|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) reveals that companies spend $190 billion annually to market to their customers. Many have installed customer relationship management (CRM) software in an attempt to develop close, personal and profitable relationships with customers.
Unfortunately, there is much we don't understand about the nature of the value exchange between our company and its customers. Because different people value different things, a company must understand what it must do to win each customer's business. We know that it costs 8 to 10 times as much money to get a new customer as it does to keep a current customer. Yet, the average business loses between 10% to 30% of their customers every year. The reason for this is customer satisfaction does not equal customer loyalty (see Seven Principles of Marketing). Of the customers who defect, 80% are actually satisfied with the company's service. So, how does a company build customer loyalty?
Customers are human. Every customer interaction is inherently unpredictable. Yet, every company needs to create a true dialog with its customer. As the customer relationship evolves over a series of interactions, the customer leaves many clues to guide the company in providing truly differentiated and personal attention.
In the business world, we don't speak much about the heart. Yet, our purpose in life's work should come from the heart---since all businesses are ultimately people serving people. People need connection, belonging and meaningful contribution. Long after the product or service has been delivered, the feelings remain for the customer.
The "moment-in-time" of every customer interaction is made up of: the experience, the customer and the customer's reaction to the experience. Therefore, the "experience" that the company orchestrates must be based upon a message of what is most important to the customer's heart and mind. Coming from the heart makes sense in life and in business.
By creating attractive customer experiences, we are providing opportunities for a bonding response from the customer.
To deeply understand the foundation of a bonding response, let's take a look at what an intimate relationship is between two people. Intimacy is marked by close acquaintance, association or familiarity and characterized by informality and privacy. This essential, innermost human relationship can be experienced in a familiar glance, a private touch or even the smell of a close friend.
"This is one of the first looks into the biological basis for human attachment and bonding," said Rebecca Turner, Ph.D., University of California-San Francisco adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study. "Our study indicates that oxytocin may be mediating emotional experiences in close relationships."
"It seems that having this hormone "available" during positive experiences, and not being depleted of it during negative experiences, is associated with well-being in relationships," said Turner.
In addition, women who were currently involved in a committed relationship experienced greater oxytocin increases in response to positive emotions than single women. The researchers speculate that a close, regular relationship may influence the responsiveness of the hormone, said Turner.
To
attract is to cause to draw near or
adhere. You know this but do you know
the why and how of attraction?
Because
human beings remember with neurons (the
cells of nerve tissue), we are disposed
to see more of what we have already
seen, hear anew what we have heard most
often, think just what we have always
thought. Within
the brain, every mental activity
consists of neutrons (electrically
neutral subatomic particles) firing in
a certain sequence. An "Attractor" is
an association of ingrained links that
can overwhelm weaker information
patterns. If incoming sensory data
provoke a quorum of the Attractor's
units, they will trigger their
teammates, who flare to brilliant
life. An
Attractor can overpower other units so
thoroughly that the network registers
chiefly the incandescence of the
Attractor, even though the fading,
firefly traces of another pattern
initially glimmered there. A network
then registers strikingly new sensory
information as if it conformed to past
experience. In much the same way, our
sun's blinding glare washes countless
dimmer stars from the midday
sky. The
limbic brain (i.e. the emotional brain)
contains its emotional Attractors,
encoded early in life. Primal bias then
forms an integral part of the neural
systems that view the emotional world
and conduct relationships. If the early
experience of a limbic network
exemplifies healthy emotional
interaction, its Attractors will serve
as reliable guides to the world of
workable relationships. No
individual can think his way around his
own Attractors, since they are embedded
in the structure of thought. And in
human beings, an Attractor's influence
is not confined to its mind of origin.
The limbic brain sends an Attractor's
sphere of influence exploding outward
with the exuberance of a nova's gassy
shell. Because limbic resonance and
regulation join human minds together in
a continuous exchange of influential
signals, every brain is part of a local
network that shares
information--including
Attractors. Limbic
Attractors thus exert a distorting
force not only within the brain that
produces them, but also on the limbic
networks of others--calling forth
compatible memories, emotional states
and styles of relatedness in them.
Through the limbic transmission of an
Attractor's influence, one person can
lure others into his emotional
virtuality. All of us, when we engage
in relatedness, fall under the
gravitational influence of another's
emotional mind with ours. Each
relationship is a binary star, a
burning flux of exchanged force fields,
the deep and ancient influences
emanating and felt, felt and
emanating. The
limbic transmission of Attractors
renders personal identity partially
malleable---the specific people to whom
we are attached provoke a portion of
our everyday neural activity. Ongoing
exposure to one person's Attractors
does not merely activate neural
patterns in another--it also
strengthens them. Long-standing
togetherness writes permanent changes
into a brain's open book. In a
relationship, one mind revises another;
one heart changes its partner. This
astounding legacy of our combined
status as mammals and neural beings is
limbic revision: the power to remodel
the emotional parts of the people we
love, as our Attractors activate
certain limbic pathways, and the
brain's inexorable memory mechanism
reinforces them. Who
we are and who we become depends, in
part, on whom we love. ---Source:
A General Theory of Love by Thomas
Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., Richard
Lannon, M.D.
The
Science: Emotional Brain Holds What is
Attractive To Us
For
self-help books click on:
be
conscious of your default
behavior
,
love
, success
, self-coaching
, leadership
,
what
should I do with my
life
and the
meaning of
life
Gone are the days of the geographically captive customer when merchants and service providers had the advantage of being the only place within driving distance. Today, even in cyberspace, the velvet-glove treatment is what your customers expect...or...they will shop elsewhere. Many companies today are shifting their resources to spend 70% devoted to creating a great customer experience and only 30% on marketing expenses.
*
People categorize by brand (your
brand-name needs to be within the top
three of the category when the customer
is ready to buy) *
People will go with what they know and
trust (you need to leverage your
established brand market
presence) *
Let your customer win by establishing
business processes that make it easy
for the customer to be loyal to your
brand (provide the customer many
choices to do business with
you) *
Continuously improve your branded goods
and services (better, cheaper, faster)
to bring customers back again and
again.
Since competition is a matter of relations, the ability to structure and control the process of attractive experiences, that evolve into productive relationships, determines success. Brands are everything in symbolizing experiences by customers and prospective customers. Connection and coordination with customers matter. The manner in which the seller is connected with the buyer matters.
In today's environment of changing technology and evolving complexity, we don't have to fake it. Yet, we must keep growing our abilities to grasp the success we seek.
Learning what we don't know helps us to understand why we do what we do. As we become more self-aware, we can consciously choose how we wish to improve our lives.
Receive
our Podcast:
http://coachingtip.blogs.com/coaching_tip/rss.xml
or
get Free
Monthly Coaching Tips!
by entering your name and email address
below:
What is Success?
Only you know what's important in achieving your vision of success. However, we all seek shared outcomes to provide a foundation for where we want to be. Here is one client's definition of the foundation for his success:
"Have you ever watched, listened, and felt someone tuning a guitar or other string instrument? That is what it is like to have the good fortune of connecting with John Agno. He is a living tuning fork and you're that string instrument. Today, I have greater self awareness, am more in step with my calling, and better able to appreciate the journey, including the valleys, than ever before. Thanks, John for helping me get attuned with my LifeSignature."
You, too, can drastically increase your chances of succeeding in business and life when you learn from a coach or mentor – someone who once stood in your place and overcame all obstacles to earn success and happiness.
The common thread throughout history has been that you learn mastery performance from the master. Whatever quality or skill you want to develop, you "get it" by hanging out with people who have it.
Leadership coaching matters.
Leadership development is not an event.
Albert Einstein once said, "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles but no personality. It cannot lead; it can only serve."
Leaders know and science has discovered emotionality's deeper purpose: the timeworn mechanisms of emotion allow two human beings to receive the contents of each other's minds. Emotion is the messenger of love; it is the vehicle that carries every signal from one brimming heart to another.
Leadership happens in a series of interactive conversations that pull people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.
That is why leadership development is not an event. It is a process of participating in respectful conversations where the leader recognizes his or her own feelings and those of others in building safe and trusting relationships.
For human beings, feeling deeply is synonymous with being alive.
After receiving leadership coaching tips for a year, here is what four subscribers had to say:
"I have enjoyed reading the tips. I find they provide insight in dealing with both my personal issues, as well as, my professional career. Many of them help when dealing with employees. I think the tips will help anyone who is interested in or already in a leadership position. As leaders, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard, than we hold our subordinates, in order to set the example we want them to work toward."
"I have enjoyed the self coaching tips and have used them in my own internal corporate mentoring. I have also passed them on to others because they are succinct and beneficial."
"Self coaching tips have helped me a lot. I have never missed one in this one year. It does not take much time to read them. It is short and informative. It has helped me to understand myself and concentrate on my improvements."
"I am constantly amazed at how God seems to know JUST WHAT I NEED, and very often your message is JUST WHAT I NEED at the time. Thank you so much for making a difference in my, and others' lives."
Subscribe to low-cost daily ...or... weekly success secrets from world-class teachers...or...just take a 30-day test drive.
Test Drive our daily leadership tips for only $3.95 for 30 days.
To develop your leadership ability through one-on-one leadership coaching, please visit: www.CoachThee.com
For more information on mentoring and coaching, please visit: www.MentoringandCoaching.com
For more on mentoring and coaching tips, please visit: www.MentoringandCoachingTips.com
To get to know yourself better, please visit: www.SelfAssessmentCenter.com
Click for information on self-directed learning.
Click for suggested reading to become a more effective leader.
Signature, Inc., PO Box 2086, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 734.426.2000 www.CoachThee.com
