Remember the three most important functions of business...

Remember the three most important functions of business:
1. Keep your current customers
2. Find new customers
3. Make a ton of money

Too often we take for granted our current customers. Let’s take a quick look at some strategies to keep our valued customers.

This past week I spent 5 days at Disney. My son’s baseball team was spending a week playing practice games in Orlando at the Disney ESPN Sports Complex. Once again Disney exceeded expectations and the team booked next years visit with 100% support from the coaches, players and parents. There were challenges and disappointments but what made the experience so positive was their people; they responded to every situation with class and professionalism. Again, it was their people that made us feel almost happy about the expense and created a willingness to give 20% to 25% tips whenever possible.

How about the prank that was played on my son’s team! Someone, apparently from a rival team, called his coach at 1:15 AM claiming that their game the next day, scheduled at 4:30 PM, had to be moved to 7:00 AM the next morning due to a water main break. The entire team showed up dressed and ready to play at 6:00 AM only to find out they were the only team in the complex. When Disney discovered what happened, of no fault of their doing, they arrived on the scene turned on the lights for practice and brought in, at their expense, a custom breakfast with smiles for the entire team.

From Dale Carnegie’s Book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” here are seven strategies to help you keep customers; all of which were demonstrated by Disney’s employees:
1. Give honest appreciation
2. Become genuinely interested in others
3. SMILE
4. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
5. Begin in a friendly way
6. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view
7. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely

Make it a great week and when thinking about keeping customers…go make their day!