The writer is author of "The Cult of the Customer: Create an Amazing Customer Experience That Turns Satisfied Customers into Customer Evangelists," recently published by Wiley. — Ed.
Have you ever thought about the financial value of your customer? Let me give you an example. Let's say you own a grocery store. The average customer buys $50 of groceries each visit, and they visit the store twice a week for 50 weeks each year. In a year, the customer is worth $5,000. Let's say the average customer moves every seven years, so over a period of seven years, the customer is worth $35,000.
But there is more. You have to believe that if you do a good job, your happy customers are going to refer others to you, such as a new neighbor who just moved into the area. Conservatively, let's say the average customer refers at least two new customers to you.
These referrals don't make the existing customer spend more, but they are worth at least $70,000 of new business. So, losing one customer can cost you over $100,000! ($35,000 plus $70,000 worth of referrals)
This type of reasoning applies to virtually any type of business. The important point here is to be able to see the big picture.
If you are the grocery store owner and a customer complains about the steak they bought last week, give them their money back. And, don't stop there. Give them some "free" steak for their next meal. It may cost you $10, but that is less than 1/100 of one percent of what the customer is ultimately worth.
Every business has different numbers, but the principle still holds true. There will always be returns, refunds, complaints, etc., and by cheerfully taking care of them you build trust and customer retention. Even the people/customers whose problems you take care of, yet never do business with again, can be valuable.
A few years ago I conducted public seminars. This seminar was very successful and problems were virtually nonexistent. However, at one seminar, halfway through the first day, a gentleman came up to me and said he didn't want to attend the rest of the seminar. The program was not what he had thought it would be.
He had spent a lot of money to attend the seminar, and was prepared to fight for his money back. I asked him if we could talk about this during our lunch break and he agreed.
When we met, he gave me his reasons. Whether I agreed with him or not didn't matter. I immediately offered to give him his money back. He was shocked. He didn't think it would be so easy. He used words like honest and ethical to describe our company.
A few weeks later we received a call from a potential customer. He was referred to us by the man who was unhappy with the seminar! And a few weeks after that he referred another customer. Our unhappy seminar attendee was sending us business!
Finding the value of a customer is easy. What is the average sale per customer? How often does he/she buy? How long will a customer buy? Multiply those three together and you have the value of the customer.
But, don't forget the referral factor. Will the happy customer refer two, three, four or more customers to you? Multiply the value of your customer times the number of referrals. Now you will have a better understanding of the value of your customer.
Taking care of customer problems doesn't always mean giving money back. Sometimes problem solving needs creativity or just simple common sense.
For example, my car had a problem and the warranty had just expired. I talked to the dealer and he fixed it without charging me — even though it was outside of the warranty period. Why? Because he knew the lifetime value of his customer far exceeded the very small cost of keeping me happy.
Everyone in the organization should know the value of a customer. It will validate the importance of the employee and the decisions they make.
