It’s important to find new customers, but equally crucial to retain existing ones. The longer your customer remains connected with you, the more benefits you derive in terms of repeat sales, references and word of mouth publicity. However, in their zeal for new customers, sales professionals often deprioritize and ignore their existing ones, leading to decline in engagement & post sales service, thus resulting in high levels of dissatisfaction and churn.
Of the many reasons for neglecting customers, one reason is best exemplified by a story I heard a few years ago and which I would like to share here. The story is called – THE 99 CLUB.
Once upon a time there lived a King, who despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.
One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy. The King asked the servant, 'Why are you so happy?' The man replied, “Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our stomachs.”
The king not satisfied with the reply and consulted his most trusted advisor.
After hearing the King’s woes and the servant’s story, the advisor said, “Your Majesty, I believe that the servant has not been made part of THE 99 CLUB".
“THE 99 CLUB ?” inquired the King.
The advisor replied, “Your Majesty, to truly know what THE 99 CLUB is, place 99 gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep.”
The king did so and when the servant opened the bag he was overjoyed to see so many gold coins! He started to count them and finally satisfied himself that there were 99 gold coins in the bag. But this also puzzled him – “What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave only 99 coins?” So he looked everywhere for that final elusive gold coin but just couldn’t find it. Finally, exhausted he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.
From that day on the servant's life changed. He overworked himself which made him horribly grumpy & irritable. He stopped singing and started castigating his family for not helping him make that elusive 100th gold coin.
Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. But not the advisor. “Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined THE 99 CLUB.”
THE 99 CLUB is a name given to those people who are so focussed on seeking more that they forget to appreciate and make the most of they already have.
Build your client base to increase sales, but not at the expense of your existing customers. For you need to ‘hunt’ and ‘farm’ too.
Customer Orientation Workshop for Becton Dickinson, Gurgaon
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