Welcome to the People Smart Toolbox, the monthly email newsletter packed with ideas, insights, and inspiration for increasing your personal skills, staff development, conflict resolution, and customer relations issues.

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This Month's Hot Links

Customer Retention Training

Customer Defection

Are your customers committed to your business or organization?

Would it be valuable to know exactly what your customers think about the personnel, products, pricing and processes of your business? If a customer is dissatisfied with any of these four things (the 4 "P's" of great service), they can easily be lured away by a competitor. You may say, "You lose some and you win some" but do you know how much it costs to lose a customer?

Research by The American Marketing Association indicates that a 5% DECREASE in customer defection can INCREASE profits by 30%! Service Quality Institute, a leader in customer service research and training, reports that it costs 5 times as much to get a new customer as it does to KEEP an old one. All studies and common sense point to the extraordinary value of retaining customers for life.

• Price: Price never stands by itself; it is always coupled with the other three "P's".
• Process: It's not the big that eat the small; it's the fast that eat the slow. Process is about accuracy, speed, and communication. The better you are at processes, the harder it is for a customer to defect.
• Personnel: A poor attitude sabotages sales. The people who answer the phones are the most important people in the company!
• Product: There are usually not many complaints about products. However, customers may think your product needs to be upgraded.

I have had the same car and home insurance company for over 30 years. I don't know if they're the least expensive or not, here's what I do know. Just like a good neighbor, they have always been there when I need them. Our family has had car accidents, roof damage, broken windshields, and even the bizarre.

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If a customer is dissatisfied with any of the four "P's" of great service, they can effortlessly defect to a competitor. Why take a chance of that happening in your business?

Actual results from Customer Loyalty Surveys:

A company thought their customers were dissatisfied with their back order refill time. They weren't. Thousands of dollars were saved by not adding unnecessary inventory.

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One of the most effective ways to know how committed your customers are to your company or organization is to call and ask them. Most of the time you don't hear about a customer's dissatisfaction until they are already gone. Surveying their perceptions gives them the opportunity to validate or express dashed expectations.

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Do you know people in your organization that need a personal skills tune-up? What would your daily work culture be like if they changed their attitude towards themselves and others? The art of relating to people is not hard to learn. It will dramatically improve productivity, enjoyment of work and overall satisfaction.

Relationship tension is the number one destroyer of creativity and robs workplace productivity. For a person to be effective on a team, he/she must feel appreciated by other team members, have a clear definition of what is expected of them, and receive feedback on how they are doing. The "How to Improve Your Personal Influence" Workshop, developed and taught by Jim Rooney, CPBA, grounds employees with proven methods for getting along and prospering with other people.

Many people have never been taught the basics of effective communication. They have little influence with others and do not know why. Success at work can be directly proportional to the extent of one's personal development.

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All the best,