The did it AGAIN!

Really, it doesn’t take much to impress people nowadays with the average level of customer service being so baaaaad!  There seems to be two trains of thought.  One is by the credit cards or lawn-care people who call and call and pester and mail and brow-beat you to subscribe, or upgrade your services.  On the other hand are the majority of businesses who put advertisements out there, but otherwise sit-back and wait for you to grace them with your presence.

I just had a call from Roger at Avis.  He was just checking in to let me know that he had taken over as my account manager.  I haven’t rented much this year because I’ve driven more than flown.  I’m small-potatoes to Avis, but I have someone I can call if I have any problems and his name is Roger.  As per my request, he emailed me his contact information and I’ve stored it in a “keeper” file in my email.

Out of all of the car rental companies I have used, Avis was the only one to personally ask me for all of my business.  I didn’t become loyal to them only because they asked; they actually gave me a pretty good offer that I could benefit from.  Then they followed-up AGAIN to make sure the arrangement was working for me.  Budget and National could do the same thing, but they don’t.  They rely on their websites, discount-travel websites and national advertising campaigns without ever reaching-out to clients and prospects on a personal level.

C2A (call to action) – If you don’t regularly call clients to follow-up on purchases or to invite them to visit you soon for a clean-and-check of their jewellery, make a list of 10 people to call this week.  Call until you get them in person.  Then keep track over the next two weeks how many of those people you see in your store.  Once you realize that this one small additional point of personal contact has value, set-up a follow-up system that regulates your efforts to reach-out to your clients.  Don’t call them weekly or monthly.  You’ll never keep it up and you might wear-out your welcome.  If all of your clients get a follow-up call to each purchase and maybe one or two seasonal calls, for many of you that will be a nice improvement in your personal marketing efforts.