{"id":383,"date":"2010-05-18T09:16:54","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T16:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/?p=383"},"modified":"2010-05-16T22:23:47","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T05:23:47","slug":"customer-lifetime-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/2010\/05\/customer-lifetime-value\/","title":{"rendered":"Customer Lifetime Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

BNET recently posted an article titled, \u201cTreat Your Customers Like Lifetime Investments<\/a>\u201d. They told the story of most retailers having a dismal year, with larger companies laying off employees and closing stores, and a smaller operations shutting down altogether. At the same time, Zane\u2019s Cycles, a Branford, CT bicycle retailer, increased revenue 20 percent. How? Years ago, Zane\u2019s established a service-focused company culture that keeps customers coming to the store in good economic times and bad.\u00a0 \u201cWhen we changed from trying to force our customers to buy what we had to creating a relationship with them based on providing them with whatever they needed, then everything changed,\u201d CEO Chris Zane says.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old store sets itself apart from competitors by offering free lifetime service and parts on everything it sells, as well as 90-day price protection. Zane has tracked sales and customer data over a number of years to discover the average customer\u2019s \u201clifetime value\u201d \u2014 the gross revenue he or she will bring in over time. \u201cThe lifetime value of a customer [for me] is $12,500,\u201d says Zane. \u201cThat gives me $5,625 of profit. My customers are valuable, so I treat them that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can you turn your customers into lifetime fans? Here are Zane\u2019s tips:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Focus on customer relationships, not one-time transactions.<\/strong> Discounts and sales may lure in one-time buyers, but they won\u2019t keep them coming back. On the other hand, Zane\u2019s policy of giving away anything that costs under a dollar helps create raving fans.<\/li>\n
  2. Give your employees permission to do whatever it takes to keep customers satisfied<\/strong> \u2014 even if the customer\u2019s request might seem unreasonable. When a customer recently complained that a new bicycle from Zane\u2019s had made a grease mark on the back seat of her car, an employee offered to treat her to free professional detailing. \u201cIt becomes a much easier existence for our staff. There\u2019s no worrying if you\u2019ve made the right decision, \u201c\u00a0 Zane says. \u201cYou just do what the customer wants.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Make every customer interaction fun, informative, and positive.<\/strong> That\u2019s every interaction \u2014 even when it\u2019s clear they\u2019re not going to open their wallets that day. Zane\u2019s customers are treated to free coffee and soft drinks and encouraged to linger in the store.<\/li>\n
  4. Stand by your products with service and price guarantees.<\/strong> In a lousy economy, that may sound like a recipe for bankruptcy, but Zane says only small numbers of people actually take advantage of the guarantees. And the pay off is customer loyalty and trust.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Have you calculated the lifetime value of your customers? Can we help you create a strategy to make your customers feel appreciated?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    BNET recently posted an article titled, \u201cTreat Your Customers Like Lifetime Investments\u201d. They told the story of most retailers having a dismal year, with larger companies laying off employees and closing stores, and a smaller operations shutting down altogether. At the same time, Zane\u2019s Cycles, a Branford, CT bicycle retailer, increased revenue 20 percent. How? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,33],"tags":[9,24,26,17],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buying-behavior","category-marketing-strategy","tag-consumer-buying-behavior","tag-customer-list","tag-customer-retention","tag-maintain-customer-relationship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}