In times of economic uncertainty, people are looking more than ever for a bargain and if they don’t feel that they are getting good service, they will disappear - for good.

Most Businesses Lose a Fortune with this Basic Mistake
Most businesses are frantically trying to attract and sell to new clients, yet it’s approximately 10 Times Easier to sell to people that have an existing relationship with you, especially if they have bought from you before.

Think about it. They’ve done all the hard work and incurred all the expense to get that prospect/client relationship. Not maximising it to its fullest is simply very bad economics.

Maximing Your Profitability From a Client.
This Can be achieved in 4 ways, namely :

1 Maximise the Average Transactional Value (A.T.V) the client spends with you.
i.e. Increase how much a client spends with you each time they buy from you.
This can be achieved by upselling, cross selling or price increases.

2 Maximise the Frequency of Purchases.
All else being equal, increasing 3 sales a year to 4 sales a year per client, increases their spend with you by 33%.

3 Maximise the Duration of the Relationship.
Simple. The longer they go on spending money with you, the more profits your business generates.

4 Maximise the Amount of New Clients Generated by Your Existing Clients.
Your best salesmen are your clients! They should be providing you with testimonials at least and ideally other, new clients as well.

Therefore, each client can - in theory - be worth significantly more than the value of
just their own revenue as each one can become a business building opportunity. Bear this in
mind when considering your cost of client acquisition.

Did You Know? When you increase the A.T.V, Frequency and Duration by just 26%, you’ll
DOUBLE the total revenue from the client.

The Answer?
Once you have converted a prospect into a client, you need an effective sequence to develop a long and profitable relationship built upon trust and respect.

Good, regular communication is at the heart of an effective client retention strategy.

Most businesses just use 1-Way communication just 1 way.
This is a big mistake. Use 2-Way Communication!

How do you know what your clients want if you don’t ask them?

A Proven Communication Sequence.
1 Thank Them.
2 Survey Them.
3 Ask for a Testimonial.
4 Ask for Referrals.
5 Upsell.
6 Cross Sell.

Repeat!

Here's The Sequence Explained...

1 Thank Them.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve just sold a £1 million yacht or a 50 pence packet of sweets,
you must never forget to thank your client. It costs nothing and yet means so much!
(Yet so few people do it)

For example, when was the last time your accountant sent you a card for your birthday?
How would it make you feel if they bothered?

2 Survey Them.

Firstly, you need to make sure that your client is not only very pleased with your product/service but that they are very happy with you! Ask them for feedback. Offer an incentive if necessary but ask them :

1) What they are happy with?
2) What they’re not happy with or how can things be improved?
3) What other products/services would they like information about?If they’re not happy with any part of the product, service or your business then you need to :
1) Thank them for their feedback.
2) Let them know that you are dealing with the issue
3) Tell them when you have resolved the issue.

Of course It might not always be appropriate that you need to ‘fix’ an issue or it might
be that the issue can’t be ‘fixed’ but nevertheless, acknowledging their feedback shows
that you care.

Once you have gone through this part of the process, gained feedback (and looked for further
opportunities) then you have earned the right to capitalise on your relationship by asking
for a testimonial.

3 Ask for a Testimonial.

Glowing testimonials can dramatically increase your prospect to client conversion rate and so
consequently it is vital that you acquire them as a part of your sales process.

Try to ensure the testimonials are as specific as possible, about how you helped them solve
their problem or what they liked about the product/service.

A video testimonial is better than a picure testimonial.
A testimonial with a picture is better than a text-only testimonial.
A testimonial with a link to a website or contact details is better than no details.
A testimonial is better than no testimonial at all.

NOTE, whilst it’s not ethical to ‘pay’ for testimonials, suggesting to your clients that they can be added to your ‘wall-of-fame’ on your website might appeal to them. (for Business to consumer)

Having a hyperlink to their website from your website might help encourage business-to-business clients.

Did You Know? Testimonials Benefit the 3 People Involved :
1) It benefits the person giving the testimonial. It makes them feel good about themselves.
It’s like giving a ‘tip’ for good service at a restaurant - it makes us feel good.

2) It benefits the person receiving the testimonial - i.e. you! Not only does it massively help with your prospect to client conversion rate, it also ‘locks-in’ the client as they have made a public statement about you and psychologically they are more committed to retaining you as a supplier.

3) It benefits the reader of the testimonial. By helping to eliminate their fear of making a wrong decision about purchasing from you, you save them time and worry.

Once you have received permission to receive a testimonial in whatever form, whether it be a YouTube clip, a case study or even just a few lines added to your website, you have then earned the right to go to the next level i.e. asking for referrals.

4 Ask for Referrals.

This is one of the most cost-effective, fastest and satisfying ways to grow a business!

Once again, many businesses rely on referrals for new clients but they don’t have a system
in place to maximise it. i.e. they simply leave it to chance.

If you have followed up the sequence so far and they have had a good experience from you and they have even given you a testimonial, then asking for testimonials is a natural next step.

Make sure you have a referral programme and mention it on all your communications from emails to invoices.

You might want to incentivise people to pass business your way. For example, MKLINK offer
commissions of 15% on all new clients and our referrers can track their referrals electronically with our tracking software.

At the very least, add a ‘refer a friend’ link on your website - which enables you to capture information about new potential clients, that you can then email, call or write to.

5 Upsell.

There’s 2 main ways of increasing the average order value by upselling.
1 - Sell more of the same thing. Example : supermarkets often offer ‘3 for the price of 2' type
deals to increase basket size.

2 - Sell associated items. Very often, clients are unaware of ALL the products and services that they could order. It is vital that your clients are made aware of everything that you offer plus all the benefits they bring.

Examples:
Dixons often sell insurance with their products.
Amazon always suggests other books related to the clients’ choice.

Service based companies can increase the order value as well.
A double glazing company could offer to sell a porch for a client that bought a conservatory.
An accountant’s firm could offer independent financial advice services to key clients.

Regular communication about the different aspects of your business and the corresponding features and benefits should be included.

Where possible, make the communications personalised, segmented, relevent and timely.

Personalised. Personalise all communications by ensuring you use their name and any information that is unique to them. Personalised mailings out-pull non personalied mailings by as much as 40%.

Segmented. Separate your clients into different lists and communicate with them accordingly.
This could be by age, gender, profitability, location, order history etc. You’ll communicate differently with a 70 year old male purchaser of a £30 hearing aid in Yorkshire than with a 14 year old girl from London that’s downloaded an X-Factor I-phone App.

Relevent. Even if you use the right language when communicating to the 70 year old Yorkshireman, it is unlikely that if he’s bought a hearing aid from you, that he’ll find an article about X-Factor I-Phone apps relevant. An article about walking sticks, local museums or real ale might be more applicable!

Timely. There’s no point in communicating with someone about your new car insurance deal the week AFTER they’ve just renewed. Equally, advertising Christmas presents in February is unlikely to be profitable either

Sending the right message, to the right person at the right time is a lot easier when you make good use of a client relationship manager system(CRM). Anything from a box of index cards to a fully computerised and integrated client management system.

6 Cross Sell.

It’s one thing to sell clients more of your products and services.
Very often however, there is a limit to just how much you can sell them.

It doesn’t mean you can’t further leverage your relationship with them however.
By offering other relevant products and services from other suppliers, you
can earn commissions or even residual incomes from other channels.

For example, the accountant can sell insurance to protect against tax-audits.
A double glazing company could offer the services of a window-cleaner.

The trick here is to add value to your relationship with the client by offering good quality
products and services that you have vetted and recommend. Don’t offer just anything.

You’re essentially giving referrals to you clients as well as asking your clients to
give referrals to you. This is inline with the whole principle of 2-way communication.

Repeat.

You might notice at this point that this system is incremental and progressive.

i.e. For example, if you don’t get a cross-sale, you might at least get an upsell.
If you don’t get any referrals, you might at least get a good testimonial.
(If you don’t at least get a testimonial, you’ll get some useful feedback!)

The steps mentioned above are not a one-off! The whole process should be a continuous
cycle that lasts for the lifetime of your business relationship with all your clients.

This way your relationship with be profitable and robust, being built on trust and respect.

Resurrect Old Clients Relationships.
Inevitably, some clients go elsewhere. They received bad service. They were bored. They were curious. Someone offered a better deal.

Any number of reasons means your client is not spending money with you anymore or worse - spending it with a competitor.

Get them Back!

Again, you already have invested in a relationship with them and very often that can be re-instated for a fraction of the price of acquiring a new client.

Communicate with them and offer them compelling reasons for coming back. They might be dissatisfied with the new supplier and simply need encouragement.
(This happens more often that you’d think)

If you are embarrased and don’t wish to speak with them, then communicate by email or letter. You have nothing to lose.

At the very least make sure that you find out why they left you so that you can improve your business.

Automate This Whole Process!

Did You Know? Most businesses don’t take the appropriate action because either they don’t know what to do or they don’t make the time to do it.

ALL of these processes can be completely automated! You can dramatically increase your
profitability by using MKLINK automated systems to 2-Way communicate with your clients to do everything you’ve just read.

Request your online demonstration now at
http://www.mklink.net/contact.php?type=Loyalty-Platform

Thank You,
Mike Knight - MKLINK