How to Create a Zero Defection Culture

It’s impossible to run a business and not lose customers on occasion. Even with the best product, prices, and customer service, you can still lose customers to things like moving, forgetfulness, loss of job – even the most perfect business is not going to be able to keep 100% of its customers. Your business is not perfect.

So in addition to the reasons above, you are going to lose business for other reasons, such as running against good competition, a poor customer service experience, or simply a change in preference over your products. Yet when you lose a customer, you lose a considerable amount of potential profits. That is why it is important to create a culture that focuses its efforts on keeping customers.

According to “Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services” by Frederick F. Reichheld and W. Earl Sasser, Jr., the best way to keep customers is the following: Collect Information/Data on Current Customers Information is one of your greatest weapons in creating a zero defection culture.

By collecting as much data as possible on your customers, you can spot trends, analyze buying habits, and even track when a customer appears to be moving on. Many industries, especially grocery stories, already use things like membership cards to track these habits so they can target their customers better. Survey Lost Customers The more you know about why customers defected, the more you can make any necessary changes to prevent those defections in the future.

Customer satisfaction surveys are a powerful tool, but never forget to factor in the customers you have lost to gauge what could have gotten them to stay. Teach Employees the Value of Customers Customer service in most industries is underrated. It’s not simply a matter of ensuring that a customer likes your company or products.

A single lost customer can represent thousands of dollars in long term lost revenue. As the authors note, every lost regular customer for Domino’s Pizza is an average loss of almost $5,000. Knowing these statistics can show employees why their customer service is so important.

Incentivize Low Defection Rates Since every retained customer represents considerable revenue, giving rewards and bonuses to employees and stores that manage to retain their customers may be worthwhile, and can help pay off in the long run.

Losing customers is inevitable. But you can reduce the number of customers you lose if you create a culture within your company that focuses on customer retention. The above tips represent just a small sample of the ways you can create a zero defection culture so that you can continue to generate revenue from a loyal customer base.