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Keep your customers by being consistent

Saturday, September 9 2006

We all know a critical component of top quality service is consistency. Brands are worthless without consistency. Marketing promises are empty (at best) and lies (at worst) without consistency.

All great brands rely on consistency to keep their customers coming back again and again.

And it makes sense.

When we spend our valuable time and our hard-earned money on a product or service, we want to know what we're going to get.

And if we are to rely on a brand, then that brand needs to be consistent in how it serves us.

If I get a substantially different experience each time I do business with the same company, then I won't know what to expect in future encounters. If I don't know what to expect from a company then they have a less compelling reason for me to choose them over anyone else.

As a customer, I want some assurance of what I'll get when I choose to do business with you. I enter the relationship with certain expectations. Some of these expectations were created by your marketing. Others by past interactions with you. Still others were created by my interactions with your competitors.

Either way, if you meet or exceed my expectations, I'll choose you more often. Because you provide more value for me. You make my decision process easier and faster.

When you offer me consistency, you're reducing my risk in doing business with you.

I like that.

All customers do (even if they don't tell you).

Reducing my risk means you're increasing your value to me.

If you become more valuable to me then you can charge me more than your competitors can.

Or, maybe you charge the same price but you're able to serve me for a lower cost. Because you can count on me being there for you. You can spend less on marketing than your competitors do. You spend less on fixing mistakes because you and I know how to work together as a customer and a business.

And, you'll probably have more happy and stable employees because a stable customer base typically leads to more engaged and stable employees.

Your bottom line is healthier because your customers are more loyal.

That's what I call Smart Marketing!



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