Building client relationships & keeping them for life

The concept of creating and nurturing relationships is as vital in sales as it is in any other business.  Sales is a people business.  Recognizing the importance of client relationships is a crucial part of successful selling.  You would be astounded to learn how infrequently sales people capitalize on this fundamental concept.

• Did you know a typical business hears from only 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers.  The other 96 percent just quietly go away and 91 percent will never come back.  That represents a serious financial loss for companies whose people don’t know how to treat customers, and a tremendous gain to those that do.
• A typical dissatisfied customer will tell eight to ten people about his problem.  One in five will tell twenty.  It takes twelve positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident.
•  Seven out of ten complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor.  If you resolve it on the spot, 95 percent will do business with you again.  On average, a satisfied complainer will tell five people about the problem and how it was satisfactorily resolved.
• The average business spends six times more to attract new customers than it does to keep old ones.  Yet customer loyalty is in most cases worth ten times the price of a single purchase.

One of the greatest keys to long-term business success can be summed up in three simple words:  quality customer service. In today’s service-oriented economy, developing relationships and providing excellent service is more than a competitive weapon—it’s a survival skill.  If you don’t offer it, someone else will.  Can you afford not to improve in it?