Food for thought about customers

by Dick Keough, Brunswick Market
  1. How do you feel about your customers?
  2. How do your customers feel about your farmstand?
  3. Do you get cash tips from your customers?
  4. Do your customers give you gifts?
  5. Do you give needy people a gift of your product or a discount?
  6. Do you get asked to help local groups and do you? Do you get thank you letters, or donation receipts you can use for tax purposes?
  7. Do you share your knowledge if asked a question?
  8. Do you greet each person with a smile?
  9. Do you greet each person with a good morning or good afternoon?
  10. Do you point out the good things about each day?
  11. Do you demonstrate the happiness in you to each customer by the warmth of the words you use in your verbal exchange?
  12. Do you try to learn your customers’ names and use them?
  13. Do you keep a customer card file (a customer profile)?
  14. Do your customers call you at home, and say please bring me ____ ? Or check on a crop?
  15. Do your customers bring you a hot apple pie or a hot breakfast or hot lunch or other goodies?
  16. Do you feel you are a part of a Market’s success?
  17. Do you feel you need to be more regulated by the state or federal government?
  18. If new regulations are explained showing the need for that regulation and the benefits of that regulation, would you feel better about the regulation?
  19. Do you feel the sales people who help you at market are doing a better job of selling your product than you are?
  20. If you have kids helping to sell your product, are they doing a good job? How do your customers react to the kids?
  21. Do you say “thank you” after the sale?
  22. Do you tell the customers the next day you will be at market?
  23. Do you tell the customers of a new product you will soon have?

Thank you for thinking!

The Importance of Customer Satisfaction

  • It costs 5 times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep a current customer.
  • 26 out of 27 customers who have had a bad experience with you won’t tell you and 91% of non-complainers won’t come back.
  • 13% of those dissatisfied customers will spread the news to twenty or more people.
  • Reducing the creation of dissatisfied customers by 5% can increase profitability in most businesses by 25% to 100%.
  • The only way to retain your customers is to constantly exceed their service quality expectations, which means you must first identify those expectations and then determine how satisfied your customers really are.

About Leigh Hallett

Leigh has been Executive Director of the Federation since 2014. She can be reached by email ([email protected]) or by calling the MFFM offices (487-7114).