If your customers are not singing your praises and shouting about your services; then it’s likely they’re stuck in the ‘Zone of Indifference’.
This zone is somewhere in-between being a hugely satisfied customer and a hugely dissatisfied customer. Until something brilliant happens to tip them out of the ‘zone’, towards being hugely satisfied, there is the risk that the customer will be looking elsewhere and at risk of moving their custom to a competitor.
Customers in the ‘zone’ are often satisfied, but aren’t overly blown away by the service and if a better offer came up, they wouldn’t worry too much about leaving. They can often identify areas of the service in which they would like to be better and at the same time identify those areas which they think are great.
So, how do you identify those customers in this zone and what do you do to get them out of it?
You need to start by asking your customers their opinion of your business and how they would rate your services; if anyone is scoring less than a 5, but more than a 2, then they’re in this zone. Anyone below a 2 is in the negative ‘hugely dissatisfied customer’ side of the scale and you need to act urgently to avoid losing this customer and to stop them spreading negative stories about your business.
If a customer has consistently scored you 5 out of 5, chances are that they are one of your champions and will happily refer you to others. This doesn’t mean that you should forget about them; continue to ask for feedback and look for ways in which you can continue to deliver excellent customer experiences.
Once you have identified those in the ‘zone of indifference’, you can get to work on pushing them up and into the positive. Take the improvement suggestions that you gathered and set to work on implementing changes.
Not forgetting the most important step; communicating with your customers! Thank them for their feedback, tell them what changes you are looking into, tell them what you’ve done and then follow it up to see how the changes have been received.