Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

We’ve been cultivating and spring is finally here. Thumbs Up is busy harvesting new customers for all of our clients! From lead generation through appointment setting for our “for-profit” clients, and donor/patron acquisition through donor/patron renewal for our “not-for-profit” clients, ALL are reaping the rewards! The delight is contagious.

Our 30 years of experience provides a proven track record of acquiring new customers/donors/patrons, and our new Cultivation Strategy supplies the “staying power”! If you are interested in learning more about our remarkable results, and want to experience as much as a 20% lift, call us today, and we’ll even send you a FREE cultivation shovel!

Kari Sickinger
VP of Client Services
314-821-8111 ext. 3016

We had a wonderful 2010! We want to thank all of our employees for their hard work and dedication. We are grateful to all of our clients for the trust they put in us in being the voice and the ears to their customers. We are looking forward to a great new year! We are bullish on growth in 2011!

Greg Johnston
President

From time to time, we enjoy sharing success. Just the other day, we were meeting with one of our clients…a major national supplier of custom designed packaging. We were engaged to contact a supplied database of national manufacturers. Our role was to identify opportunity and qualify leads. Their internal sales force was extremely successful in closing new business; however, they just couldn’t find the time to do the actual “Cold Calls”.

After working with our client to develop the calling strategies, our TSRs visited their plant, were trained on the intricacies of the packaging process, and began making calls. On the very first day of calling, we hit GOLD. We spoke with the decision maker, qualified the lead and identified immediate need, – A fortune 50 company! Let’s face it, depending on the industry, most salespeople work 6 months to get 1 lead like this!

We continue our great relationship with this client and during our calibration meeting last week; our client smiled and said “We have found the missing link!” Outsourced Lead Generation. They knew their market, knew how to find the companies they wanted to prospect, but were missing how to take a database of 3,000 to 50 decision makers with immediate need! Thumbs Up Lead Generation – The Missing Link!

A few weeks ago, we blogged on Customer Delight and the response has been overwhelming. Many have actually contacted us asking what we are doing to support our clients in this area. So, we thought we’d share our solution. Two words: Cultivation Calls!

Cultivation Calls are the key to keeping your customers delighted and allow them a two-way communication channel. These conversations include more than just showing appreciation; they are a perfect opportunity to gather market research and increase loyalty. While many companies send follow-up emails or direct mail, an informed caller can drive the point home with a personal touch that makes the customer feel good about coming back!

Our Thank You/Welcome Calls are simply that. Customers are called shortly after their FIRST interaction and thanked for their business. Just listen to the sound a simple Thank You makes when it lands on your customer’s heart! In addition, we take the opportunity to ask how satisfied they were with their interaction, the purpose of their purchase, what impacted their decision on the purchase, etc. This market research is invaluable in steering future marketing and operational efforts.

Our Delight Calls involve a very brief, straightforward conversation simply thanking the customer for their business and informing them of additional benefits or new products. In addition, we will be asking how they are enjoying their interactions with your company. This call is a valuable opportunity to share information and gather actionable feedback. The market research component of these calls is independently a compelling basis for the initiative. This will be a chance for you to find out how and where you can improve, and also confirm what you are doing right!

Research has shown that Cultivation Calls are an investment in the future years to come in growing and harvesting your customer relationships. In fact, these calls will foster “word of mouth” buzz that is PRICELESS! We call this Delight.

Taking the time and effort to make these calls in which there is no ‘ulterior motive’, there is no ‘sales pitch’, is seen by your customers as you making the extra effort to assure that their experience with your company is a positive one. They will be surprised that they are receiving a call that is not asking for anything on their part. Intuitively these calls make sense; they also make sound fiscal sense.

Is it time to rethink some of your marketing and sales strategies? It is five times more profitable to spend marketing and advertising dollars to retain current customers than it is to acquire new customers!

Lastly, and very simple to do, you will want to keep track of those customers who received these calls so you can quantify your successful ROI. Happy Calling!

Kari Sickinger, Vice President, Client Services

Customer Satisfaction is so 90’s. Today, it’s all about Customer Delight! We know people talk about bad service. We’ve all heard the story…One person who has one bad experience will share that experience with 20 other people. The same goes for those who have good experiences. For example, how many of you have tried a brand new restaurant that had fabulous food, awesome service, and was a great value overall? The second you got in the car, you were texting all your friends telling them “You MUST try this new restaurant!”

But what I want to talk about today is the middle ground. Being adequate is no longer acceptable. People DON’T talk about adequate service.

It is 10 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep a current customer (Bain & Company Research). Did you know that customers are lost primarily due to indifference (66%) versus dissatisfaction (14%)? Simply said, it is vitally important to raise the bar from indifference to delight!

Companies that have achieved this have 5 commonalities:
They know how to WOO! They have the ability to win others over.
They practice EMPATHY. The ability to understand the mood of others.
They are DISCIPLINED. They work systematically and consistently.
They COMMAND. They control a situation through effective communication.
They take RESPONSIBILITY. They own a problem until it’s solved.

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

What is your company doing to stand out in the crowd?
What is your company doing to create a life changing experience?
What is your company doing to create positive stories?

Actually, customer expectations are typically not very high. Our job is to SURPRISE them. Customer Delight is doing something they haven’t even imagined. What will cause them to say WOW!

Think of 2 things you can do within your organization to impact Customer Delight. Michelangelo stated it best…”The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

Kari Sickinger
Vice President, Client Services

Kari has over 15 years’ experience in the teleservices industry and has been called upon repeatedly to “turn on a dime,” as our clients turn to Thumbs Up for quick and effective solutions to their teleservices needs.