con·sist·ent
uniformity or compatibility between things or parts.
Let’s talk about consistency as it pertains to a client’s experience at your studio. This is so important to understand as it is what keeps clients coming back for your services again and again.
Think about your own experience with a favorite restaurant if they don’t bring the rolls out hot and covered in melted butter like they have done every time in the past. How do you feel about it? Are you disappointed?
That is what I am talking about here; consistency is very important to our clients. How do we greet them? How many times does the phone ring before we answer? Do we offer them a refreshment one time and then forget to the next?
How do you think it makes them feel when every experience with you is wildly inconsistent?
As for myself, I find comfort in being treated the same way each time I go into a business. If something changes, I feel disappointed in that business, but I will let it go once...maybe twice. If my experience continues to be erratic with a business, I will leave and probably not tell them. How scary is that? How many people have left our businesses because we disappointed them by not being consistent with their experience. How many people have left and not let us know, but just quietly slipped away?
This is a wake-up call to look at your business from the client’s point of view.
It is critical to build a system to insure consistentcy as it relates to clients. The system then runs the business and we (or the staff) simply run the system.
If systems are not in place concerning every part of your client’s experience, discretionary decisions may be made based on things such as convenience, taste or a client’s request that may not be acceptable and does not promote long-term consistency or keep your brand intact.
This type of “off the cuff” decision may cause a fracture in a client’s consistent experience with your business. It may also cause a problem down the road if you make an exception for one client, but not another, and they know each other!
Don’t allow these spur of the moment decisions to wreak havoc on a consistent experience in your business. We have found our clients crave consistency as they find comfort in the "known."
You are the owner with the vision for the future, create a plan that creates the system and then lean on the system to run the business!
It costs FIVE TIMES more to acquire new customers than it does to keep current ones, so let's concentrate on keeping the ones we have before we put more effort into acquiring new ones!
Consistentcy is a major key in keeping your clients!
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