Customers truly appreciate personalized service. It’s an important fact that business owners of all types should know. Even when your products and services are highly sought-after, your business runs the risk of losing customers if its customer service practices aren’t top-of-the-line. You can never forget that you have competitors. And that means that your customers have options. Placing customer service as a high priority can mean the difference between regularly gaining and regularly losing customers.
How can you convey that your company is customer-focused? Believe it or not, it all begins with something as simple as addressing your customers by name. Personalizing your service by way of establishing a friendly rapport can go such a long way in making customers feel good about their experiences with you. Using their names communicates respect and friendliness and will often endear them to continue to work with you.
Dale Carnegie was an American writer, lecturer and developer of well-known courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills. He is also well-known for his many highly-heralded quotes including the following: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” And according to marketing expert, Len Markidan, studies have shown this to be true.
On GrooveHQ.com, he writes that business representatives should not only use their customers’ names, but they should use their own as well. “As it turns out, our names are so important to us that hearing them lights up an entirely different part of our brain than any other words,” he notes, “Using your customer’s name makes them like you more, and on the flip side, using your own name makes the interaction feel more personal, too.”
Sales expert and trainer, Matt of NaturalTraining.com agrees. He reveals that brain research has found that when people hear their names, it stimulates our minds unlike anything else. Because we are uniquely identified by our names, it clearly means a lot for us to hear them being called. “Our names prompt specific and unique responses in our minds that are powerful associations for anyone to use,” writes Matt, “Everyone responds to being known by name.”
Is the use of customer names really better for business? Well, how could you go wrong? Using your customers’ names is an indication that you’ve paid attention to them. It reflects that the fact they’re important enough for you to remember them. And when that is the message being communicated, it encourages them to remember you as well. Matt points out that the use of his own name by businesses he’s dealt with have encouraged him to return to them.
“I have a favorite bike store that I frequent because the customer services reps call me by name,” he shares, “There are stores closer to my home that might have a better selection, but I still frequent this one store because of their personal treatment. Using a person’s name makes them feel important and validated, strong feelings you want your customer to feel during any interaction.”
ing/
At TK Enterprises Inc., we insist upon addressing your customers by name when we call them on behalf of your business. Our highly-successful Retail Event Marketing services provide your jewelry company with a team of experienced and friendly phone agents who contact your customers in order to personally invite them to your next in-store event. Our insistence upon using their names has always gone a very long way creating incredibly successful campaigns.
For more information about our Retail Event Marketing services, please don’t hesitate to call us toll-free at 1-877-622-0195. You may also email us at heidi.tke@tomkaufmann.com.