Never Lose a Customer Again - Joey Coleman

Overview

A business guide focused on turning one-time buyers into lifelong fans by creating an exceptional customer experience, especially during the crucial First 100 Days after a sale, using an Eight-Phase Customer Journey model to proactively manage customer emotions and deliver consistent value beyond the initial purchase. Notes

• All customers have the potential to transition through a series of eight phases over approximately one hundred days 

• Applying the Hollywood technique in business, the customer's emotional journey becomes the primary focus. If businesses approached their customer interactions in the same way movies approach their audience interactions-figuring out the emotions a customer should have every step of the way-the entire world of business would change.

Phase 1: Assess

• The customer is deciding whether to do business with you or not. They learn about your organization and they share their expectations for the relationship. Most people refer to this as “sales and marketing.”

Phase 2: Admit 

• The customer admits they have a problem or a need and believe you that your company can solve it 

Phase 3: Affirm 

• Could be buyer's remorse if not done well

• Customer begins to doubt the decision 

• Affirm that the new customer's decision to do business with you is right 

Phase 4: Activate 

• When business starts to deliver on the promises made during the assess phase 

Phase 5: Acclimate 

• The customer learns about and grows comfortable with the way the company does business

Phase 6: Accomplishment

• Customer achieves the result they are looking for 
  

Phase 7: Adopt

• Customer takes ownership of the relationship leading the charge on seeking and strengthening the bond, they proudly show their support and affinity 

Phase 8: Advocate 

• Customer becomes a raving fan 

• Research shows that a handheld video, shot using the video camera on your mobile phone, with little to no script, and without much concern for the background or the setting, has a higher likelihood of not only getting through to your customer, but also converting them to take the action you desire.

• According to research by consulting firm McKinsey, 70% of buying decisions are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. 

Preframe your prospect 

• Explain and demonstrate the look and feel of the experience after the sale and set expectations for future interactions 

• If you want to know about your customers, it’s okay to just ask in a form or survey on what they want. Once they answer, you must use this information to make their future experience and interactions more personalized and meaningful.

Evaluate the current situation 

• When prospects review your marketing materials, do they get a good idea of what their experience is going to be like if they become customers and more of how they will feel doing business with you

• How long does the typical prospect assess your product or service before becoming a customer? 

• Does your sales team effectively and accurately record customer desires and needs?

• Does your sales team effectively and accurately share customer desires and needs with the individuals responsible for maintaining the relationship once the sale is made? 

• Do prospects receive a detailed and accurate preview of what their experience will be like after becoming a customer? 

• Do you set the prospect’s expectations to be in alignment with your business operations?

• Do you create remarkable experiences during the Assess phase? 

Tools to enhance the future experience 

• How can you use in-person interactions during this phase to give a prospect a taste of what it will be like to interact with you after they become a customer? 

• How can you make your emails more informative and informational / instead of being filled with marketing and sales speak? 

• How can a customized mail piece stand out and get the prospect thinking about you in an unexpected way? 

• How can phone conversations augment the sales process by introducing prospects to people in your company other than the salesperson? 

• How can videos create personal and emotional connections between a prospect and the rest of your team? 

• What presents could you give prospects that would really wow them?

Co-creating an experience establishes buy-in quickly. Memorializing the moment with a physical memento of the new partnership ensures that the new customer won’t soon forget the decision to work with you 

Personalize a welcome video / thumbnail and it’ll have 20x time more chance of being opened 

The sooner you can build a connection between your new customers and your current customers, the stronger those bonds will be and the longer they will last 

Admit questions 

Evaluating current situation 

• What happens when the prospect takes action to become a customer?

• Describe in detail what happens at the moment of “the sale”. How long does this time period last? What does it feel like? What does the customer keep doing to make it official? What do you do in this moment? 

• In your current business, do you create remarkable experiences during the Admit phase? 

Future looking 

• How can you use in-person interactions during this phase to get the relationship started on the right foot?

• How can you use emails to let the customer know you're excited to work with them and eager to get started?

• How can a customized mail piece memorialize this transition from prospect to customer?

• How can a phone conversation create a connection with this new customer?

• How can videos draw the new customer in and mark the moment when they transition from prospect to customer?

• What present(s) could you give these customers to memorialize the occasion?

Ensure the handoff between the salesperson and customer success is not shaky and is smooth - a video introducing them or bringing them sooner into the process so people know 

Affirm Questions 

• What happens during the "quiet period" between the customer's making a purchase or signing up for your service and your first major interaction?

• Describe in detail what happens between the sale and the first interaction. How long does this time period last? What does it "feel" like? What is the customer really thinking during this time? What are you doing during this time?

• Remove any barriers, no matter how small they seem, to your customers experiencing the product they paid for immediately upon receipt. Make it super simple to engage.

• Make the first impression a shocking experience. Combine your welcome with access (transparency), insight (here's the next step), and unexpected delight (resources for leveling up the relationship). Ideally, you want to paint a picture of what life is going to be like now that the customer is working with you.

Activate Questions 

• What is the first major interaction you have with your customers post sale? If you do consulting, this is the kickoff meeting

• Describe in detail that first interaction: How long does it last? What does it "feel" like? How do you build rapport? Is the interaction special or memorable?

Acclimate 

• Companies need to do the same thing with their customers, holding their hands and guiding them to make sure they get where they want to go, even if the customer protests and says they're "fine."

• Regular communication tied to key milestones eliminates uncertainty. There are no dead spots. The customer always knows where they are in the process and gains a feeling of satisfaction knowing that you are working on their behalf.

• You must understand your own process deeply. Take complex processes and break them down into bite-sized pieces, being careful not to give customers all the information at one time. Turn technical and process-driven discussions into visual graphics to increase understanding.

• Help your customers acclimate to your process by walking them (sometimes literally) through your world. If your company uses a particular lingo, introduce them to it early on so they feel included instead of excluded. Pair them with a well-trained, friendly employee who will shepherd them through the first few days of their experience. Don't forget that people crave community.

• When you give your customers the opportunity to find and create a community of like-minded people through their interactions with your company, it makes it easy for those customers to continue doing business with you.

• Anticipate things that might cause your customer to feel negative emotions (anxiety, uncertainty, frustration, etc.) and then figure out a way to address them before the customer even has a chance to ask you for help.

Acclimate Questions 

• How do you hold your customer's hand while they are getting familiar with working with you? (Hint: Do you have product directions, Gantt charts, process maps, an online customer portal, regular check-in meetings, etc.?)

• Describe in detail various things you do to help customers navigate your process. How long does it take before they start to see results? What does it "feel" like?

• How do you mark milestones along the way? How do you customers know what happens next?

• Know the customer's primary goal and then celebrate with them when they achieve that milestone. You should strive to invest at least 5 percent of a project's profits back into experience enhancements for your customer. If you run into challenges along the way, acknowledge them and, where appropriate, add humor to the interactions to make them more memorable and reduce the overall stress level.

• The mere fact that your customer achieved their desired goal or result is worthy of noting and celebrating. Not only does it show you were paying attention all along, but it lets you share in the successful achievement. Communications can be personalized or automated, as long as they are properly timed to the milestone. If the message coincides with a well-placed upsell offer, the likelihood of the customer purchasing again is significant.

• It's not unusual for a business to think it has crossed the finish line with a customer, only to find that the customer feels six paces behind. Taking the time in the beginning of the relationship to collaborate with the customer and establish solid metrics for success makes it easy to know whether the finish line is reached.

• Using surveys (both internally and externally) at the completion of an engagement to gather information about how the customer and your employees feel about working together allows for a clear understanding of what went right or wrong, and a better experience for everyone in future engagements.

• Elevate good customers into even better customers by creating exclusive experiences and allowing them to earn unique rewards.

• By establishing an exclusive membership tier for your top customers, you build affinity and give them yet another reason to continue doing business with you (something the airline frequent flier programs have known for years).

• Reward your customers for continuing to do business with you. If you have a product they love, consider gifting them another item in your product line that complements the items they already use.

• You'll be treating them to the feeling of excitement (everyone loves "free," high-quality goodies), and if they like what you give them, they'll come back for more.