myRetailer.ca

Retain customer loyalty even after negative feedback with creative notes of appreciation.

Nurse Next Door, a Vancouver based senior care company uses the humble pie approach to keeping valued, albeit sometimes, complaining customers. Each time they receive a complaint, they send out a freshly baked pie with a message that says “We have messed up, and we are humbled.”

The firm estimates that they have kept over $90,000 worth of business for the cost of approximately $1,300 worth of pies over the years. What an innovative idea! Now that’s something that their customers will always remember.

We’ve all heard that keeping an existing customer is much less costly than trying to acquire a new one.  So what is in your program for those customers who might have been unhappy with the service they received from your company? (more…)

Bounce back and recover customer loyalty after a bad experience

You want customers talking positively about you spreading the great word of mouth about your store. According to Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller, authors of A Complaint Is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong describe research states a full 25% of positive customer service stories that people tell started out the wrong way or from complaints. The act of converting a complaining customer into a loyal customer is called “Service Recovery”. (more…)

Don’t worry about your product mix, its service that sells

In a recent survey, Canadians ranked level of customer service as one of the top four most important factors in deciding where to shop. Reinforce the importance of customer service to your staff and your customers.

I tell people all the time that we are in the service business. We just happen to sell home and garden products.

 Here is a short column that I wrote for all of our staff last week. (more…)