by Noah Fleming
In 2016, in an interview with Bloomberg, Reichheld discussed how the single post-purchase follow-up survey has officially “jumped the shark” as companies merely bribe their customers by asking for 10s instead of using the survey as an opportunity to create improvement— or in this case, extend the loyalty loop.4 The employees don’t care what the customers have to say, so they bribe the customers to give top marks. Companies say things like “It would be really valuable for us if you gave us a 10.” What good does that do to help you improve your customer’s experience? Nothing. It’s rather damaging because it signals to customers that “we don’t truly care if you’re happy or not. We only care if we get high marks.” In larger companies, you have these huge investments into adhering to the NPS program, and then front-line employees bribing customers to give 10s. The scores end up as valuable as a bundle of Lehman Brothers stock.
The other huge issue, of course, is that the number means absolutely nothing unless you understand what’s required after the sale to bring a customer back or to extend the loyalty loop and create the next desired action from your customer. Even with all the Remarkable Moments, great memories, and positive feelings you’ve created throughout the customer’s experience, people eventually get back to real life. This means that your past customers aren’t spending 24/7 thinking about the next time they’ll do business with you. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. They return to a normal life where kids get sick, cars break down, bills need to be paid, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da life goes on. Who cares if they would score you a 10 on the NPS scale? The only thing that matters is if they will actually tell someone about you and they actually do it; if they actually come back and do business with you, and so on, and so on. There are a lot of ifs. And perhaps, most important, if your company is willing to make changes if your scores are poor. A lot of people in business have a hard time understanding that people aren’t thinking about spending money with their businesses each and every waking moment of the day.
If you only ask one silly NPS question, how will you know where you’re dropping the ball? How will you know where you need to improve and do a better job? How will you know where to invest your marketing dollars?
It’s our job in Stage Four to have the right processes and procedures in place to ensure all of those things and more happen. The loyalty loop can be repeating for a single customer, and it also spirals to create new customers and new opportunities, but only when you have the right processes in place to make that happen. Consistency and familiarity are the keys to Stage Four and creating the right environment for word of mouth and referrals to happen. Just because my first experience is a good experience, does not necessarily mean I’m ready for a silly one-question survey about if I’m willing to refer. I’m likely not ready yet, and asking me at the wrong time can actually influence my memory of a great experience gone bad. Remember back to earlier chapters and the seemingly wonderful experiences ruined by a poor ending. I may be only willing to refer after my fifth or eighth purchase.
Oh, and the day before writing this, I got an NPS survey from a company that I haven’t given a dime to in four years. I also continue to get their “customer-only” newsletters. This is a company that’s doing north of $50 million a year revenue and has been on the Inc. 5000 list half a dozen times in the past eight years. Now you might be saying, “So what, Noah? They’re doing annual revenue of over $50 million a year.” Yeah, but they could be doing $125 million if they were doing things right. I bet they could. Is your business more about checking the boxes and less about generating meaningful results? And that’s the key distinction here. Moreover, the request from the company I haven’t done business with isn’t just blatantly wrong; it’s entirely inappropriate. I’m not a customer and haven’t been in a long time. This is just one way so many companies are encouraging negative word of mouth. I was in a meeting once where a CEO found out his people weren’t following up on quotes of about $30 million a year. He looked at his people and everyone sat in stunned silence. Finally, he said, “Here’s what we’re going to do! Every month we’re going to have a big old’ bonfire in the company parking lot. I’ll give you all $250,000 of my money. At least this way we can toast marshmallows.” Harsh example, but so true. Let’s talk about how much follow-up, how often, and why it’s important.
The 90–45 Rule
I was conducting a workshop with a B2B client when one of the attendees in the back of the room raised his hand. He said, “I’ve got a confession to make. Actually, it’s more of a story.” He told us a story about a job he was working on with a client. When the work was completed, this employee visited the client’s site, a large restuarnat, to ensure everything was performed as expected. The job went remarkably well and the client was thrilled. He then said, “And that was the last I heard from them.” So I asked him if he followed up. He said no. I asked the sales team if anyone else followed up. They said no. I asked the marketing people in the room if they followed up. They weren’t sure either. Then he told us the rest of the story. He went to the client's restaurant for lunch one day. He arrived to find one of their main competitors working on another job. They didn’t lose the business because of a poor customer experience or a customer service blunder. In fact, it was the total opposite. The Customer Loyalty Loop broke down in Stage Four because nobody followed up. Nobody maintained contact with the client. Nobody sent them anything valuable or got in touch to see how things were going. This was the only reason they lost the work. That’s it.
Another client had a similar challenge. The products they sold were more expensive and the buying cycle was less frequent, but the CEO knew they weren’t doing a good enough job developing and nurturing the relationships with their clients. With this client, we put a simple yet incredibly powerful tool into place called the 90–45 rule. I began calling it the 90–45 rule because those were the specific dates that were important to this client when creating the rule.
The rule we put into place was simple. It said that no client who had ever spent a dime with this specific company was allowed to go more than 90 days without at least a 15-minute phone call, but preferably a 30-minute, in-person meeting with their specific sales rep.
Further to that, we took the top 10 percent of customers for each sales rep and adjusted the rule so that no customer could go 45 days without the same follow-up. How does this apply to your business? How often should you be following up and maintaining contact? The Customer Loyalty Loop requires proactive effort. You get out of the loop what you put into the loop. For your business it might be a 3–7 rule. For others, it might be entirely different. The point is to keep in contact! It’s a horrible feeling showing up at a happy client’s place of business only to find your best competitor doing your work. It’s scary, but it’s happening far more often than you think.
Here’s a crucial component of the 90–45 rule: the 90–45 rule is about personal communication. The more frequently you communicate with customers in a way that adds value to them and their interests, the more revenue your company will generate. The key here is the communication is in their best interest and not your own self-interest. People smell ill-intent a mile away.
Action Step: Follow-Up Frequency
Determine the optimal communication frequency with your top customers, suppliers, partners, and others. Notice I didn’t just say end customers. Think about your top partners and suppliers.
Determine the appropriate frequency for the right type of follow-up. What makes sense for your business? Is it 90–45? Is it 70–30? You have to determine what’s right for your business.
Find a way to measure and track the activities to make sure they’re actually happening. Some of my best clients have used a special tracking tool that my company has developed solely for these types of efforts (you’ll learn more about this in the Pick-3 Process). The tool provides a reminder of which clients require which type of follow-up on which days.
1. Assign tasks and responsibilities. Everyone in your company should
be taking part. This isn’t just a process for the folks in sales. This is a job everyone should be doing. The CEO or VP of Marketing should be making calls to the likely peers at their suppliers, distributors, and partners.
2. Set up exception reporting. The reason most training and new initiatives like the 90–45 rule fail is because there’s nobody to hold people accountable. In all the work I do with my clients, we set up exception reporting. This means that if something isn’t tracked, measured, or documented then it didn’t happen. Further to that, managers, VPs, owners, and CEOs will receive regular reporting on the things that were supposed to happen, but didn’t. It’s up to them to ask why not?
3. How often can you routinely communicate on a more personal level with your customers? Brainstorm the ideas with your team.
I get a lot of pushback when I explain something as simple as the 90–45 rule. People say that their customers don’t want to hear from them, or they are reluctant because such calls and “check-ins” feel awkward. But nine times of out 10, when I find customers leaving businesses to go to the competitors, I find a very flimsy sense of loyalty to certain companies; when we dig down to discover why, it becomes apparent that the other guys are showing up more often. Remember the definition of loyalty. Loyalty is about connection, and connection is about feeling. It’s the feeling that I have a relationship with you, and you have a relationship with me. This is about maintaining an open, honest, friendly, and supportive relationship with your customers. Trust me, it’s worth it. Everyone has to take part. Every single client that has implemented a simple 90–45 rule has handsomely profited handsomely. You could be next.
The Pick-3 Process
The age of high tech often reduces our ability for high touch, but of course proper use of high tech can enable high touch in the most effective ways. One of the simplest yet most effective tools I’ve ever given my clients is what I call the Pick-3 Process. I was working with a large B2B manufacturing company where everything that could be going wrong was going wrong. They were losing clients and market share to their competitors, and sales weren’t increasing either. The CEO had heard me speak and knew he needed to hire me to help. Instead of spending too much time explaining exactly what was happening, I'll keep it relatively simple: they weren’t following up—at all. I was hired to help. What I loved about this company was that they weren’t willing to allow one department to take the blame for the current state. Instead, the objective was to change the entire culture of the company to focus almost exclusively on following up, and the Pick-3 was born. Similar to the 90–45 rule, Pick-3 is about assigning specific loyalty loop–related tasks throughout the entire organization.
We do this through a simple tool designed to ensure the right things are happening consistently when they should be, and if they’re not, then management is aware of it. We know the last time John at ABC Tire was contacted because it’s in the system. Now you might be thinking this sounds a lot like a customer relationship management (CRM), like Salesforce or any of the dozens of other tools out there, but it’s not because this is all about action and activity as it relates to deepening the relationships with our customers. Without going into too much detail on the system we provide many clients, it’s not necessary to develop your own Pick-3 Process.
Build Your Pick-3 Process
Pick-3 is simple. Every day, you and your team each engage in three simple tasks related to the Customer Loyalty Loop. That’s it. Three tasks, all of which should take no less than 15 minutes. Now you might be thinking, this seems pretty simplistic, but this is where you take advantage of the power of compound interest. When we get an entire division or an entire company engaged in these tasks, the results are incredible. If you really want to be a customer-centric company, this is how you do it. You can stop worrying about all that other stuff, because Pick-3 is about the rubber meeting the road in terms of actionable tasks designed to build and develop the relationships with your customers. So, we have tasks every single day, for everyone taking part. You then need to track that the tasks are being done every single day. And you rinse and repeat, and you add new tasks as you go. Think of a diagram like the one in Figure 6.1. This could be filled with dozens of different options for your people. The goal is to complete three tasks per day, per employee, that drive customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Just imagine if thousands of these actions were being completed each day! Now that’s what you call customer centricity.
Figure 6.1: Pick-3 Process
Here are a few examples.
Pick-3 Example Task 1: Call three of your highest-value clients in terms of revenue.
Pick three of your best customers and clients based on revenue and call them. Review their client record to understand the last time they purchased and what they purchased. Review the last time someone else spoke to them. Spend another 30 seconds conducting a quick Google search to see if there’s anything about them in the news. Make a note of the last time they purchased or anything newsworthy about them. Remember, this call is about putting the customer’s interests ahead of yours. If you call them to pitch your latest offering, then you’re doing it wrong.
Pick-3 Example Task 2: Send Three Handwritten Notes
Don’t underestimate the power of the handwritten note. In our day and age of high tech, we’ve lost touch with low-tech, high-value follow-up that’s meaningful and memorable. One company built a thriving business by sending 13,000 handwritten thank-you notes. I routinely send things to my top clients. I might send a small handwritten note with a newspaper article I’ve clipped that’s relevant to their business. Send three small postcards or handwritten notes to your new customers, existing customers, suppliers, and so on. The cost is minimal, but the ROI can be massive. I closed a $45,000 project after sending a handwritten note to a client with an article I thought was relevant to him. I have yet to find another marketing tool that can generate a $45,000 ROI for a cost of about a dollar and about five minutes of my time. Remember, you can replace “customer” with supplier, distributor, joint venture partner, and others. All of these are valuable to creating remarkable and memorable customer experiences. For example, if you have joint venture partners where you’re sharing customers via referrals, it’s critical that congruence is maintained, and that expectations the referee is creating are met.
Pick-3 Example Task 3: Call Three Inactive Clients
Find three customers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, or others who have recently stopped doing business with you or haven’t done business with you in a while. Call them to see how they’re doing. If you don’t know why they’ve stopped doing business with you, attempt to learn why. See what you can do to win their business back.
Pick-3 Example Task 4: Solicit Three Testimonials From Existing Clients
Call three existing customers and solicit three testimonials from them. I cover testimonials in detail in a later section. Use them everywhere. Use them to express your customer’s joy to your employees and people. Use them in your preemptive Stage One marketing, and utilize them throughout the experience to emphasize the overwhelming social proof that people love your business.
Pick-3 Example Task 5: Contact Three New Clients
Pick three relatively new customers and call them to see how things are going. See if their expectations are being met. Ask them if they have any specific questions or concerns. Do what you can to address those concerns earlier rather than later.
Pick-3 Example Task 6: Create Your Own Tasks
As you can see, these are relatively simple tasks all designed to add value to the existing customer experience. You can create your own. With some of my clients, we’ve created dozens of simple yet powerful nurturing tasks that are completed on a daily basis. What tasks could you do on a regular basis to add more value and enrich the experience of your customers after the initial sale? That’s what the Pick-3 is all about.
Track Your Results
The key thing to remember is that everyone needs to be responsible fo
r completing these tasks on a daily basis. The reason we chose three is that doing one task three times is relatively easy. In addition, as you can see, all the tasks are incredibly simple. The main thing is that they’re getting done. Our application allows for exception reporting when people are falling behind. The objective is to make sure the tasks become habitual. Think about the compound effect here: If you have 10 employees reaching out or doing three tasks a day, that’s 30 customer touch points a day, and that’s 900 customer touch points a month and over 10,000 a year. Now imagine that when you’ve got 40 employees in your office or 80, or 100. Most people can’t even comprehend this much focus on retention and loyalty efforts, but there’s immense power in this type of follow-up.
The tool we’ve provided to many of my clients is incredibly simple. Every day they log in and they’re given their three tasks at random. If they truly don’t love the task they’ve been given for the day, they can spin and request a new task. The task is laid out and there’s a video, from me, describing how to complete the task as effectively as possible. They then complete the tasks, making note of what they did. If they don’t complete the task, they’re reminded throughout the day to get it done. And then, of course, we have exception reporting delivered to owners, managers, CEOs, and others. This is less about compliance and more about doing things to grow the business. Imagine expiring the power of compound interest when it comes to nurturing your customer base! That’s what the Pick-3 is all about. Don’t just claim to be the friendliest company on the planet. Don’t just claim to offer a wow experience. Don’t just claim the customer is number one. Back it up. This is how you do it. If you’re interested in our Pick-3 tool, send me an e-mail.