Creating Lifetime Customers

Author: Jim Kukral Category: Branding, Customer Base, Customer Evangelists, Loyalty, Online Marketing Tags: lifetime customers

Wednesday
Nov 26, 2008

Have you ever thought about the lifetime value of a customer? Your customers? It’s huge. If you knew that your average customer spent $1,000 with you every year, then it’s pretty easy to calculate the average amount of money they will spend at your business for the next 30 years or more.

Case in point, my local auto mechanic. They know the value of a lifetime customer. Here’s two examples to prove it.

Example #1
Last summer I took my car in before our Summer trip to have the brakes changed because I thought it was time and they were squeaking. Two hours later I got a call saying “Their is nothing wrong with your brakes, you’ve got another 10k miles on them easy, come in and pick up your car, no charge.”

That’s instant trust. At that moment I knew I’d never have to take my car anywhere again.

Example #2
Last week I took the car back in because a piece broke above the tailgate which caused us to not be able to open the back gate. My mechanic looked it over for free, and ordered the part. The part came and we dropped off the car to have it fixed. A few hours later they called to tell us to come pick up the car, however “We were able to fix it without using the part, it was easy. So we’ll send the part back and the labor only took a few minutes, come get your car.”

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Can you give me one reason why I would ever, ever take my cars to another auto shop ever again? I won’t.

That’s the power of a lifetime customer.

Here’s what happens now. I will tell everyone I know about them, and I’ll go out of my way to do it to. I’ll also never question them in the future. If they came back to me with a big price tag next year, I’d say fix it, I trust you.

Again, are you seeing it yet? Are you seeing the power of this approach?

You can build lifetime customers too, if you follow the simple rules like my auto mechanic does. Any business owner can do this, in any industry.

Stop treating your customers like you hate them, and instead, start treating them as your friends.

You’ll be amazed at the results.

If you liked this blog post, you might also be interested in this podcast I did with a customer service pro named John Dijulius.

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Comments

Mike Allen

November 25th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

I like to say that with our customers we're looking for a marriage and not just a date.

Benny Tejeda

November 26th, 2008 at 5:05 am

Great post Jim! I really understand where you coming from. I got to say your very lucky because I took my car for a fix and after the fix they gave me a call and told me to get a pen and paper to write down all my other problem my car was having. Well, I went to pick up my car and when i started driving my car I noticed that it wasn't balanced which was weird because my car was “wheel balanced and aligned” a couple month ago. I came to find out that he “the mechanic” took off the “wheel weight clips” off my rims.
:(

webdesign düsseldorf

November 26th, 2008 at 5:17 am

das war sehr interesent und gutt.Ich danke ihnen, I m from Düsseldorf, Thank You

MLDina

November 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am

I can completely relate to that! While I'm still looking for great mechanical service (may have to drive up to your repair place), which is extremely rare, I've had excellent customer service from several other stores. It's unfortunate that we come to expect poor service for the most part. If every business treated customers the way your mechanic does, we'd all be a lot better off- from a business and relationship perspective!

Josh

November 26th, 2008 at 9:49 am

That is so true and when the big break down happens you will gladly take it to that shop. Plus, look at the word of mouth that you give to that business. I am sure you have referred others like yourself in that area to that same mechanic.

Feedback Secrets

November 26th, 2008 at 11:27 am

I had the exact opposite experience a few months back. I had just got a second-hand car from out of state and needed to get it inspected. I went to my local mechanic who I had never used before and they told me my breaks needed to be replaced.

I found this funny since the person, I had got the car from told me when they had changed to breaks. 1,500 miles is not time for new breaks. I took the car to the dealership and they measured the break pads and printed it up on a report for me. It showed that the breaks were clearly above the state mandated minimums.

I took the report back to the first mechanic and told him I would send the documents to the state if he didn't refund my inspection fee. He gave me back my cash in a flash. Since then I go out of my way to tell people to stay away from that garage.

justinlevy

November 26th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

I really identify with this post, both as a restaurant owner and also as a consumer. At my restaurant it is very important to create lifelong customers because word-of-mouth, both positive and negative, is the life blood of a restaurant..especially when positioned in a competitive area.

As a consumer I recently had a horrible experience as a customer at a new store. I will never do business there again even if they become a huge brand with franchises all over the country. If interested, this is the story I'm referring to: http://snurl.com/6ntuc

Sometimes just doing one nice deed or stopping to talk to them for a quick minute has such a long lasting effect which can be hard to measure. It should be a core foundation of every B2C to make lifelong customers.