Losing Customer Loyalty Is Often from Little Things Adding Up

If you think customers don’t care about how you treat them and your employees, think again. Yesterday morning, as I went on my walk, I came to the point where I normally stop for iced tea. For the maybe the sixth time in 15 years, I went to Burger King. I stopped going to Burger King because they used the concentrated iced tea instead of fresh brewed. Several months ago, I heard that the one near us now uses fresh brewed. I hadn’t tried them until today. And I changed because my favorite stop for iced tea, and sometimes breakfast, finally lost my loyalty.

So what finally broke my feeling of customer loyalty? Actually, there have been a lot of things that all added up over time. For instance, this restaurant didn’t heat the facility on cold days. Among the other irritants, I watched them toss away good managers, destroy employee morale, and more. Finally, the accumulation of actions, each showing the business owner lacks a heart-centered focus to his business, has undermined my commitment to [...]

Don’t Sell What’s on the Wagon If

For hundreds of year or longer, there were merchants who traveled from town to town, country to country. You’ve doubtless seen movies and TV shows of the Old West when a peddler came through a remote rural area with his wagon loaded with as much merchandise as he could carry. If you wanted something then, like a skillet, you bought what he had or did without. This gave rise to an expression in retail that I was taught when I first went to work for Radio Shack Computer Centers in 1981: sell what’s on the wagon.

I’m telling you, don’t sell your customers what’s on the wagon just to get the sale regardless of whether it’ right or wrong for them. Soft sell sales and marketing are about aligning with your customers. Get to know and understand their problems and desires, wants and needs. Then advise them with all the honesty and integrity you would want if you were the [...]