Shocking Information About Maintaining Customer Relationships Exposed.
Author: Danie Baptiste

Are you very good at maintaining customer relationships in
your small business?

If the answer to this is 'no' and one of your goals is to
make money in your business then you'd better re-focus your
priorities.

Your top objective should be revolved around protecting
your customer relationships and winning back those you
thought you'd never lose.

Here is an excellent case study: The year was 1997 and
United Parcel Service (UPS) lost a significant number of
customers as a result of a strike by Teamsters lasting
fifteen days.

So, where did much of UPS's base of 1.5 million customers
run off into the sunset with?

Well, they rode off on a white horse with RPS, Federal
Express, and Airborne because the work stoppage opened the
eyes of the UPS customers to see how risky it is to use a
single shipment company to take care of all their packages
and parcels.

Of course, Fedex had no complaints about the strike as it
was responsible for the company delivering upwards of
850,000 additional packages as each day of the strike went
on and reported that they expected to keep at least 25% of
these new customers.

UPS wasted very little time in putting into action an
aggressive plan to reclaim their lost customers and neither
should you as a small business owner. This is the way UPS
looked at it: jobs are on the line and this posed a grave
threat to their profits.

Furthermore, what made this situation worse was that
despite the 80,000 drivers back behind the wheels of the
big brown trucks....thousands more were laid off. UPS had
one thing on their mind during this time: "Win back our
customers or die!"

UPS put on their 'customer win-back' hats as soon as the
strike settled down and began a telephone campaign letting
customers know that business was back to normal as usual
and sending out letters expressing their apology for any
inconvenience it may have caused.

UPS officials also mailed out letters reassuring customers
that the company's former reliability had been reinstated
and encouraged them to use the discounted certificates
enclosed.

This attitude of 'things being back to normal' was also
being reinforced by the UPS drivers dropping by for pickups
as they expressed cheerfulness and great confidence when
meeting face to face with customers.

Do you think it stopped there? Not at all.

UPS was determined to further heal the open wounds and
broken trust such that they invited their customers to meet
with them at both small and large round table meetings to
hear them out.

The goal was to recover their lost customers and their many
win-back initiatives coupled with on-line shopping,
continued progress in shipping technology and
cost-effective services, helped UPS to accomplish this goal.

It also enabled them to return their drivers to work and
increase its' profits by 87 percent only one year following
the strike that almost destroyed their business.

If you're thinking to yourself that you could never be in
the same situation with UPS as you're a small business
owner and only major companies are vulnerable to these
kinds of things....

Well, my friend, I couldn't disagree with you more because
every business need to be protecting and maintaining
customer relationships especially in these unstable
economic times as it's been reported that every year
businesses lose anywhere between 10 to 40 percent of their
customers.

Think about all the news you read about in downsizings,
plant closings, rightsizings and layoffs. What kind of
effect do you think this is having on employees and the
surrounding communities?

What about the impact on customer turnovers that go
unmonitored? This type of thing results in the remaining
customers feeling alienated, stagnation in company growth,
and deterioration of employee trust.

And we all know that when people are not treated in the way
they feel is right by a business they are quick to raise
their voices for everyone within earshot to hear.

This reminds me of a restaurant I used to be a customer of
for many years. I spent an average of $150 per month with
them on their menu specials. I loved the food and brought
along several co-workers to join me there for lunch.

One day I went to grab my usual meal there and learned that
the restaurant would be closing their doors that very same
day and moving to another location much further away due to
the high rent prices they were paying.

I remember hearing customer after customer expressing their
shock and disappointment upon learning of this sudden news:
"What?!...well, why didn't the owner send out a letter
letting us know?!!"

I shared the same sentiments. And even though it served
some of the best meals that I've ever tasted....I never
recommended it to another individual nor did I go to the
trouble of traveling to their new location because of how
they treated me. Needless to say, they lost me as a
customer.

Hmmm...something tells me this place of business is going
to have bigger problems to come than keeping up with the
high cost of rent.

If you're not doing everything you can do to protect your
customer relationships then you'll be spending a
significant amount of money in advertising and since most
small businesses are not using direct response marketing in
which they're employing tracking and measuring
strategies....they're most likely wasting their money.

But that's a topic for my next article. Until then, focus
on the lesson I hope you've learned here: the importance of
maintaining customer relationships.

If you take care of your customers....they'll take good
care of you!


About the Author:

Yves Marie Danie Baptiste is an expert in small business
marketing, helping entrepreneurs with limited budgets to
find creative ways to increase their profits with their
existing customers. Click here: http://tinyurl.com/6eysp4
for more information on how to powerfully market your small
business and increase your income.