By Ross Shafer
Leaving voice mails, sending email messages and blasting off a zillion text messages is fast, rejection safe—and may be killing your business. What is worse, pedestrian electronic messaging to stay in touch reduces you and your company to a commodity. You’ve become a salesperson. A resource. A supplier.
Remember that nothing can replace genuine customer service, and failing to realize this fact can lead to loss of clients and business. You need to become a trusted advisor before your competition does, and you do that by creating an emotional, face-to-face relationship with your client.
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He was shut down—and out—because he didn’t see the value of getting to know his client beyond his account balance. |
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Some people get it. Ramani Ayer, CEO of Hartford, told me, “We have built outstanding electronic tools to help our brokers manage a client’s account, but I want our people to initiate 60 percent more actual face time. It’s the way we’ll grow our market share.” He’s nailing it.
As powerful as technology can be, electronic communications can cause a disconnect of humanity from the transaction. Now that’s OK if you happen to be an ATM or a self-actuating kiosk. But if you want to grow your market share (translation: take more of your competitors’ business) in a highly competitive economy, you need to be physically present and friendly to your customers and clients.
The consequences are horrifying
I met a stockbroker at a major financial conference who told me about one of his biggest client blunders:
“I had this client, a quiet sort of guy who owned a print shop in town. His portfolio with me was about $700,000, which was nice but not one of my bigger fish. One day I heard from a mutual friend that he had sold his print shop to a major chain for $16 million. I had no idea his little shop was worth that kind of money. So I call the guy to make an appointment about investing. He told me, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. It’s almost Christmas, and I may splurge and buy something fun for myself.’ So I backed off. In January, I called again and found out from his wife that the man had died just after Christmas. I explained to his wife that I was their stockbroker. She interrupted me to say, ‘I don’t know you. I’ve never met you. You’ve never been to our house. I’m going to let our son handle our finances.’”
Oops! This broker readily admits that he really blew it. He should have valued the account enough to create a genuinely emotional relationship with the man and his family. He focused on volume and servicing the portfolio when he should have become the family’s trusted advisor. In the banking world, there is the axiom, “When people love you, they give you more of their wallet.” Well, if he had adopted that philosophy, he would have been perfectly positioned to maintain and grow the account—post mortem. He might even have been enough of a trusted advisor to be referred to the widow’s friends. Instead, he was shut down—and out—because he didn’t see the value of getting to know his client beyond his account balance.
Women have the advantage
It’s quite likely that a woman would not have made that mistake. Women have long had the reputation of being better relationship builders and networkers. In fact, because women speak over 20,000 words a day (compared with barely 6,000 words for men) you could say that women were the first viral marketers. Women talk—especially to other women. So to be relevant, we need to cater to the female demographic.
We should primarily focus the majority of our marketing efforts on women. This is not only because of the fact that women account for 83 percent of all consumer purchasing, they also have control of the money. Ken Dycktwald, author of The Power Years, says that 70 percent of women will change financial advisors if they lose their spouse. Delia Passi, author of Winning the Toughest Customer, says that by 2015, $15 trillion will land in the hands of Baby Boomer women.
Women know that emotions bind a relationship in ways electronic media cannot. To women, business is personal and personal is business. They don’t differentiate a business relationship from a personal relationship. And since the only proven factor for repeat business is a strong emotional connection between people, women are more likely to create ongoing loyalty than their male counterparts.
Ross Shafer is a speaker and expert on business growth, and author of the books Remaining Relevant: How Great People and Organizations Keep Growing, Nobody Moved Your Cheese, and The Customer Shouts Back. For more information, go to www.RossShafer.com.
July 2008
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