How Do I Keep My Customers for Life? Alluvionic Has a Tool for That!

Customers for Life! Alluvionic applies best-selling author, Joey Coleman’s, ‘Never Lose a Customer Again’ framework to create THE tool for optimizing your company’s customer journey. You spent months onboarding a new client, investing time and resources to establish a strong relationship and gather crucial information. Just as you start to feel progress and stability, they unexpectedly decide to switch directions. Another lost client.

Does this scenario sound familiar?

Now, recall the last time you tried out a new restaurant in town. How long did it take before you returned? Did you even go back? Moreover, if you had a negative experience at this new place, did you warn your friends and family to steer clear? Now, think about your favorite restaurant. How frequently do you visit, and why do you eagerly crave your next meal there? Although your business may differ from the food and beverage industry, the underlying concept remains the same: customer attraction and retention hinge greatly on the overall experience.

The true cost of losing a customer extends beyond the financial aspect. While direct costs, such as current and future revenue streams, as well as potential account growth, are the immediate concerns when a customer is lost, there are other associated costs that can impact your business. These include acquisition and operational costs, which can impede your revenue and burden your staff. However, social costs are equally significant. According to a Zendesk survey, 95% of people share their negative experiences with others, and 45% of them share it on social media. Although the saying “all publicity is good publicity” may hold true in certain cases, it may not work in your favor this time.

So, how can you prevent losing a customer again? Just as you crave your favorite restaurant, your customers can develop a strong preference for your business. Avoiding a breakup in the business-client relationship is crucial, as it can drain your company’s valuable resources, not just financially, but in almost every aspect of your business operations. To avoid this scenario, we introduced Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool, which guides you through a simple step-by-step process that combines customer satisfaction with effective project management. This tool will assist you in retaining new accounts and even in expanding your customer base.

TRANSFORMING ‘NEVER LOSE A CUSTOMER AGAIN’ INTO TOOLS FOR YOUR COMPANY’S CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Here at Alluvionic, continuous improvement is at the core of our beliefs. One of the ways we achieve this is by learning from experts and thought leaders, such as Joey Coleman, a best-selling author, speaker, and advisor. With his extensive experience in transforming customers into enthusiastic advocates, Joey has dedicated his career to assisting organizations in retaining their top customers and employees through engaging keynotes, workshops, and consulting projects. In his renowned book, “Never Lose a Customer Again,” he presents an eight-phase methodology (assess, admit, affirm, activate, acclimate, accomplish, adopt, advocate)  designed to understand customers’ emotional needs, ensure their desired outcomes, and ultimately convert passive customers into passionate fans.

According to Coleman, a significant percentage of new customers, ranging from 20% to 70%, are lost within the first 100 days of the relationship. However, there are strategies to reverse this trend. “Every single customer interaction, no matter how small, presents an opportunity for you to create something extraordinary,” he explains. The customer experience journey proves critical for your business, and it is crucial to ensure that this journey is seamless, satisfying, and memorable. However, implementing this framework can be challenging and time-consuming, leaving you unsure of where to begin. By combining Coleman’s inspirational process with Alluvionic’s expertise in project management, we provide the necessary structure for your organization to efficiently and effectively execute Coleman’s approach to customer retention and satisfaction.

HOW TO KEEP CUSTOMERS: EIGHT STEPS TO SUCCESS

Coleman’s book, “Never Lose a Customer Again,” offers an abundance of valuable insights through over forty case studies, encompassing everyone from mom and pop  businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Within the book, Coleman presents specific tools and strategies that can be applied to your own business in order to create remarkable customer experiences and foster long-term loyalty. These tools are organized into eight distinct parts, guiding you through each stage of the customer cycle. Alluvionic’s Customer Journey tool takes these principles and transforms them into an easy-to-follow, step-by-step process, ensuring a seamless customer experience and addressing common challenges along the way. Here is a summary of the eight steps and how Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool facilitates your top-notch customer journey:

1. Creating Quality Leads! Do you find that one of the pain points in your customer retention strategy is the quality of leads you generate? The assess phase of our Customer Journey Tool guides you in identifying your ideal target customers, understanding their needs, and devising effective ways to reach them. By leveraging our tool, you’ll gain the capability to make data-driven decisions backed by real-time insights, enhancing your ability to generate high-quality leads.
2. Advancing the Customer Journey to the Relationship Stage. When you have quality leads, transitioning them into customers becomes smoother. In the admit phase, we assist you in welcoming your new clients and establishing that crucial relationship with them. This stage plays a pivotal role in initiating effective communication channels with your new customers.
3. Sometimes, after onboarding a client, it can be challenging to maintain a secure relationship. Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool will provide you a centralized platform to guarantee customer satisfaction. The affirm phase takes your relationship with the customer to new heights, reassuring them that they have made the right choice in selecting your company.
4. Now that you have successfully onboarded the customer and established a strong foundation, it’s crucial to ensure that what you initially sold is being delivered. The activate phase ensures that you fulfill your promises and deliver value to your customer. With Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool, you can easily collaborate with your customer and keep them informed throughout the process. This tool eliminates any guesswork and ensures that you can confidently assess whether you have met your end of the deal.
5. Don’t overlook the importance of quality control, which is comprehensively addressed in the acclimate phase. This phase focuses on ensuring that your customer is satisfied and comfortable with your product or service, providing a personalized experience tailored to their needs.
6. The accomplish phase is dedicated to ensuring that your customers are successfully achieving their goals, and our Customer Journey Tool tracks their satisfaction levels. Often, when a product or service is completed, businesses simply check it off their list. However, have you ever taken the extra step to confirm that what you sold actually worked from the customer’s perspective? This additional effort demonstrates your commitment to nurturing the customer relationship and will ultimately benefit your bottom line.
7. Transform your customers into repeat customers by implementing the adopt phase, which aims to encourage ongoing usage of your product or service. Alluvionic’s success story intake feature equips you with a method to gather and showcase customer success stories. These stories can be utilized to inspire and motivate other customers to adopt your product or service, further solidifying their loyalty.
8. Lastly, transform customer satisfaction into valuable word-of-mouth advertising through the advocate phase. This phase is designed to encourage your customers to refer others and become passionate advocates for your brand. By nurturing and leveraging these advocates, you can amplify your brand’s reach and establish a strong network of loyal customers who actively promote your business.

So, how does Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool bring the framework to life?

Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool utilizes the power of Smartsheet, a modern work management solution that offers a comprehensive suite of collaboration, project management, and work automation tools. With Smartsheet, you can effectively manage projects in a centralized location, benefiting from features such as sheets, forms, reports, dashboards, and automation tools, among others. As an Aligned Silver Solutions partner of Smartsheet, Alluvionic provides collaborative work solutions that enable businesses to accelerate their processes and foster innovation. With a focus on long-term adoption, Alluvionic delivers Project Assurance® to ensure the success of your projects.
By implementing Alluvionic’s tools, businesses can seamlessly incorporate each phase of Joey Coleman’s framework into their operations, simplifying the implementation and enhancement of their customer experience. Smartsheet’s user-friendly and intuitive platform empowers businesses to manage the entire customer journey, enabling them to avoid customer loss. By leveraging these tools, businesses can cultivate long-lasting relationships with their customers and foster a loyal base of brand advocates.

We’re here to provide you with a deeper understanding of this customer journey. We will guide you through Alluvionic’s Customer Journey Tool and demonstrate how it plays a critical role in establishing and maintaining successful client relationships. By utilizing this tool, you can effectively cultivate long-term customer loyalty and ensure customers stay with you for life.

Contact Alluvionic for more information.