The Loyal Customer

We all want loyal customers who highly value our skills and expertise, regularly give us repeat business and tell everyone they know how great we are at what we do. So how come that’s not the norm for most customers and travel agents?

I’m sure that you work hard regularly at maintaining and increasing your product and destination knowledge. You’ve probably taken at least some level of sales training. You’re likely using some type of customer relationship management tool. And you’re apt to be efficient and organized at what you do. So is the lack of loyalty just a function of hard-to-please clients? Not really.

In their book “The Challenger Sale,” authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson present the findings of their customer loyalty study. They found that the combined effect of company and brand impact, product and service delivery, and value-to-price ratio accounted for just 47 percent of customer loyalty to a company. Given the importance of these factors, I would have thought that they accounted for the vast majority of a customer’s loyalty, but alas I would have been wrong!

So what comprises the remaining 53 percent? The authors attributed it to the “sales experience.” Now who would have thought that! In light of that importance, how would your customers define their “sales experience” with you?

Is it fun and exciting? This may be your 10th sale of a particular, relatively “vanilla” destination this week, so it may be hard to muster the excitement and anticipation your clients are exuding. But muster you must. Remember, they may have dreamed about this for years and they have probably never been there. Genuinely share their enthusiasm and pump them up even more. It enhances the “sales experience.”

Does it continue after the sale? As we all know, Christmas is technically a single day of the year. But for those of us who grew up celebrating it, we counted down the days to Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving was history. Similarly, your client’s departure date is but a solitary day in the future, but to them it’s Christmas.

In the meantime, they are counting the days and are filled with anticipation and excitement from the time they book to the day they leave. Maximize the “sales experience” for them during that time by being in touch weekly with suggested reading lists and reminders of important steps they will need to take before they depart.

Is it engaging and ongoing? The ”sales experience” is not just listening for buying signals or closing the sale quickly. And it’s not just about the time immediately prior to departure. Their “sales experience” is their year-round experience with you. I’m not suggesting you “stalk” them, but you should be regularly reaching out using alternative forms of communication. You don’t need to be actually “selling” anything. Just be visible and build your relationship so they’ll be loyal and call you when they’re next thinking of travel.

Are we always playing nice? On arriving at the supermarket checkout line recently (where there actually was no line), I greeted the young lady with a “good afternoon.” She didn’t seem to have heard me, so I said it one more time. Again, no response. I stood across the register from her for five minutes or so while she scanned and bagged my items and handed me the receipt.

She completed the entire transaction without uttering a syllable or making eye contact. Consistently positive, personal interaction should be a given, but regardless of how difficult a day it’s been, the customer is always the customer and he or she deserves 100 percent from us every time.

Bonus:Is it a learning experience for you? Debrief after each customer contact, even if just to reflect on a conversation for a few minutes. Do so more formally at the conclusion of the sale. You have likely heard some suppliers say that only 25-35 percent of returning customers repeat using the same agency. That’s a real shame and what a lost opportunity.

Could we have been more aggressive? Did we follow up enough? Did we nourish the relationship adequately? What clearly went well? Determining those and other answers will be a learning experience for you and drive a better “sales experience” for your future clients.

Keeping customers is significantly less expensive than acquiring new ones, so developing loyal clients is critical. Yes, they may “shop” offers online and with other retailers, but if you make the “sales experience” fun and exciting, stoke their pre-departure anticipation and be regularly visible, you’ll be surprised at how loyal they can be!