Consistent service and employee retention are the keys to holding onto clients, said Jeffrey Scott during his webinar “6 Steps to Guarantee Customer Loyalty” on July 23.
Part of delivering consistent service means having a consistent staff. “Don’t mess with your client’s favorite faces,” said Scott. “In order to ensure that your staff will be loyal to customers, you have to be loyal to your staff.”
He also mentioned the importance of surveying employees and getting to know the good ones. Scott said that when employees have a positive relationship with their superiors it leads to a positive work environment.
“If you can help develop your employee’s careers you will develop their loyalty,” said Scott, noting the most important quality in an employee is his or her ability to learn.
Scott outlined the importance of the “stump speech,” which consists of the company’s mission, vision and values. The mission is one sentence about why the company was started. That statement should never change. The company’s vision is the company’s goals or what the company’s building. The company’s values are the qualities that an employee needs to exhibit to work for the company. The stump speech should be made visible to employees at all times and should be something they can repeat back to customers, Scott said.
Another important step is the “quality score program,” Scott said. It’s a method of holding employees accountable for their work by keeping score of performance. The motivation behind such a program is internal competition where the winners are exposed, not the losers. The idea is the competition will create motivation for success and, therefore, happier customers. Scott stressed that such a program should only be implemented if the company is going to stick with it. If the program is something the boss does consistently, it will lead to greater accountability.
The common theme to each of Scott’s steps was the need for consistency and cohesiveness between employees and their superior. According to Scott, the overall secret to customer loyalty is loyalty to one’s own employees.
“Do all your employees understand your goals? If not, do better work and do it consistently,” said Scott.
