The over/under on lifetime loyalty

By Rich Lindblom, AVB Marketing

The quickest way to lose a customer for life is to make promises and fail to live up to them. 

Unfortunately, too many salespeople will say whatever they think it takes to make the sale. But that is a recipe for disaster, as it leads to a disproportionate percentage of one-and-done customers.

There’s an old adage I learned many years ago and, in my opinion, it may well be the single most important element of customer satisfaction: “Under promise and over deliver.”

If you’ve never heard the expression before, you might be wondering what the heck it even means.  Actually, it’s pretty simple: Always live up to your promises and never disappoint.

How do you go about doing that?  It’s actually easier than you might think.  Simply put, only promise what you are certain will happen.  Let me give you a few examples:

Availability

When setting customer expectations for product delivery, if you truly expect the product to be at your dock in five days, don’t tell the customer it will be there in three to five days.  This sets the unrealistic expectation in their mind that it will be there in three days. Customers only hear the most favorable outcome.  To them, three to five days means three days, and anything longer than that is a disappointment.  So even if you get the product on the fifth day, which is within your stated time frame, in their mind you let them down.  Instead, tell them five to seven days, or better yet a week. This way, when you get it on that fifth day, you are a hero instead of a goat.

Price

When you’re unsure of the cost of labor or parts for a particular job, never lowball the estimate because it will surely come in higher and once again lead to customer dissatisfaction.  You are far better off to err on the side of caution; if the price comes in below your original estimate, you look like a hero, whereas if you try to charge more than your original estimate, you look like a crook.  In fact, I’d go so far as to make it a practice to always come in a few bucks under the price you quoted your customer, even if it’s coming out of your pocket.  When a customer feels like they got a great deal, they will always come back for more.

Returning a Call

It may sound silly, but if you promise to call a customer or return a phone call, do it.  Nothing angers a customer more than a broken promise, and not following up after you said you would tells them you don’t respect their time or needs.

When you get right down to it, this strategy can be applied to just about any customer interaction within your business.  Any time you interact with a customer there is very likely a situation where you are going to set an expectation.  And, as a general rule, if you can exceed a customer’s expectations, you are more likely to win that customer over. But on the flip side, when you fail to live up to a customer’s expectations, you risk losing them forever.

The bottom line is that if you can train yourself to under promise and over deliver, you will win more life-long customers, which is critical to the long-term success of your business.  So get out there and start practicing that simple principle today.

Rich Lindblom is a past principal of Advanced Maytag Home Appliance Center, a 64-year-old family business in the Chicagoland area. After working at and eventually leading the company for more than four decades, Rich and his brother sold the operation. He is now sharing his hard-won retail know-how with fellow BrandSource members in a regularly appearing column for YSN and as product manager of AVB’s SYNC point-of-sale system. Contact Rich at rich.lindblom@avb.net.

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