Imagine, you’re at your local big box retailer getting some help for a problem you need to solve. Along comes a new customer with a question that is apparently more important than yours.
Instead of the employee politely telling the person to wait their turn or call for another associate, they walk away with that new customer helping them with their needs.
Are you a ghost? Is this really happening?
This activity happens all too often in the B2B world. The difference is that in many companies that employee focused on the new customer doesn’t just follow the new customer. They are tasked with sourcing them out in the first place.
That is known as lead generation.
Lead generation and customer acquisition taking first priority over current customer growth doesn’t seem to make much sense. You’ve got valuable customers already buying from you, month after month. But they’re forgotten. As long term customers, they’re taken for granted.
Instead of finding ways to grow the value of current, happy customers, new customers get discounts spooned onto their plates like they are royalty. These fresh faces have not yet had the chance to show they’re as loyal as our current customers.
That’s why enticing leads to become customers is counter-intuitive.
Stop Decreasing the Price and Your Brand Perception
And then there’s the question of what message is sent when a price is lowered. What value have you communicated about the value of your product, if the price is slashed?
If we don’t lower the price, what is a company to do to grow their business?
Focus On Your Customer
You need to be indispensable to them, so your brand is perceived to be more valuable to your customers than the contents of the Federal Reserve.
In the excellent book, The Go Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann, the message of providing value to others instead of “looking out for number one” has grown sales for many businesses. They grow because the people who work for them are authentic in their desire to help other people be successful. People still buy from other people.
When people add value for others without keeping score, as mentioned in The Go Giver, success has a way of finding you. People want to help you succeed.
Communicate Value Beyond Deliverables
Giving doesn’t mean giving away products and services, but if your people notice a way to be helpful without making every interaction a profit center, customers place value on it.
What’s the ROI of Giving?
For starters, you can not only minimize any churn rate, you can grow sales qualified leads with none of the customer acquisition costs. That’s because by helping your customers benefit they will often want to send referrals your way.
It’s like having your own army of outside company ambassadors soldiering on behalf of your company. Just because it wasn’t all about your bottom line.
What are your thoughts on reducing customer churn? Too lofty? Excited to change your sales and marketing mindset? Feel free to comment below.