How to make first time customers loyal, long term, faithful clients — (If you rely on contracts, you are doing it wrong.)

CREATE AN INDELIBLE FIRST IMPRESSION ON EACH NEW CLIENT

The other day, my wife and I decided to try a new seafood restaurant. Well, as soon as we walked into the restaurant, I looked at Jessica and asked, “Are you sure they are open?” because there was no one there, and it was about 5:00 in the afternoon. On top of being vacant, the whole place gave me kind of a “meh” vibe. But before we could walk out, a pleasant man who we later found out was the new manager, came from the far end of the restaurant and greeted us by asking, “Have you been here before?” He then explained the menu and said we could order whenever. While we were waiting for our food, I started looking around and then casually told Jessica that I could sell this place out. And then my marketing brain started to fire, and I started sharing with Jessica how I would improve the restaurant’s image. I knew that the main problem was the lack of lust when it came to the first impression. Like I said, my first impression was, “Meh.” And the one thing for which you never get a second chance is a first impression. Before I even realized what I was doing, Jessica stopped me and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Christensen, I thought I was on a date with Spencer.” I smiled and apologized and we talked about non-work stuff for the rest of dinner . . .

That is, until after dinner when this new enthusiastic manager came over and started talking to us. I couldn’t help myself. In an effort to help him I started by saying that I was super happy for him in his new venture . . . and then said, “You could sell this place out. You have a great location. Your food is good. You have great people skills, but unfortunately none of that matters.” I could see a look of confusion in his face so I continued, “I am a marketing expert and the thing is, some restaurants with great food go under and some joints with just mediocre food do great. The difference between surviving and thriving is usually the marketing.” I then explained that at the most fundamental level, a company only has 2 components. Marketing and innovation. Innovation is the creation of a product or service, and marketing is telling people about the product or selling it. If a company fails to create memorable impressions in the minds of its target market via marketing, then even the greatest products and services will eventually perish in obscurity.

I then offered, “You treated us really well and if you would like, I will give you 5 minutes of advice which you can then implement. If the ideas help you, great! And if not . . . well you’re probably not doing them right.” 🙂

He was a good sport, and he laughed, and said he would welcome any advice. So I started with what probably seemed like an unusual question.“Do you surf the web much?”

He replied, “As much as the next person, I guess.”

“So, when you land on a new website, obviously at some point you are going to make a decision about whether you like and trust that new site. You may not know the answer to this question, but if you had to guess, how long do you think the average person takes to decide if they like or dislike a new website?”
He shrugged and said, “15 seconds?”

“Negative. 50 milliseconds–that’s 1/20th of one second. And that’s not the really interesting part. Neuromarketing studies indicate that less than 20% of the time will a web user change their mind. The point is, people pass initial judgement in about 1/20th of a second, and then 80% of the time, they hold to their initial opinion.”

I could tell my new friend was thinking, ‘Dude, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have a website, I have a restaurant.’ So let me explain why this fact was relevant to him and why it’s relevant to you. The human brain is hardwired to formulate an opinion instantaneously about every new experience. It doesn’t matter if it’s a new product, a new website, or in my friend’s case, a new restaurant. As soon as your guests, clients, or customers are exposed to your company’s image, whether it’s an advertisement or in this case, a restaurant’s front door, their brains will instantaneously make the decision–like or dislike. This completely subconscious brain activity has tremendous influence on whether guest come back or not and whether they tell their friends or not. Now, if their first impression is not a home run, but your product is awesome, you will be able to change their perception some of the time. But why start the game with a handicap? I then said, “You need to repaint. You need some sort of “wow” factor as soon as people experience your company. If it was me, I would remodel the entry way so that the first thing your guests see when they walked through the front door is a beautiful canvas brush stroked painting of something that had to do with the sea. I would lay the canvas in the nicest frame money could buy.” I then advised, “You also need to change your furniture. You need to get rid of these booths”–because they were uncomfortable and aesthetically disappointing. Then I said, “Your restaurant has a very interesting story of how the owner started the company. You should document that story and then train receptionist to share that story with guests while they are walking over to be seated. I gave him a bunch of other suggestions , and then my five minutes was up.

The thing about this story is many business managers are in a similar situation as this business owner. Their business is not serving as many repeat and new clients as they would like, and they can’t figure out why. The take away from this story is this: you need to look at your products, your services, and your systems through your customers eyes. You have to understand what the experience is like for them, and then improve those experiences. You need to make sure that the initial approach (the first 45 seconds on contact with a new client) is a home run. Consider your packaging, your presentation, your delivery, your employees’ level of training. Work to improve the first impression and your business will improve everywhere else.