- Fans

Coughlin’s Law – “Be friendly to everyone you meet.  You never know who will be your next most important person in your life.”

Some say customers and some say FANS.  Personally I like the sound of FANS a whole lot more.  To me a FAN is more than a customer.  A FAN is someone who goes out of  their way to tell others about your business.  A FAN will go out of their way to buy from you and you only.  A FAN will help you sell them more.

So how do you create a FAN?

These tips will apply in the brick and mortar world as well as the online world.

1. Be friendly often and at every chance you get.  The greeters now popular at most stores are there for a reason.  People like it.
2. Know your customer.  There is nothing better than walking into a business and everyone knowing who you are and what you like.  You feel like they – the business – really likes you and values you.  Your CRM system comes in handy here or someone great with names and faces.
3. Give your customer what they expect every time.   Consistency of those expectations is key.  Expectations are very high on a customer’s list of priorities.  Being a business owner, you should know these expectations before you open the doors because this is how you will sell your business.  Should the expectation be fantastic customer service, a great price or fast service?  That’s up to you but once you set the expectation you have to deliver on it each and every time.
4. Small steps every day.  Increase your performance your product or your service a little bit everyday.  Don’t try and do it all at once.  It will upset your customer’s expectations and its much easier to be a little better each day then a whole lot better all of a sudden.
5. Reward them .  Let your customer know you value their business.  I spoke of rewards in a previous post so I won’t go into detail here but there are many ways to do it.  Another example of a reward would be to get their input on your product or service.  Done it the right way it tells your customer that you value them and their opinion.

So what do you do with FANS once you have them?  How do manage them?  How do you make their experience better?  Whether you are brick and mortar or online, you should have some form or a CRM system to keep track of them and to make sure expectations are met.  These days you also need to follow the fans and be where they are.

In my bartending days on off nights we would visit other popular bars to see our customers out on the town and interact with them in a different forum.  They loved seeing us on their side of the bar.  This also gave us an opportunity to be a FAN at another establishment and create a community with that bar’s staff.

The same is true for online.  You need to be where your community members are and answer their questions and comments on Twitter and Facebook.  You need to post comments on other community blogs.  The old saying – “if you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours” comes to mind.  Be an active member of the community.  The community will like you for it and your customers will recognize you for it.

How do you create FANS at your business?  Do you just create external FANS or do you also create employee FANS?

Related posts:

1. Know how to give them a discount – reward them
2. Know the cool crowd and how they are good for business
3. A Retired Barman’s view on SCRM – Social CRM
4. MSCRM Email Router Complications
5. BuddyPress Installation ;)