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July/August 2007
From the Editor: It’s the little things
At the American Business Media Trade Show Summit in June in New York City, Jack Mitchell, Chairman and CEO for Mitchells/Richards and Marshs, three high-end specialty clothing stores on the East Coast, presented the keynote about his book, Hug Your Customers: The Proven Way to Personalize Sales and Achieve Astounding Results. Choosing a keynote speaker from outside the industry can often be a crap shoot, but his retail knowledge and expertise offer compelling applications for our industry.
His point: It usually doesn’t cost much, if anything, to improve the customer experience. It’s all about personalizing your relationship with customers, which in turn builds trust, loyalty and profits. “It’s about very satisfied or extremely satisfied customers, not simply satisfied customers,” he says. And it starts with “hugging” your staff and vendors.
A hug is really a metaphor for knowing what’s important to your customer. It can be as simple a handwritten note or remembering a customer’s birthday. Or more business-oriented, like remembering to ask about their new product launch or forwarding an article about their company or related products. Sounds easy enough in principle, but I would venture to guess that many of us don’t have personal relationships with a majority of our customers — whether it’s exhibitors or attendees. True, you probably have relationship with a handful of your top exhibitors, but is that really enough? How many should you have a relationship with? Your top 25 exhibitors by revenue? Your top 50 exhibitors by priority points? You make the call, but the point is to set a goal for you and your staff.
Developing a relationship with attendees is even more foreign to most of us. For example, one organizer in the audience asked how to we can apply these principles to trade shows when often it’s our exhibitors who have personal contact with attendees and we can’t control how they relate to our customers. Another lamented that he has thousands of attendees and hundreds of exhibitors, and he can’t possibly know them all, much less develop relationships with them.
Granted, these factors are certainly a challenge for many shows that often don’t have the manpower we’d like to dedicate to customer service. But you’d be surprised how much you can do with the resources you already have.
For example, one show organizer said she assigns each staff member to take two aisles and personally sign thank you notes for each exhibitor and hand deliver them at the show. Another said he tells his on-site staff they must “own” a customer’s problem until it’s resolved. The staffer must help the customer find the right person to answer their question instead of just passing them off. Yet another said she simply uses her Outlook calendar to remind her of customers’ birthdays, so she can drop them an e-mail or online greeting card.
Keep in mind: It’s usually not the big things that our customers remember; it’s the little things. I know this is sales 101, but I can’t tell you how many exhibitors — both very large and small — have told me they’ve never even spoken to show manager or had a substantive conversation with an exhibit salesperson. Sometimes we just need a reminder in today’s fast-paced business environment.
Danica Tormohlen, Editor
dtormohlen@ascendmedia.com
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