What can you do to create a loyal customer, not someone who calls you here and there for an AV upgrade but someone with whom you develop a steady relationship that includes regular phone calls, early word on future projects and, most importantly, trust on both sides?
Behavioral scientist James Kane will discuss this and more during his NSCA Business and Leadership Conference session called “The Science Behind Creating True Loyalty.” He’ll focus on the idea of improving internal relationships with your employees and bettering relationships with customers, among other topics.
Kane, who graduated with degrees in psychology and architecture, says he’s long had a connection with those in the systems integration world, adding he understands the process they have to go through to get in front of a customer—and most importantly stay in front of them. That’s tougher when integrators are blocked by subcontractors, architects and engineers from having regular face time with the client.
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“It all comes to who’s advocating for them and who’s running interference,” says Kane. “They don’t always have access to create loyalty for the customer, but there are ways around that.”
Kane knows much of what he presents as he travels around the country espousing the importance of loyalty is “common sense.”
“When it comes to building relationships, the fact we know what to do doesn’t mean we do it well,” says Kane. “Just because we know what we should do doesn’t mean we always do what we should. There are mechanisms in the brain that tell us who we can trust. It’s the difference between a loyal relationship and a transactional relationship.”
“There are mechanisms in the brain that tell us who we can trust. It’s the difference between a loyal relationship and a transactional relationship.”
James Kane
The need for customer loyalty and a stronger bond between integrators and their customers is changing as “so much becomes wireless” and those installations “don’t require the same amount of labor as they used to,” says Kane.
Kane recently talked to a mid-sized lighting contractor who installed a new lighting system for a customer but didn’t consider the idea of maintenance, replacement and upgrades of the lights. That’s an important piece Kane thinks too many business owners forget: keeping the conversation going.
“There’s a real opportunity to take a 30,000-foot-view of our clients’ businesses, even if I never did it or thought about it,” he says. “We should be focused on what our client’s issue is, not on our own issues.”
