Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Make 2011 a Year of Possibilities

By Pablo J. Perez, Executive and Business Coach

A few days ago, I was interviewed by a local radio station in Miami about the effects of the current recession on small business. After the interview was finished, they called me back and expressed surprise at my answers. I did not mention anything negative about the current economic situation. I did not say anything about layoffs, downsizing or business restructuring. Instead, I talked about possibilities.

It is impossible to deny the effects of the economy. We have to be aware of it and clearly understand the impact that this turbulence is creating in our businesses and in our personal lives. However, to achieve success we have to focus on creating possibilities.

In his book, “Making It Happen Before Lunch," Stephan Schiffman says: “Dwell in possibility, there is always a door somewhere waiting to be opened." What a great thought!

For me, a possibility is that this climate may result in coaching more clients – to help them increase their success in retaining, developing and enhancing the performance of their people. It could lead to my helping a manager become a leader. It could lead to helping a person or organization plan and implement change.

Focusing on possibilities, in my case, requires overcoming or controlling my instincts and attitudes. It doesn't mean abandoning what I like to do (organizing, reading, preparing). It does mean creating a habit of thought: to focus on finding the doors that Schiffman talks about, and then opening those doors and walking into an opportunity to be of service to people and companies.

We all have to create our own possibilities. How to do it?

Start with optimism. It's so much easier to believe in possibilities as an optimist. That's a challenge for about 70% of the population – the 70% whose thought pattern conjures up pitfalls rather than opportunities.

All those pessimists should start every day with this thought: “Something good will happen today – if I make it happen.” Keep telling yourself that. Once you convince yourself that there are doors waiting to open – whatever that means to you – carve out the time and energy to find those doors.

Talk about obsession, not recession. Don’t participate in negative conversations about the future. Change the subject. Start talking about how well your business is doing and the things you are doing differently. Talk about today.

Be obsessed with your success, making reference to your vision and dreams during your conversations with co-workers, family and friends, allowing them to be aligned with your positive thoughts.

Change your perspective. Don’t stare at the picture from yesterday’s viewpoint. You have to come out to where you are today and watch your life and organization from a different perspective. Stop your day-to-day activities to take some time to look at perceived obstacles and impediments from a different point of view. Invite your team members to do the same thing. If you change your perspective from time to time, the questions you ask will be different, and so will the answers you get.

Create goals that keep you focused on possibilities. Make a promise to yourself that every day you will take an action that will create possibilities (such as a phone call to a prospect, a new meeting with your people, or a lunch with a long-lost friend or client). But in every case – do it!

Write down your accomplishments when you create a possibility – then see how many of those possibilities you created can be made into opportunities, then into relationships, then into new businesses.

Speak possibilities. Do you have a roadmap to your success? Do you have variable solutions to your obstacles? If not, act now! Explore your possibilities. When you speak possibilities you are sending a positive message to the world around you, asking for success instead of failure. You are creating your own future today by opening your mind to new things.

List your dreams for this year, and draw the roadmap to get there, and you will see how many new possibilities appear in front of you.

Build on your success. Be convinced that the more possibilities you create, the more doors you will open – and think about how great it will be to step through into opportunities.

Realize that every day new possibilities can be created – they are there waiting for you!

As an Executive and Business Coach, I help people use their resources and skills to do a better job, watching the picture from a different perspective. For more information, call Pablo J. Perez at +1(305) 495-6851, or send an e-mail to pabloperezbarreiro@gmail.com

Get what you want..NOW!

By Pablo J. Perez, Executive Coach

Getting what you want whenever you want it, has been the deepest desire of humanity. Young people work hard to acquire more knowledge and skills to have the chance of getting what they want in the future. Middle-aged people work even harder to get what they want, time an essential factor to be considered. But success does not come in bottles.

How can you get what you want … now? Here is some advice.

Dream a lot, but make a plan

Walt Disney said “If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse”, but dreaming is not enough.

We can spend all our lives dreaming about our company’s success or our personal success, yet if we do not make a detailed plan considering the priorities and building a timetable to execute them, we are left only with a bunch of wishes.

Never give up

Successful people never give up. They learn from every failure and every mistake. Remember Carl Carlson's 17-year efforts to make his copy machine (Xerox) a reality and Thomas Edison's 10,000 experiments to invent the light bulb. The powerful lesson from many great inventors and entrepreneurs in human history is – Never Give Up!

Those inventors kept on trying. They did not allow negative results or rejection to kill their new ideas, hopes and dreams. They took every obstacle as a challenge to overcome. They picked themselves up after every rejection and kept working even harder.

Do not fear change

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” After fear of public speaking, fear of changing is the strongest impediment to success. However, if we want to improve the quality of our lives, the revenue of our companies, or the inter-personal relationships with people around us, we have to change. Positive behavioral change is a must to improve results.

Understand your weaknesses and your strengths

Be realistic. There is always room for improvement. Last week I learned another important lesson in my life when I decided to take a sales assessment to evaluate my sales skills. This assessment provides crucial insights that reveal the hidden barriers you can eliminate to maximize your sales performance. Today, after digesting and analyzing the results of my assessment, I have key information which will allow me to dramatically improve my sales skills.

Developing your skills and knowledge in order to minimize your weaknesses is fundamental to get what you want. However, do not forget to keep developing your strengths. Those are the ones that got you where you are today.

The power of getting everything you want in life whenever you want it is in you. If you want to change the outcome of your actions, you have to start analyzing your thought processes and act now.

If you want to create a roadmap to your success, getting what you want whenever you want it, call me at (305) 722-7215 or send an e-mail to pjperez@activategroupinc.com for a free assessment.

Developing Your Internal CEO

By Pablo J. Perez, Executive and Corporate Coach

How can I get more control over my decisions? How can I improve my personal results faster? When can I reach my dreams? What is needed to get there?

Sometimes it is difficult to find the answers to these questions. However, there is a pathfinder formula that will lead you to a response. Everything starts with that little voice in your head, the “internal CEO” that governs the actions and decisions that will guide your future outcomes.

Let’s start by defining the term “development.” According to the Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, the definition of development is:
  • The act or process of going from the simple or basic to the complex or advanced Synonyms elaboration, evolution, expansion, growth, progress, progression
  • A condition or occurrence traceable to a cause

The process of becoming mature.

Personal development implies a deep self-evaluation; a complete review of your personal desires and dreams and a comparison between the “wish to be” and the “what I am.”

There is a mathematical axiom which states that “the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.” Similarly, your growth as a person depends on your ability to examine the parts of your life to see if they add up to the total person you want to be.

The “life wheel” is composed of the areas that together form the “internal CEO” (see graph one). The difficult task is that the wheel should be “balanced” for a smooth and comfortable journey, and the “pressure” in each area of the wheel depends on your desires, priorities and needs. Every area is always open to further development, depending on the different stages in your life, and should be checked periodically.

The successful development of your “internal CEO” will help you succeed on your own terms, developing a positive attitude, improving your interpersonal skills, and last but not least, enhancing your goal achievement rate.

Now, I would like to give you three assignments which to help you evaluate how your “internal CEO” is progressing so far.

  • List the benefits for you as an individual and for your organization of having a balanced wheel.
  • List the consequences for you as an individual and for your organization of NOT having a balanced wheel.
  • List the last 10 personal goals you set and achieved during the last 12 months.

    Once your lists are completed, the next step is to set goals and establish priorities for each area of your “life wheel,” turning your general ideas into specific goals that you can begin planning.


    Taking Action:

    Williams James, the father of American psychology, said: “The greatest discovery of the Twentieth Century is the fact that human beings have the ability to change their attitudes.”

    If we control our “internal CEO” and choose the goals we want to achieve in each area of our life wheel, we will receive the rewards of success. Having and achieving your own definition of balance in the areas of ethics and beliefs, mental, social, physical, financial, and family life will allow you to dramatically improve your results and your goal achievement rate.

    As an Executive Coach, I help individuals and organizations develop better attitudes more rapidly and produce more satisfying results. I work with my clients in all areas, including business, career, finances, time management, productivity, employee motivation, and relationships. As a result of coaching, clients set better goals, take more action, make better decisions, and more fully use their natural strengths.

    If you wish to explore deeper into the subjects contained in this article, please call Activate Group at (305)722-7215, or send an e-mail to pjperez@activategroupinc.com.


    Reference and excerpts taken with permission from Leadership published by Resource Associates Corporation.

STOP! CHANGE PERSPECTIVE AND START LEADING


By Pablo J. Perez, Executive and Business Coach

During the last weeks, our economy has been facing a great challenge which has affected our thought process about the future. We have been surrounded by bad news and negative thoughts, feeding the fear of the unknown, which could inhibit leadership behavior. Our need to be safe causes us to be fearful in those uncertain situations. This is the right time to make a pit stop, refuel, and clean the windshield to get our business or career ready for the next race.

A classic characterization depicting our current situation is a drawing by Dr. Scott Simmerman (www.squarewheels.com). The drawing shows a man pulling a big heavy wagon by a rope from the front. In the back of the wagon there are a couple of guys pushing as hard as possible to help from behind.

If we take a look at the picture from a different perspective, from the viewpoint of where we are, we see that there is a significant impediment. The wagon has square wheels. Unfortunately, from the leader’s location, at the front of the wagon, he or she can’t see the square wheels. Likewise, the people in the back who are pushing the wagon can’t see the square wheels either. Ironically, in this drawing, the wagon is loaded with round wheels. If they discover those round wheels, they will be able to take those wheels out of the wagon and replace the square ones.

Stopping our daily activities and changing our perspective allows us to have a different view of problems. Consequently, the new perspective presents a chance for a wider array of potential solutions, usually better ones than our originals.

When I say you should change perspective from time to time, I am not suggesting you should reinvent your business or your career. You need to assess and maximize your strengths in order to take advantage of the opportunities that are present. Part of my mission as a coach is to help clients embrace change, and to use the resources they already have inside the organization to produce a higher quality of results. In doing so, we work on improving teamwork and aligning everyone to mutually committed goals. However, I cannot command my clients to change. I only provide a proven process that provides a path toward change. The process not only positively affects the individuals involved, it improves organizational results.

Most people avoid change because they don't like being changed. When change comes into view, fear and resistance come along, often despite the change’s obvious benefits. People fight change because they:

· Fear losing something they value, or
· Don't understand the change and its implications, or
· Don't think that the change makes sense.

Some people believe that no change = security. I would say that no change = no potential.As Albert Einstein said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” And if you do what you've always done, you will get the same results!!

It is a great time to STOP and take another look at your organization or career. A pause in your daily activities to recognize the impediments is the first step in addressing them. Once you acknowledge the impediments, you can create a new roadmap to your success.

Contact me today to learn how Activate Group helps individuals to increase their success and works with organizations to attain consistent revenue and profit growth rates of at least 20% annually. Call (305) 722-7215 or e-mail me at pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

THE POWER OF EMPOWERING YOUR EMPLOYEES

by Pablo J. Perez, Executive Coach

The term “employee empowerment” has been regarded by critics as an exercise to change the attitudes of workers, so they can work harder rather than giving them any real power. In other words, empowerment was linked to "attitudinal shaping." However, recent research suggests that people empowerment is a key element contributing to employee engagement and well-being.

Empowerment is a global term which includes many ideas regarding employee power and responsibility; but in general, it means giving employees the power to do their job better. It is providing the right motivation at the right moment, giving the employees the necessary alignment to the organizational goals, and make them feel that their work is important.

Does higher employee empowerment improve productivity?

The answer is yes. Empowerment = motivation = action = results!

There are 4 factors that should be considered in order to generate and maintain empowerment among employees:

1. Strong leadership and accountability
This starts with the executive leadership and extends to all management levels, supervisors and people that work for them. If all members of the organization play by the same rules and to achieve aligned goals can only be a positive end result .
2. Trust and communication
Management must develop trust and good communication with employees. High levels of trust and communication are the strongest signs of employee empowerment.
3. Create the right work environment
It is responsibility of the company's management to create the environment for employee empowerment. If employees are in an environment where “joy” is part of the formula, motivation and retention will increase dramatically.
4. Action
It has been said, “that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.” The same can be said for employee empowerment. Once leadership takes action to encourage empowerment, it is up to the employees to take the opportunity.

To truly motivate your employees to perform at their peak, you must provide an adequate level of:
  • Training
  • Communication
  • Personal and professional growth
  • Ability to be creative
  • Recognition and rewards

If you want to measure the level of commitment your organization has to develop employee empowerment, just survey employees as to how well they think you are doing in the above 5 areas. If you score poorly in more than two items then you have a lot of opportunity to increase organizational performance.

Remember, management has the obligation to create the environment that fosters employee empowerment and employees have the duty to accept the opportunity.
If you want to create and deploy a strategy to increase employee empowerment, please review our website at www.activategroupinc.com, call Pablo J. Perez at (305)722-7215 or send an e-mail to pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

Positive Marketing Creates Customer Loyalty

By Pablo J. Perez, Executive and Corporate Coach

Nowadays, in order to attract and maintain customers and open new markets, offers must go beyond products and services. People want to add positive things to their lives, buying products and services which will satisfy their needs and bring value to their daily activities.

Communicating positive messages that connect potential customers to their current goals and values furthers the goals of sustainability. Addressing these values connects them to what they care about and provides the impetus for innovative business practices.

During the last decade there has been a positive trend in business: Many companies now address corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is a concept whereby organizations consider the interests of society, taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, communities, and other stakeholders, as well as the environment. CSR is a voluntary effort to improve the quality of life for employees and their families as well as for the local community.

These positive efforts create a feeling of joy among employees, creating a positive energy which will be translated into more and better customer loyalty.

Recent reports indicate that communicating positive messages of a company’s actions to address environmental, social, and economical issues, favorably affects that company’s bottom line and produces good business opportunities.

More and more consumers want to buy products and services from companies that support their values, care about the environment, and can offer shareholders a solid return. Whole Foods, for example, promotes organic products grown by local farmers by inviting customers to learn about the farm and the farmer through colorful displays positioned near the products. Patagonia connects lifestyle and values by offering customers a recycling option for some of its clothing choices. Whole Foods and Patagonia connect to their customers by using positive messages to address issues of care: values and community. Other companies produce positive messages of sustainability, based on their business goals or mission.

Another example of how a company incorporates corporate social responsibility is Starbucks. Its social responsibilities are part of their mission statement.

A good marketing campaign needs to recognize the importance of communicating positive messages by making offers and developing trust and relationships. By connecting to people's cares, we affect outcomes – especially important when addressing sustainability.

We live in a world where the negative aspect of life and its consequences drive the buying or selling decision-making process. However, companies who not only say they care, but actually demonstrate caring about their employees, customers, and communities have a great competitive advantage.

Consider the saying, "People want to know you care, before they care about what you know." As human beings, we have a natural desire to belong and feel valued. It's the reason why people hate to be sold to ... we don't feel understood or valued for who we are.

Why do people want to hear positive message for their lives?
  • They have the desire to do more and be more.
  • They are looking for effective ways to make their dreams reality.
  • They need motivation and accountability to truly accomplish their goals.

Motivated employees will motivate customers to become loyal to your company. Likewise, motivated customers not only will continue buying from you; they will invite their friends and families to buy your products and services.

Using positive messages in your internal and external marketing campaigns, and caring about your community and its environment, will bring your company a competitive advantage and sustainable growth.

Contact me today to learn how Activate Group helps individuals to increase their success and works with organizations to attain consistent revenue and profit growth rates of at least 20% annually. Call (305) 722-7215 or e-mail me at pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

Customer Retention. The Road to Profitability

By Pablo J. Perez, Executive and Business Coach


The notion that there is no linkage between customer retention and profitability is being proven false. There is a direct linkage between customer retention and profitability.

One survey found that a 5% increase in customer retention consistently resulted in a 25% to 100% increase in profits. These almost unbelievable results would suggest that there must be a powerful force, your emotional connection to your customer, which needs to be understood and effectively managed.

Customer retention is not only a cost effective and profitable strategy, but in today's business world it's necessary. This is especially true when you remember that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customer and clients. With these statistics in mind, I am wondering why most marketing and sales campaigns are designed for the new customer.

Take for instance the wireless telephone companies; if you sign a new contract you are given a large rebate or even a free cellular telephone. If you are a current customer you have the privilege of paying full price. Can someone please explain that methodology to me. With this type of promotion are we not just pushing current customers and clients to seek services elsewhere when their contract ends?

Creating a new business model that focuses on customer loyalty and retention would show that there is, in fact, a linkage between all elements of a business system: your employees, customers, and investors—and the generation of profits. Providing customer value begins with a management philosophy that supports the cultivation of strong customer relationships and is implemented by having properly trained and motivated employees who know how to deliver value.

Research has shown that customers who have an emotional connection and feel valued will repeatedly be repeat customers as well as provide a strong referral base for new customers. Loyal customers repeatedly purchasing your product or service are what generate sustainable business growth and profit. However, your practices and processes that support loyal customer relationships must be in place first before you will begin to see a profitable impact. This model does not work in reverse, although many organizations seem to think the reverse is possible.


This new business model is important because it initiates a series of steps which cascades through the organization as follows:

1. Revenues and market share grow as your best customers build repeat purchases and recommend you to others who also become loyal.

2. Employee retention increases due to job pride and satisfaction, which in turn creates a loop that reinforces customer retention through familiarity and better service to the customers. Customers like doing business with people they know, and your employees want to do the right things because it makes their job far less stressful.

3. As costs decrease and revenues increase, profits increase. Improved profits provide resources to invest in employee development and compensation (further increasing retention) and in new features and products that enhance customer value. Profits are important not just as an end in themselves. They also allow the organization to improve value and provide additional incentives and reasons for employees, customers, and investors to remain loyal to your organization.

4. Costs begin to shrink as the expense of acquiring and serving new customers and replacing old customers declines. In our experience, it is five times more profitable to spend marketing and advertising dollars to retain current customers than it is to acquire new customers.

So what can you do differently for your business? Perhaps a good place to start would be to find better ways to create and sustain a loyal customer base. While there will be the need for an investment, the advantages will be enormous to your customers, employees, and investors. Strictly from a financial perspective, increased revenue from improved service quality tends to be 10-20 times the costs associated with fixing the problem.
If you want more information or you are interested on increasing your customer retention ratios, please call (305) 722-7215, or you may also send me an e-mail at pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

Reference and excerpts taken with permission from Customer Loyalty published by Resource Associates Corporation, Mohnton, PA.

Customer Loyalty: Priceless


By Pablo J Perez, Executive and Corporate Team Coach

Last summer, during a deserved break from my coaching activities, I decided to spend four days with my family at a beautiful resort on the west coast of Florida. The experience was “ok”, except for the speed of the checking-in and out processes, pool services and other services. In a nutshell, overall service was satisfactory but not memorable. If asked, I would relate to the resort that “I was a satisfied customer”.

However, would I stay at this resort in the future? Would I recommend the resort to my family and friends? The answers toboth these questions area resounding “no.” In conclusion, I was a “satisfied” customer but not a “loyal” customer.

According to Jeffrey Gitomer of Customer Satisfation is Worthless: Customer Loyalty is Priceless, “Satisfaction is not longer the acceptable measurement of Customer service success”. The Gallup Organization’s research also concludes that no matter how an organization thinks its customers are satisfied, if it hasn’t made an emotional connection with its customers to develop a long-term relationship, satisfaction will ultimately be worthless.

During my summer experience, there lacked an emotional connection with the resort, resulting in a loss of desire to return to the resort.
Great customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.
Customers will come back and will bring family and friends to do business with you, if:
1. The “emotion” experienced at every “point of connection” during the buying process is so strong that it leaves a mark on their memories.
2. The relationship is based on “trust”. Customer will seek your personal assistance, and they are willing to pay for it.
3. They feel you really care about their needs. Always put your Customer’s interests and needs ahead of yours.
Here are some statistics
• A typical dissatisfied customer will tell 6-10 people about the problem. A typical satisfied customer will tell 1-2 people.
It costs 6 times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an old one.
• Of those customers who quit, 68% do so because of an attitude of indifference by the company or a specific individual.
• About 7 of 10 complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor.
• If you resolve a complaint on the spot, 95% of customers will do business with you again.

What happens to angry customers?

• 91% of any business's angry customers will never come back.
• 96% will never tell you the reason that they left.
• 80% will do business with you again if their problem was handled quickly and to their satisfaction.

If the problem was quite bad, they will tell stories about it for years and years to come.

"Who is typically to blame when you lose a customer?" Most customer service providers will answer that it is the customer's fault! (and here is the scariest percentage) .. 99% of the time that customer service provider only needs to look in the mirror to see who is truly at fault!”

From a scale of 1-10, how likely are your Customers to recommend your organization to someone else? If your answer is below 7 or you don’t know the answer, it is time to think about developing a Customer Loyalty Strategy to start creating the “emotion” not only on your External Customer but also on the Internal ones (employees).

If you want to learn more details about our Customer Loyalty Development Program and how valuable for your organization it might be, please review our website at www.activategroupinc.com, call Pablo J. Perez at (305)722-7215 or send an e-mail to pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

Is Your Company Flying in V-Formation? Collaboration and Teamwork

By Pablo J. Perez, Executive and Corporate Team Coach

Geese fly in V-formation for aerodynamic efficiency. Are management and staff focused on reaching a common goal through teamwork? How do you know if your teams are staying focused and flying in a V-formation to generate customer retention and loyalty?

Why do geese fly in V-Formation? A goose's eyes are set in the sides of its head, giving good all-round vision but leaving a small blind spot directly ahead and behind. If a goose were to follow directly behind the one in front, it would have to turn its head slightly to see it clearly and would have to resort to asymmetrical flapping to maintain a straight course, reducing its aerodynamic efficiency and wasting energy. Experiments have shown 25 geese flying in a V can travel 70 percent further than solo birds. The birds function more efficiently in a group working together.
The same should be said for your organization. Every employee should be focused on reaching a common goal through teamwork and collaboration. Team responsibilities should be clearly defined, and management should provide strategy and support by identifying the strengths of each team member. Team members should be selected to complement one another by utilizing their differing skills and experiences.
Jim Collins, in his best-selling book Good to Great asks the question: Do you have the right people on the bus? In this regard, Collins says that the executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.
In my experience as an Executive and Corporate Team Coach, the initial steps to increase team performance and global organizational productivity are:
  • Have a clear understanding of the skills and behavioral profiles of each team member. Forthis purpose we have been successfully applying personal and professional assessment tools that have given us the opportunity to help our clients make a better decision at the moment of hiring a new employee or building a team for a specific strategic purpose.

  • Evaluate the organizational “flying formation”. Two critical questions that are often asked by senior management are, “How do we know that resources have been properly allocated, and how can we better utilize our limited resources?” The use of organizational assessments has given our clients the opportunity to answer both questions, providing information as to how well critical elements are working together to achieve business and strategic goals.

Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, but working together is success.” For a thousand years, humanity has proven that working together generates an energy so powerful that is able to create unimaginable things. The Great Wall of China and the Pyramids in Egypt are just examples of teamwork and collaboration.

Teams that have fun and enjoy their work will focus on even higher goals and be more willing to get the job done, as opposed to employees that commit only to a boring existence of working their shift each day with no incentives.


If you are the leader of an organization or a head of a department or division, it is your responsibility to:

  • Create the strategy to enforce teamwork in the organization or division.
  • Provide positive reinforcement. If at all possible, throw a party, have an outing or invite your team for an informal get-together after work. Even if you can celebrate a team's success with pizza for lunch or a cake during a break, it is another positive reinforcement of the team effort and a building block to future successes.
  • Provide support and improve the teamwork processes.
  • Recognize and regard excellence in teamwork.


If you think 1+2=5 is a miscalculation, think again. Teamwork and collaboration, just like the geese flying in V-formation can take you 70% beyond your goals.


If you want more information or you are interested on implementing a V-formation for your organization, please call (305) 722-7215, or you may also send me an e-mail at pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

Customer Loyalty: Priceless


By Pablo J Perez, Executive and Corporate Team Coach

Last summer, during a deserved break from my coaching activities, I decided to spend four days with my family at a beautiful resort on the west coast of Florida. The experience was “ok”, except for the speed of the checking-in and out processes, pool services and other services. In a nutshell, overall service was satisfactory but not memorable. If asked, I would relate to the resort that “I was a satisfied customer”.

However, would I stay at this resort in the future? Would I recommend the resort to my family and friends? The answers toboth these questions area resounding “no.” In conclusion, I was a “satisfied” customer but not a “loyal” customer.

According to Jeffrey Gitomer of Customer Satisfation is Worthless: Customer Loyalty is Priceless, “Satisfaction is not longer the acceptable measurement of Customer service success”. The Gallup Organization’s research also concludes that no matter how an organization thinks its customers are satisfied, if it hasn’t made an emotional connection with its customers to develop a long-term relationship, satisfaction will ultimately be worthless.

During my summer experience, there lacked an emotional connection with the resort, resulting in a loss of desire to return to the resort.
Great customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.
Customers will come back and will bring family and friends to do business with you, if:
1. The “emotion” experienced at every “point of connection” during the buying process is so strong that it leaves a mark on their memories.
2. The relationship is based on “trust”. Customer will seek your personal assistance, and they are willing to pay for it.
3. They feel you really care about their needs. Always put your Customer’s interests and needs ahead of yours.
Here are some statistics
• A typical dissatisfied customer will tell 6-10 people about the problem. A typical satisfied customer will tell 1-2 people.
It costs 6 times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an old one.
• Of those customers who quit, 68% do so because of an attitude of indifference by the company or a specific individual.
• About 7 of 10 complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor.
• If you resolve a complaint on the spot, 95% of customers will do business with you again.

What happens to angry customers?

• 91% of any business's angry customers will never come back.
• 96% will never tell you the reason that they left.
• 80% will do business with you again if their problem was handled quickly and to their satisfaction.

If the problem was quite bad, they will tell stories about it for years and years to come.

"Who is typically to blame when you lose a customer?" Most customer service providers will answer that it is the customer's fault! (and here is the scariest percentage) .. 99% of the time that customer service provider only needs to look in the mirror to see who is truly at fault!”

From a scale of 1-10, how likely are your Customers to recommend your organization to someone else? If your answer is below 7 or you don’t know the answer, it is time to think about developing a Customer Loyalty Strategy to start creating the “emotion” not only on your External Customer but also on the Internal ones (employees).

If you want to learn more details about our Customer Loyalty Development Program and how valuable for your organization it might be, please review our website at www.activategroupinc.com, call Pablo J. Perez at (305)722-7215 or send an e-mail to pjperez@activategroupinc.com.

Reference and excerpts taken with permission from Customer Loyalty by Resource Associates Corporation.