Winning Share of Heart with your Customers: Learn Six Ways.

Love comes in many forms … loyalty, adoration, appreciation, passion, trust, and sacrifice. Why do some companies earn true love from their customers while others must settle for just being liked? How do you move from indifference to interest to likability to lasting love in a business relationship?

Let me show you six ways you can earn ‘share of heart’ from your customers and engage them in a loving business relationship.

Too often, companies will call upon their customers or consumers only to get the cold shoulder or the sense that, like the movie title says, “He’s just not that into you.” What if the opposite became true? Would revenues follow love?

The answer is unequivocally YES. When you capture share of heart, you earn greater share of market and share of wallet, mind and time.

Here are six ways you can begin earning greater ‘share of heart’ with your customers:

1) Become a Student of Your Customer: Learn more about them than they know about themselves. Be insanely curious about their business, their people (without being nosy), their growth plans. Find out what others are saying about them in the media or in their industry and share it with them. They’ll be flattered that you care enough to dig deeper and really understand them, and that will translate to appreciation.

2) Care About What They Care About: This means that first, you must know what causes are important to them, such as the environment, poverty, orphans, family, health care, the arts or something else. Show them that you give a portion of your proceeds to these causes and you’ll earn greater loyalty. Show them that you walk the talk with your employees and you’ll earn greater trust.

3) Give Something Up: Based on the principle of sacrificial love, this means that your customers will love you more when you give up something without being asked. You give them a free service or add-on product. You give up your right to hold them to a contractual obligation. You give them service or support or product that they need with no strings attached. They’ll naturally want to reciprocate with greater loyalty.

4) Make Fun A Priority: It’s no secret that people prefer doing business with people who are fun, as long as the product or service delivers what they need. It’s as true for Cheetos as it is for your children’s dentist as it is for your widgets supplier. You do this by showing wit or winsomeness in your communication, by inviting them to fun events, by surprising them with funny stories that bring a smile into their day. Life is hard, and they’ll love you for making it a little easier.

5) Practice Generosity: Some organizations are known for being tight-fisted, holding on to their earnings and spoiling themselves. Others develop a reputation for giving back to the community, taking precious care of their employees, sharing perks with business associates and being flexible about payment needs of their clients. Let your customers know what kind of organization you are with quiet signals of your generosity … stories on your website, references on your Christmas card, picking up lunch. You’ll find that they’ll be generous with you in turn.

6) Serve Them With Extraordinary Humility: Whether you are serving customers, consumers, clients, constituents, guests, partners, employees or affiliates, you can earn tremendous adoration through the power of humility. Your willingness to do anything that feels like it’s beneath you is the place to start. Service organizations in hospitality are the masters of this principle, such as Ritz-Carlton, Disney and Chick-Fil-A. It works in B2B relationships and online businesses too – just surprise and delight your customers when they least expect it. That delight becomes a ‘love story’ that turns into repeat business fast.

Can you feel the love already? These six principles will turn your everyday customers into stark raving fans – not ove
ight, but almost. Think of that infatuation stage of every new love relationship. Begin there and nurture it for years and you’ll have a customer for life.