of the strength of a passion brand is customers’ cheerful willingness to pay premium prices vs. competitors and alternatives, and shareholders’ willingness to overvalue the stock vs. competitors and comparable companies. A Rubicon for a lot of these brands is full integration in their customers’ lives and environments, like daily use of products preferably in a ritualistic way, wearing of logo apparel, existence of collectibles, use of its language, and expressed reverence for its philosophy.

       CHAPTER 5

       In Search of Your Unique Advantage

      by Keith Lee

      The Harvard Business Review reports that if you can prevent 5% of your customers from leaving, you can increase your bottom line profit by 25% to 95%. You’ve seen math throughout this book that bears this out and even suggests greater opportunity just in preventing losses.

      A U.S. News and World Report study found that the average American business loses 15% of its customer base each year:

       • 68% of customers who stop buying from one business and go to another do so because of poor or indifferent service,

       • 14% leave because of an unsatisfactorily resolved dispute or complaint,

       • 9% leave because of price,

       • 5% go elsewhere based on a recommendation, and

       • 1% die.

      So 82% go somewhere else because of a customer service issue! This means it is within your power to stem up to 82% of your business’s loss of customers. I am here to emphasize that few business owners invest aggressively enough in this.

      With U.S. News and World Report reporting that 82% of customers leave one business and go to another because of a customer service issue, if you are serious about getting retention, getting more business from your current customers, and referrals, you’d better be serious about customer service.

      What’s sad for you and me is that most of those customers who leave because of a customer service issue don’t bother to complain. They just leave and don’t come back. Then you’re stuck spending a bunch of time, money, and resources trying to get new customers to replace them. It’s been shown time and time again that getting new customers is one of the most expensive things you can do to grow your business. Once you get a customer, you simply can’t afford to lose them. You can’t wait for complaints. You actually need to go looking for trouble and fix whatever ails your business СКАЧАТЬ