How the “grateful sale” increases sales
A Rockefeller Corporation study found that for 70% of customers that don’t return to an establishment, the reason is the treatment they received there: they did not feel valued. This is what is called perceived indifference. Only 14% did not return because of dissatisfaction with the product or service.
The study corroborated one of Madavi’s fundamental ideas: customers who don’t feel appreciated are more likely to leave.
The fact is that many companies are more focused on selling than on loyalty building, even though it is much more expensive to attract a new customer than to retain one we already have.
What leads customers to be true fans of a product, business or service? Naturally, factors such as quality have an influence, but loyalty is reinforced, and customer satisfaction is achieved, through other customer-focused actions and attitudes, such as the grateful sale.
The excellent results of a grateful sale
A grateful sale makes the customer leave much more satisfied, the store teams get much more involved and sales increase. This has been seen, for example, in the case of Eroski.
In this project, Madavi’s challenge was: “How to help Eroski become a leader in customer service”. And these were the results: customer perception of Eroski’s service rose from 68 to 83%/96%. In addition, every one of the stores became number 1 in “customer satisfaction”.
What is customer appreciation?
Customer appreciation can be defined as the act of expressing gratitude and recognition to customers; showing them that you appreciate their loyalty is a simple and effective way to satisfy them in the short term and build loyalty to the brand in the long term.
When the sale is made with gratitude to the customer, who feels that they have been given something more than the product itself, much more is sold.
It is for this reason that it is so important to thank our customers for their choice and provide them with exceptional attention. Giving them attention in this way from their very first experience with our brand is essential, as well as every time they approach us, even if it is to complain or give us an opinion.
How can we successfully introduce the grateful sale?
There are dozens of different customer appreciation proposals that businesses can use, from offering random discounts and incentives to sending personalized letters. Sometimes, the small details are what add up.
This is all very well, we are not going to demolish marketing theories, but at Madavi we are convinced that exceptional results can only be obtained if the grateful sale comes about through the attention given by the people who serve the customer, especially in the case of a store.
When we want to implement a change process in the company through grateful sales, there are two fundamental aspects: the first, that the team itself is the owner of the change process. Because it is the store teams that achieve the results, since they are the ones who interact with the customer. The second aspect is that this process of change is carried out learning from the best experiences of each salesperson. Real stories and applicable lessons. This is what at Madavi we call positive deviation, a methodology of change with exceptional results.
With these lessons, they debate how to do it even better the following week, overcoming gaps that previously seemed unbridgeable.
This process generates collective action: people have the personal goal of generating positive deviation for the benefit of the whole.
In Sales, the most common approach is to analyze the negative deviation; the results are studied; the focus is placed on the worst of them and why they haven’t worked is analyzed. What is obtained is a lot of excuses, wasted energy, and the projection of blame. We become experts in what doesn’t work instead of experts in what gets results. And by taking this path of “what we don’t have”, we obtain neither grateful clients, good in-store experiences, or, of course, increased sales.
