Profitability
Comes from:
↓
Customer Loyalty
Comes from:
↓
Customer Satisfaction
Comes from:
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Quality Customer Service
SUCCESS IN ALL PHASES OF BUSINESS DEPENDS UPON CUSTOMER LOYALTY!
PROFITABILITY
Increased profitability of course comes from referrals and added business from your loyal customers.
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Customers normally evolve to Loyal Customers from multiple communications. Keep in mind, the more ways a client hears from you, and the more added-value you bring to the table, the more likely they will remember you at the correct time. All customers are interested in value propositions. A single strategy is normally not enough to develop loyal customers, thus you want to develop systems that create a path to increased levels of loyalty.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Customer satisfaction naturally evolves over a serious of actions and interactions with your client and others who affect your client’s transaction. Customer satisfaction is not enough. One click of the mouse, or one phone call, and your satisfied customer just defected to a competitor. Focus on continually providing value to your customers is one key to building and retaining loyal customers.
A real estate example: Your customer will have many more interactions after the sale with home service providers and various vendors providing products and/or services to homeowners. If you are serious about retaining customers for future referrals, these interactions are also going to matter, well beyond the closing. You can stay involved with those interactions and they should be handled with the same conscientious attention as sales calls. In essence this attention is nothing more than “sales calls” for repeat business.
QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE
Customer service is your personal approach to how you interact with your clients. Know what clients want and deliver it in a timely manner. No one can do customer service for you… it is up to you.
Written by: Arnie Goldberg, Customer Loyalty Advisor for iEnfluence.
The Fed came out last week and said it downgraded the countries performance and its focus will be to stimulate housing and stop values from falling. In my opinion housing is the key and will get the US out of this economic slow down. This means rates will stay low because the best way to stop falling US house prices is to lower the rates for borrowers. The Fed has make public statements saying that rates will stay low for an extended period of time. The refinance market is very busy with homeowners having an opportunity to get excellent fixed rates. The stimulus package is quite detailed, but my focus is on the real estate strategies it proposes. One major item that jumps out at me and I have been receiving questions about is the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers. This is a great advantage for clients looking to buy who make a combined income of $150,000 or less and $75,000 for individuals. There has been a lot of opinions on how the best way to help the economy recover and as time passes more details will be uncovered. I have seen a spike in clients looking to get pre approved and actively looking to purchase as they see great deals on homes.
Written by Colton Daines, Mortgage and Banking Advisor for iEnfluence.
Products have a tangible image than can be visualized, and even touched or tried out before a purchase. Thus the buyers or prospects can attach in their minds some sort of consistency to the product and company offering the product.
On the other hand, SERVICES often have the perception of being much more inconsistent and cause more hesitancy in prospects and skepticism in actual customers. Thus, those of us in the services industries have to perform at more than 110% in fact 110% is expected today. We have to perform at 125% to be considered great. The evaluation can even change for each purchase and the concerns by purchasers and prospects lead to using one’s own resources. Often that is asking reference group members, or trusted family or business connections during the purchase decision process. “Who did you use as your realtor?” “What neighborhoods did you look at?” “What doctor would you recommend? Which car dealer do you suggest?”
These questions in today/s world now extend from close contacts to the whole Social Media arena, especially where trust has been established, thus the research before a decision is made has broadened to possibly the whole country and/or the whole world.
Customer Loyalty is built from various pieces of the puzzle and they often begin with the simple premise that the service provider meets and exceeds the expectations of the customer. Expectations partially come from word of mouth and those communications with others described above.
Understanding the complex nature of the buyer’s motivation, emotional makeup regarding the decision and their expectations can help the service provider reach that 125% level. Once the transaction is completed, that is only one piece of the total relationship of the purchaser (customer) and the service provider. Now the real work and expertise of top-notch service providers “kicks-in.” Weak service providers drop the ball at this stage. Top-notch, quality, service professionals have CUSTOMER LOYALTY STRATEGIES in place. In many cases, it is best for small businesses, realtors, mortgage brokers and insurance agents should seek third party companies to help them with these Customer Loyalty Strategies to keep the cost down and have access to Big Business Tools for Small Businesses.
Arnie Goldberg, Marketing and Customer Loyalty Advisor, iEnfluence VP Marketing 3DM Corp.
Technology is all about empowering the user. The early years of the Information Age were the precursor to this as they empowered the organization that nurtured data. Whoever could collect and manage the data had a competitive advantage and any investments in technology proved to pay for themselves quickly and many times over. This is still the case but technology has brought it down to the micro level. Since the advent of the personal computer, most hardware and software innovations have empowered the user as much as or more so than the organization. Now that we have the power and ownership in the hands of the user, the user has the power. Think about your laptop, iPHONE, Blackberry, the VoIP phone you use at home, Garmin or your Magic jack you now control more than ever before. There is no end in sight. This is one of the reasons I like iEnfluence so much. It is an extension of this process and puts the power in the hands of the user. The real estate industry is overripe for this change.
Written by Chuck Reed, Operations Advisor for iEnfluence
In the blink of an eye, the playing field has changed for many companies around the world thanks to technology which is now available, most notably Twitter. 
In a matter of seconds, a negative expression of dissatisfaction can cross the wires and influence hundreds of thousands, if not millions of consumers minds and this has seriously caused pandemonium and even some confusion to companies world-wide – and for good reason.
Although many companies have had no choice but to embrace the movement and took the plunge to engage the community, there still remains many “holes” about how a company can use the technology to better serve their customers, or what for that matter the rules of engagement actually are and how a little “tweet” can reduce customer defection, or at least prevent it.
The Myth – Demystified
Twitter is about an individuals personal expression or “voice”
Contrary to any nay-sayers belief, an organization CAN in fact prevent customer defection or learn from their customer base by leveraging Twitter as a TOOL in their Customer Satisfaction toolbox.
Written by Jason Tryfon President and Chief Sales Officer of Vital Insight Group
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