FLIP THE FUNNEL

How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

Authors :Joseph Jaffe
Publisher : Wiley Press 2010

This book sets out to challenge.  The opening statement is, “what if we all got it wrong?  What if everything we held about doing business was backwards?”

What Jaffe is describing is businesses trapped in the strategy of acquiring new customers through traditional marketing and advertising means, rather than treating their current customers well and retaining them.

Fortunately this isn’t another book about the rise of social media.  But it does describe the immense impact that the Internet is having on brands.  We liked the line; “there’s no chance of anyone seeing a bad movie anymore.”  Isn’t that the truth?  Bad consumer experiences can be avoided thanks to the wildfire of customer recommendations online.  It’s not just word-of-mouth anymore, it’s word-of-mouse.

It’s in this environment that brand managers need to switch their attention from broadcasting one-way messages to attract new customers, and begin to focus on keeping their current customers happy.  It’s about shifting from acquisition led marketing to retention marketing.  Jaffe suggests organisations “bear hug the living daylights out of their customers.”  The book recounts several case studies of how organisations (mostly US ones) have made the shift, and the benefits they’re reaping.

Other case studies show when things go wrong, like United Airlines (“United breaks guitars”) and Dominoes.  He describes organisations that have faced the horror of an appalling customer service experience going viral, and their reaction to that incident (the good, the bad, the terrible).  He says, “using social media to put out PR spot fires is one thing, but can you (use social media) to cultivate bonfires of customer joy?”

All of us know the feeling of being exasperated by poor customer service, from companies that treat dealing with customers as a cost centre rather than an investment (ever tried to talk to someone at a phone company in Australia?  Or find a phone number for a local bank branch on a website?).  ‘Flip the Funnel’ encourages liberating customer service from the bean counters, putting it front and centre of the organisation, and delegating decision-making to the front line service personnel.

The rally cry for organisations is to “get human!” which is something we at Meerkats think we do well for our Client’s brands.

Jaffe has provided a large quantity of examples in this book, which for mine is a bit of overkill as the premise is easy to support.  It’s just hard for organisations to implement when they are traditionally focused on getting new customers through the door.  Some little suggestions include;

• giving website visitors the reassurance of human contact behind the digital veil (you know you can ring Gavin at Meerkats on 08 9388 0011, don’t you?!),
• giving your customers a voice and then listening to them,
• measuring your customer service performance particularly via the Net Promoter Score measure, and
• consider rewarding those customers that promote you or give favourable reviews.

After all, your happy customers have the ability and tools to be the “accelerants, magnifiers and amplifiers” of how great your brand is.  That’s a great way to increase sales.