Beyond the Sale: Building Customer Loyalty & The Repeat Business Engine

Hello and welcome to the show. Today the question we're going to tackle is on building loyalty and repeat business. For those of you who've been listening to the show for any length of time, you know that this is already a familiar topic. But like I say, this is something that we can't overflog, that we can't overstress. So why a loyalty, loyalty or some sort of brand affinity is something that comes ahead of repeat purchases and referrals.

Because unless people are loyal and unless people have some sort of brand affinity with you, they're not going to come back to buy again and they're not going to refer. We can look at this in the negative aspect. If people are totally pissed off at you, then rest assured they're not going to buy from you again and they're not going to refer anyone. Now, there are some people who are in a monopoly situation. So if you're in a monopoly situation like you are a utility provider, for instance, in Nigeria, yes, they all go by different names, but essentially it's all Napa because PHCN you know, back when they made the the name change, PHCNI, remember some people used to say the problem has changed name instead of the what's it called power holding company of Nigeria.

So some people just say power has changed name. So for those of you who are not Nigerians listening to the show, the PHCN is the power utility provider in Nigeria right now. So it's not like the UK when it comes to gas where you have alternatives of some sort. Because back in the UK, I'm not sure about now, but back then there was Scottish gas and there was UK something I can't remember. And that's how your your house,

your business or whatever gets powered. So in a way, you had a choice, but right now in Nigeria, there's no choice. Everybody has to use the PHCN. And yeah, so if you're in that sort of situation, if you're enjoying monopoly, then to hell with all this stuff. We're talking about customer referrals and loyalty and brand affinity. People don't have a choice. You want power, they're going to come through you. Now for those of us who don't have monopoly situations going on, then loyalty or brand affinity is the thing and it's a precursor to us having repeat purchase and referrals.

So we have to work on these sorts of things. Now. Why is it a worthy goal? If you listen to the episode that I did, I think 2 episodes back on maximizing lifetime customer value, then it's going to make a whole lot of sense. So building loyalty, all kinds of brand affinity, all this is a worthy goal because you have maximize lifetime customer value. You're going to be able to get the larger amount or the maximum amounts or fuller amount that you can possibly get from your customers because they're coming back to you again and again.

And then also it makes attracting sales a whole lot easier because when people come back again and again, you don't have to go through the whole toasting phase in order to get them to buy from you. And when they refer people to buy from you, let's say a regular customer you've been doing business with for three months or maybe even a year or something, if they refer someone to you, there's a certain level of credibility that you can take advantage of.

So if Chukudi says deal with Chemi, Chemi is the correct babe. She's the one that catered my children's naming ceremony or whatever. There's a certain level of trust and credibility that goes with the fact that Chukudi is referring you. So if people think Chukudi is a correct guy and Chukudi says deal with Kami, people just assume, OK, Chukudi is a correct guy, therefore Kami must be a correct girl. Therefore she is a correct vendor to deal with when it comes to catering for weddings,

birthday parties, baby baptisms, all these sorts of things. So it makes attracting sales a whole lot easier because the business deals that are going to come in will be pre qualified. Because if you look at things from your own end, if Chukudi is a correct guy, Chukudi has sent, I mean Chukudi always pays on time. He pays ahead of time. He has referred to people to you, they pay ahead of time. Then you can assume that all the deals that are coming through Chukudi will already be pre qualified, will be correct guys correct.

Girls who pay on time, who don't give hassles. But of course that doesn't mean that you should abandoned the good business practice of having sales. Sorry. Having discovery conversations. And what's the other one? Discovery qualifications and qualification conversations. Asking questions about the person, asking questions about the problem, trying to figure out what it is that's going on, what it is that they are trying to achieve, things like that.

Having the money conversations. We should still have all those conversations with people. It's just that when people are loyal to you and referring deals to you, opportunities to you, this whole toasting phase, it goes a whole lot quicker because there's a certain level of trust that has already been built. There's a certain level of rapport that has already been built. And This is why loyalty and all kinds of brand affinity are worthy goals to pursue in business.

Now the question as usual, I'm going to break it up in two parts so that we can handle this Sydney systematic way. So First off, how do you build loyalty? This is not a question that I can answer adequately because this is a question for customer service experts, for customer relationship experts, account management specialists, you know those sorts of things. So if you want to know a whole lot about building loyalty with your clients, especially if you want to learn about it in a holistic, systematic, you know,

365 version, you should be paying attention to podcasts that are devoted to these sorts of things. However, like I say on the show, sales and business development, which is my area of speciality, has a lot to say about different aspects and different facets of business. So from a sales and business development perspective, yes, we do have important things to say when it comes to getting repeat business and when it comes to getting referrals.

And by what will I say? By extension, you can kind of read them between the lines and you'll be able to figure out a couple of things that you can do that will be good for building loyalty with your clients. But remember the caveat that I've given so far, you want a fuller treatment of this. You should be looking for podcasts that have to do with customer service, customer relationships, account management, what else?

Account management, CX, customer experience, what else? UX, user experience in all those sorts of things, you paying attention to them. Unfortunately, I don't know any Nigerian podcast that I can refer to you guys at the moment. So you just have to make do with all the western stuff that is out there. And that is the reason why podcasts like mine and absolute treasure to you guys, especially those of you who are Nigerian because we don't have a lot out there that are trying to take these principles and translate them into the Nigerian experience, into Nigerian lingo so that we can apply it accordingly.

So where was I? OK, yeah, so I was saying that sales and business development, yes, we have some important things to say about getting repeat business and by extension, building loyalty amongst your customers. Then the second-half of the question is repeat business because, you know, it's twofold, building loyalty and then repeat business. So let's look at the repeat business angle here. Now, when you're trying to get repeat business, it's a function of a couple of things.

I'll say 2 main things #1 is what I like to call the customer debrief really important, And then #2 is the whole thing of asking for referrals. Because some people just assume that if I'm the very best at what I do, that people will refer me. It's true, but it's also kind of not true. Even if you're the absolute bomb, the people who are going to refer you are going to be really, really, really small, really minute. So if you want the percentages to go up, you have to ask.

Now, I learned that the hard way, my wedding photography practice, because I think I had done about 20 weddings until one bride referred me and I was absolutely over the moon. The thing didn't click anyway, but I settled over the moon and then I sat down. I thought about it like guy come, there's a serious problem. You've done 20 weddings and only one person has referred you. So at the time I assumed that there was a problem with me with my art, not necessarily there was just a problem with my business processes.

Am I selling, selling frameworks and processes Because I was not asking for referrals. Now those of you who do the I just did greet thing, Nigerians, you know where you just call and say, ah Madam, how you doing? I just want to greet you Bros how far now I just did heal. You know all those kinds of conversations. You'll notice that the number of referrals that you get goes up because you're remaining top of mind now you are not asking for referrals, but you can see how simple things that don't even add value like Bros.

I just did heal Madam. I say make I greet you, the children, how those sorts of things and even increase your referrals not to talk of when it's now come up with policies in place, practices in place for actually looking for referrals. So yeah, back to the two elements. So like I said, in my own opinion, is the customer debrief and then it's asking for referrals. Now the customer debrief or the follow up as some of us call it Niger, is that place?

Is that a part of the business relationship where you call someone, you follow up with someone and the whole point of the call is, you know, Bros, are you happy, Madam, are you happy? And we're also trying to figure out if the brand promise was fulfilled. The technical sense of these technical names for this is customer satisfaction and customer success. So what that means is, is the customer satisfied? Are they happy?

And then the thing that they bought your product or service for, did they achieve that goal? So if you sell exercise equipments, exercise bikes, I'm sure you think my bikes cost 300 grand, that top of the line, OK, No, no, maybe not 300 grand cause the price of things have gone up. I don't think I've seen an exercise bike for 200 or 300 in a while. So let me say 500. So your bikes are 500 top of the line. You deliver it to Madam and you think problem solved and you're now hoping that maybe Madam, she has lots of rich friends, maybe she belongs to Ikeja Country Club, that's for those of you in Lagos and you think she will just automatically refer you to her friends.

That OK, I bought an exercise bike from this guy, from this girl and it's top of the line. You know that's not how it works. You should be in touch with Madame, let's say Madame Bianca later on. You should be in touch with Madame Bianca later on. They say Madame, how are you doing? Hope you're enjoying the bike. There's no problem. It hasn't broken down as you should be following up. It's not just enough that she's happy with the bike.

Want to be sure that she has been using the bike. That is where the whole thing of the brand promise being fulfilled comes in. So if you need to recommend personal trainers or if you need to send her YouTube videos or something that will help her use the equipment, you know, that is where all this relationship nurturing and all this relationship building and all that comes in. Because if she's happy with the equipment, but then the brand promise is actually fulfilled,

she ends up using this thing and she ends up losing. Let's see, let's say she loses 12 kilograms in two months. Let's say, OK, no, that's too much. Let's say 12 kilograms in three months. It is then that she will now tell her friends that are near. There's this guy who's on the island. He saw my exercise bike. He hooked me up with this person. He did this, he did that. That's the reason why as you're looking at me now, I have come down from size 22.

I'm now size 18. That is the kind of thing that builds referrals, repeat business, stuff like that. So when I'm when Madam Bianca gets bored with the exercise bike and she's thinking what else can I add to my routine, that is the reason why she will call you for something else. Because you did the debrief. You called up. But I'm Bianca. I hope you're happy with the purchase. Hope you're making progress. You're not making progress.

What happened now is just in the house. You're not using it. OK? There's too much boredom. And no problem. I know this guy, Brandon, or I know this lady. Get me this phone number, she can be coming by the house 2-3 times a week. She's not too expensive, just follow her routine, blah, blah, blah. Everything will be well, OK, you don't want strangers in your house, OK, that is YouTube resources I can send, blah blah, blah.

So is the level of concern, that level of follow up. I'm trying to make sure that they are successful with the purchase. That is what is going to get you repeat business and referrals. You know when you ask later on. So there are two things, the debrief and sorry, two things need to debrief. Are they happy? And then was the brand, was the promise fulfilled? OK, yeah, let's scratch brand. So are they happy? And was the promise fulfilled for buying the product or the service?

Now, the reason why I picked exercise equipment was because, well, First off, I think it's the worst kind of example that I can't pick now because all of us know that uncle or that auntie or that colleague, in fact might even be your wife or your husband who bought said exercise bike back when it was 80K or 120K. But the thing has been in your house gathering dust for the last five years. In fact, what you guys do is you hand the children's school uniform and that is what you hang the children's school uniform on so that in the morning when everybody's ready to go to school, you just take it off the exercise bike and then the children get dressed and then they leave.

So I picked the worst possible example ever. And that is also the reason why for those of you who have exercise bikes in your house, whenever somebody says, oh, can you refer me where you bought this equipment? That is the reason why you cannot even remember where you bought the damn thing. You can't remember the person's number, you know that? OK, the shop was somewhere on Lagos Island. I'm not quite sure that time. I used to work at this place,

that place, Maybe it might be this street, maybe that might be that street. That's the reason why I can't remember. They can't make a referral even when your friends ask because the person who sold the exercise bike never followed up with you, never called called up to say Bros how you did. I hope you're enjoying this exercise bike, Madam. I hope everything is good with the exercise bike should be is not breaking. It's not breaking down.

The pneumatics are still in points. It's not rusting. It's not this Oh how how you going with the with the weight gain dieting for training. You need other resources. You guys never had those conversations and that's why till today your exercise bike is in your house. The past 10 years, you can't remember who sold it to you, You can't remember the shop. And even if anybody asks, can you refer, you can't refer because you can't remember the dude or you can't remember the lady who you bought the thing from.

So that's why I picked that as an example. So we have to do the debrief, we have to make sure they're happy. We have to make sure that the promise of mind, the product or service was fulfilled. And then after that we have to ask for the referrals. So tomorrow we will go into some more details because we've already done some details right now about how to handle the customer or the client debriefs. So yeah, 16 minutes.

Let me bring it to a close. I don't want to keep doing any more 30 minute episodes, especially since I've been fairly regular these days and I guess a 30 minute commitment every single day. It's too much to ask of you guys. So thank you very much. Connect with me on WhatsApp. The number is 0806466 2140 and the country code is +234. For those of you who are not Nigerian, also connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavishima Ayede, I'm the host of the show and you can confirm the spelling of my name from the link.

We're currently listening to this episode. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.