When I ride with building material salespeople or interact with them in a seminar setting, one of the topics the conversation almost always evolves into has to do with customer loyalty. They want to know the secrets to building greater loyalty with their customers.
They ask questions like, “Why are a few customers so loyal while the majority seem to always want to play one supplier against another? How can we break the loyalty prospects feel for the competition? How is loyalty created in the first place … where does it come from?”
Loyalty doesn’t occur by accident; it must be earned.
Some salespeople believe that customer loyalty is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, or for sure less prevalent. I don’t see it that way. I believe that salespeople and the companies they represent can still earn loyalty from their customers if they understand more about the sources of loyalty.
Building loyalty is something all businesses strive for, but few have designed a strategy to achieve it. Loyalty doesn’t occur by accident; it must be earned. And it all begins with the quality of the relationships between the customer and the people the customer interacts with at your place of business.
A few effective ways to earn customer loyalty:
1. Always tell the truth, even if it hurts.
2. Do special favors for customers without asking anything in return.
3. Invite a construction management guru to speak to your builders about how to put more money on the bottom line and avoid financial, marketing, and operational pitfalls.
4. Probe your customers and prospects by asking good open- ended questions. Find out some of the problems they are facing and do enough research to deliver solutions.
5. Be observant. Find out what each customer’s personal interests are. Remember the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as THEY would have you do unto THEM.” Talk with customers about the things they like to talk about by showing a sincere interest in their family, hobbies, projects, etc.
6. Keep a list of experienced framers in your vehicle in case one of your customers is in desperate need of a framer.
7. Read cover to cover the trade magazines published for the residential construction industry. Begin building files of articles that will help your customers and prospects be more profitable. Freely share copies of the most helpful articles.
8. Avoid prematurely asking for an order. You must first earn the right to ask for a portion of your prospect’s business. Think about it, your prospects already have a relationship with a building material salesperson, so the odds are against you catching the prospect in the mood to switch suppliers. Your goal on the first call is to be pleasant, polite, deliver value and get permission to come back.
9. Industry guru Bradley Hartman innovated a sound slogan he has built his consulting practice around that I believe
all salespeople should remember before each sales call: “You are owed nothing. Deliver value first.”
One of the greatest sales trainers of all time—the late, great Zig Ziglar with his superb talent for expressing himself—said it a different way. Zig taught this principle that will live forever: “If you help enough other people get what they want, they’ll help you get what you want.”
Salespeople are in a position to not only see problems some of their customers and prospects are experiencing, but if they keep their eyes open, they are also in a position to see those problems solved among other builders. This puts salespeople in our industry in a unique position to not only supply construction materials, but also supply solutions to the problems their customers and prospects are experiencing. “Add VALUE first,” says Hartmann.
