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How Your Client’s Worry Can Make You Indispensable

Can you imagine being without your personal listening device today? Whether it be a Walkman®, MP-3 Player, I-Pod, PDA, or Cell Phone (that plays music), chances are you have a personal listening device. Chances are you cannot imagine your life without it.

Can you imagine being a critic who laughed at the notion of a Walkman when Sony first introduced it in 1979? Critics thought no one would invest in such a small cassette player when there were so many options available for listening to music.

Even Sony failed to realize the phenomenon they had on their hands, selling out their initial production of 30,000 units in just two months. As we know now, that was just the beginning.

What those critics failed to understand was the task that a customer would use a Walkman for. The Walkman became such a popular product because it allowed users to listen to cassettes with almost no effort.

The Sony Walkman solved a task—a problem—for customers that they did not even know they had.

Solve a Problem, Make a Sale . . .

Susan owned a dry cleaning business. Hers was a lone store operation competing with two very well known and popular chains. Just like the larger chain cleaners, she was removing stains from her customers’ clothes.

She did this routinely and did it well. Susan did enough to stay in business, but dry cleaning is one of those businesses whose fortunes ebb and flow with the economy.

And when the job market tilted downward, so did her business.

It wasn’t enough for Susan to merely solve a problem—remove stains from her customers’ clothes.

Make it Effortless to Complete a Task . . .

What made the Sony Walkman a phenomenon, and completely changed the way we think about listening to music was that it went beyond the simple notion of performing a simple task.

The Walkman allowed customers to listen almost effortlessly. Using the Walkman was so effortless that users could perform other tasks: exercise, cook, garden, household chores, you name it.

This feature of the Walkman was not lost on Susan one day as she was watching one of her employees cleaning clothes while listening to music.

If Susan wanted to stay in business, she had to do for her customers what the Walkman was doing for her employee.

Keep Your Clients for Life!

Susan began taking a good look at her customers. Who walked in the door? When did they come to drop off and pick up? What clothes did they drop off? How expensive were those clothes? How often did they come in?

Depending on how busy she was on any given day, she would engage in some small talk. A vision began to emerge for Susan about the lifestyle and needs of her typical customer. They were busy people. They valued their time.

And often enough, they really wished they didn’t have to expend any effort to schlep their clothes back and forth to her shop.

How could Susan make dry cleaning completely effortless for her customers? By crafting a service that would get their clothes clean with almost no effort.

Susan crafted a service that included:

  • Scheduled pick up and delivery of clothes,
  • Starch and special requests kept on file,
  • Complementary search for stains,
  • And cleaning of an unlimited number of garments for a per-month subscription price, direct debited from her customer’s bank account.

This service allowed Susan’s customers to never worry about: scheduling a trip during a hectic day, pointing out stains for the cleaning staff, counting the number of garments they dropped off, pulling out a credit card or check, and wondering what the bill would be month-to-month.

Susan was no longer in the dry cleaning business. She was in the clearing of mindspace business. Susan made herself indispensable to her customers, because they never had to think about the logistics or procedures for getting their clothes cleaned.

She now enjoys a steady, reliable stream of income from a large group of grateful customers.

Making Your Client More Effective at Doing his Job

If you want to stimulate loyalty in your clients, go beyond merely solving their problems. Remove a worry completely from their field of concern.

In his best selling book, Getting Things Done, David Allen describes how we are not working at our best because all that is unfinished creeps into our attention and distracts us from the task at hand.

Imagine how the service you provide to your clients can be so comprehensive that it removes a worry completely from their field of concern. Without that worry, your client becomes more effective at his or her chosen task.

Do you remember the sequence?

  • Solve a problem. Make a sale.
  • Make it effortless for your client to complete a task and . . .
  • You will keep your clients for life.
    Or at least for a good long time.

Time for me to go now. I have to answer the door. It’s my dry cleaner delivery service. Of course, I will have to remove my headphones before I answer the door. 8->

Happy Client Retaining,

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© 2004-2007 Jeff Simon Consulting. All Rights Reserved. Wouldn't you love to peer into your client's head and know what they are thinking and feeling? Could you have better success at keeping and choosing your best clients if you could decode their behavior? Check out the Happy Clients Newsletter at: www.happyclientsnewsletter.com.

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