Scary stats for why people stop buying from businesses

1% die
3% move away
5% follow a friend’s or relative’s recommendation 9% find an alternative they perceive to be better quality or value
14% are dissatisfied with the products or service
And a massive 68% of people leave a business because of… indifference. They take their business elsewhere simply because they do not feel valued.

Since a lot of time, money and effort are spent acquiring new clients, if existing clients leave you because of indifference, you might as well be flushing £50 notes away!

Too often the only way for a customer to leave feedback is to go online and post a negative review. Head off that negative word of mouth and encourage more happy customers to leave reviews by making it really easy.

Give out lots of feedback and comment forms – and don’t forget that checkbox that says, “Yes, I give permission to use my comments in your marketing materials.”

Get feedback from customers, friends, business associates, employees:

Try to find out who is seeing your message and how they are seeing it
When you first start working with a new client/customer ‘seed’ from the outset that you will be asking them for a brief testimonial when the work is completed. Don’t feel embarrassed to ask, and remember to do it!
Thank clients for WOM referrals and recommendations. If someone is sending you lots
of referrals, send a small, quality gift as a thank you.
Is your business appropriate for a loyalty scheme to be introduced?
If someone has used your service, you could put together a brief questionnaire, perhaps 6 questions. And if it’s only a quick transaction you had with the client, don’t include lots of ‘subjective’ opinion questions.

I received one last week and after 5 minutes I was only 37% through. I zapped it away and emailed back and said it was too long! The power of stats from such surveys is powerful, though. “XX% of customers reported being 99% satisfied with our work” – for example.

Always be willing to tweak and tune your offerings as you go, based on feedback.