Customer for Life – What Does It Mean?

When we say customers for life – it means that customers are willing to be in a financial relationship to experience your product or service again and again.

How do you get your customers to come back to you again and again?

It is by making them feel unique and offering excellent customer experience by honoring all your promises and helping them do their business better.

The Customer Experience (CX) Is the Differentiator

Look at these statistics compiled by Help Scout:

• 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they’re being treated
• 70% of Americans said that they were willing to spend more with companies providing an excellent customer experience
• The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60% to 70%; to a new prospect, it drastically comes down to 5% to 20%
• It takes a dozen positive experiences to make up for a single unresolved negative experience

What happens when you fail to provide an excellent customer experience? Your customers would take their business elsewhere.

Here is a telling statistic.

According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer is 5x to 25x more expensive than retaining an existing one.

What Does It Take To Provide Excellent Customer Experiences?

Look at these examples of unimaginable customer experiences:

Lego – A seven-year-old name Luka loses a minifigure while out shopping with his dad. At his father’s suggestion, he writes to Lego, hoping to get a replacement. Richard from Lego responds, stating that the minifigure would be replaced, and they will throw in other goodies that include all of the minifigure’s weapons and a bad guy to fight.

Zappos – Have you heard about the record-breaking Zappos customer service call that lasted 10.5 hours? Besides, the call wasn’t about Zappos products but mainly advice concerning relocating to Las Vegas.

Nordstrom – A rep drove all the way to the airport to return to a customer her bags, which she left in the store’s parking lot. The customer wasn’t picking up his call, and he had the airport inform her that her bags were with him.

You may not have the resources or the money to pull it off the way these leaders have done. In most cases, it’s the little things that make the difference.

Best Practices to Create Customer for Life

Product and Service Knowledge

You are selling the product and service and should know everything about what you sell. You should be an authority on it, and any queries your customers have, you should be able to respond immediately and help them with it.

When you know your product well, you’d also know its limitations. This would help you avoid positioning it as out of the world.

People respond to those who know what they are doing.

So, this should be the top priority to provide excellent customer experiences.

Ensure Adoption

Often, you’d find customers buying your product license or subscribing to your service, but they don’t use them effectively.

When your offering is not used, they’re unlikely to gain from it. So, ensure they use your offering effectively. Help them through using it, and show them tangible benefits they derive from using your product or service.

After all, any relationship should be a win-win for both parties and user adoption is key for your customers to gain business benefits.

Share Knowledge

As a solution provider, you’d have many customers using your product or service. You can take the good practices from your customers and share them with all your customers for them to gain maximum out of your offering.

You can also distill the use cases and share them with your customers and prospects.

Seek Honest Feedback

Seek honest feedback from your customers on how they use your offering, their expectations, and what else they’d like to seek in your offering.

Firstly, acknowledge their feedback and keep them informed about what you are doing about their feedback. It may not be necessary for you to act on everything, but keeping them informed will make you look sincere.

Adhere to Your Commitments

If you have promised a specific SLA to your customers, always stick to them. No customer likes to have last-minute surprises. If you have a genuine reason for not delivering on your promises, keep your customers informed upfront.

The key is to ensure that you stick to your promises, irrespective of your number of customers.

Customer experience isn’t about doing extraordinary things for your customers. It is about doing the basics right. It all boils down to having excellent product knowledge, ensuring the adoption of your offerings, sharing knowledge, seeking feedback and acting on them, and sticking to your promises.

If you do these, I am sure you will not have any customer churn.