Tag: Lifetime Customer Relationship

Where Do You Stand on Customer Relations?

Posted on by brianjpombo

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Is the customer ALWAYS right?

Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Where do you stand on customer relations?

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I’ve got a lot of clients and I’ve also had throughout the years, customers here and there have specific items. But I work with clients who work with customers and the relationship that I have with clients, oftentimes, is very similar to the relationship they’re having with their customers. And it’s something to really keep an eye on.

Here’s the thing I always go back to, there’s a time and place for everything. And while I certainly don’t subscribe to the customers always being right and that you need to bend over backwards at every single chance, especially when they’re when they’re pushing things that they should be, there’s a time and place for everything.

And so you got to be willing to step back and take a look at a situation. So I’ll give you an example. I’ve had customers that even after or excuse me, clients, for me, it’s working a lot with clients. And I’ve had clients that have had, that have pushed their way through the lines that I’ve drawn.

You always have to design lines in a relationship, what’s to be expected and what’s not to be expected. I’ve drawn the lines, expecting them to be crossed on occasion, and they almost always are. And then I remind them about the lines that are drawn.

So for example, the times of the day, the times of the week that I’m that I allow for communication, I draw those lines, and I stick to them.

Now, every once in a while there’s an emergency, there’s something that the client gets worked up over, they, they step over the line, and that’s okay. If you get too strict about these things, then you’re not keeping real clear headed, what you got to do is take everything as it comes and handle it where it happens.

Because sometimes the emergency is real, and you got to pay attention to it. Most of the time, it isn’t. And I have to remind clients, okay, there’s a reason why I’m available during these times are not available during these times.

But I’ll work on something on Christmas Day, if necessary. If it means moving forward, even though I don’t allow that for me and my clients. But if it’s necessary, it’s necessary you do what you got to do. And so there’s a time and place for everything.

You’ve got to draw those lines with your customers. what’s available, what isn’t available, your customer service, your customer relations, how is that going to work?

How’s it going to work in the long run?

What can they expect from you and your team, you got to draw these things out, stick to them as best as possible. But allow for flexibility, especially if you’ve got a team of people that are working on customer relations, allow for the flexibility for them to judge a time and a moment. as to when they need to.

They need to fudge the lines a little bit here and there. It makes a big difference. It gets appreciated on the other side. I can’t say it gets appreciated every time. But it will be appreciated by the right people at the right time. Hopefully that’s helpful.

I’m not sure it’s a it’s a very common thing that I come into. I come into contact with it all the time. And the people that I know that have the best relationship with their customers are ones that have a strict policy, but not too strict, that they allow the people that are on the front lines, working with customers to be able to judge each situation individually.

So if you’re looking for more help with your overall strategy, go check out my book if you haven’t yet. It’s called, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. You can get a free copy over at AmazonProofBook.com.

I’ll be back here tomorrow night as I am every night. This is the last night in California for 2020. And so we’re heading back to Oregon, headquartered over in Southern Oregon and Grants Pass Oregon. And so we’ll be back there tomorrow night. We’ll see you then. In the meantime, you get out there and let the magic happen.

Is Amazon Stealing Your Customers? 👀

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Some thoughts on customers sales vs. building lifetime relationships like Sleep Zone is doing the example used by Brian tonight.

Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Is Amazon stealing your customers?

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo. Welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Let’s talk a little bit about that, shall we? So Amazon.com, one of the most common issues I’ve heard from people that sell things online through Amazon.com is that they don’t have their customer data, that you have very little information about your customers.

Because Amazon gets all that they get all the details about the customer, they get the community communication with the customer. And you don’t get a whole heck of a lot.

It’s very difficult to build an ongoing relationship, because people have built that relationship, via their amazon prime account, and so forth.

So, this isn’t just an Amazon problem.

It’s just Amazon’s made it a mainstream issue.

This is a retail wholesale issue. And I’ve got a lot of people out in my audience, people that I’ve interviewed on my podcast, and so forth, that have a wholesale retail element to their business.

And the toughest thing about that is that the retail location, whether it’s a physical location, or whether it’s an online store, they’re the ones that maintain the relationship with your customer.

And the value, the true value in a business isn’t in the product exchange for money. The real value in the business is the relationship with the customer, the long term relationship.

I talked about this quite a bit in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, which you could get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com. AmazonProofBook.com. So you go check that out.

But you can also go and check it out at Amazon.com. I like to have a relationship with my audience, so that’s one one way that you can do it.

Here’s another way. We just recently and I’m no hypocrite or anything, I use Amazon.com. I love it for Prime members.

And we’ve got a we buy things through it all the time. I mean, ridiculous amounts of stuff we get through Amazon.com. And the service continues to get better and better.

But the best thing is, they’re causing everyone else to get better and better. Just today I saw a deal where they’ve got a thing I think it’s called Walmart Plus, I guess I should have researched this before bringing it forward.

Walmart Plus where Walmart is, is doing kind of a prime type thing to where they will deliver anything. for free. If you sign up for a year’s worth of their subscription so that you don’t even need to go to the store anymore.

It can come to you, you pay like about what you would for about 100 bucks a year or something like that. Like I said, I heard this through the grapevine my wife was telling me all about it.

So we were looking at Oh, well we can do that with Walmart. It’s all because Amazon’s kicking their butt. Because Amazon’s providing so much value to the marketplace. I’m not here to cheerlead Amazon either.

But I want to show you how you can get around these retailers, one of the things you can do is work on selling directly or building that relationship directly with your with your own people.

Like with my website, you could see how I go through that process. But another way, we just bought this, I don’t know if it was a duvet cover, which I don’t know what that is because I’m a guy.

But we bought some type of sheet or something like that from a company called sleep zone. And we got the package everything else and you’ve seen these in packages your whole life, you’ve seen the little card.

That is for a lifetime warranty, that all you got to do is go and sign up for it. You go and you put in the details as to when you bought it where you bought it from.

Sometimes you got to put in like the item code or something like that in it. And this is a this is nowadays but before I don’t know if you remember getting these were oftentimes you and you don’t see this as often but you it was a postcard that you filled out, and it already had the postage paid on it, and you put it in the mail.

So why do companies go through the hassle of doing this?

Nowadays, they just tell you go to a website and sign up for it.

Sometimes they’ll have the little QR code or whatever to click on. But this is to send you to sleep…..the name of the company sleep zone. It tells you thank you on one side for shopping with us. Sleep zone, let’s dream and then you go to the other side warranty lifetime or a lifetime warranty. Activate your lifetime warranty.

Now step one, visit www.sleepzonelife.com. Step two, click the support menu and enter your information so they get you to go online to do it. Sometimes they have something a little bit more than a warranty. But oftentimes, it’s all that’s needed depending on what you’re actually selling.

And the reason why this is done is so that they can start a one on one relationship.

You because we bought this through Amazon, they don’t have any of our details, Amazon’s got all the details, especially with prime where they’ll, they’ll take the products and deliver it. So you don’t even have the addresses.

But these guys want to start marketing to their people. So they get you to go online and start a relationship.

And this is a major point, like I said, in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, you go and check it out. That’s one of the main things I talked about doing is getting that relationship, ongoing relationship with your customer.

There’s nothing better because that’s where the real value of the business lies. Hopefully that makes sense. Yeah, great idea. Everyone should be doing this that’s doing any form of retailing whatsoever.

If you have your products or services being offered by somebody else, and they can and they have the relationship, you’ve got to bring that relationship over to your end.

Because that’s where the value comes. It’s not in that first sale. It’s not in the one sale of the product. It is in the ongoing sales of products and services over time to that same person. Hopefully that makes sense.

We’ll be back here tomorrow night for another tip for ways you can help your business in the ways of principles, strategies and tactics. You have a great night. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.