Bob London shares his favorite client question: "What would make you a customer for life?" Most customers have never been asked it, and their answers reveal unmet needs and gaps your competitors miss. Ask it at the end of a call to uncover what a real long-term relationship looks like to them.
Chapters
So I'm wrapping up very shortly, but I want to say that this is my go-to question. And what I mean by that is sort of if I could only ask one question, if I only had time to ask a customer one question, this would be the one. It's definitely the most thought-provoking. What would make you a customer for life? This one has the longest, hmm, you know, that sometimes it goes on for 10 seconds. And I finally, if I can't stand it anymore, I'll say, look, I'm not asking literally a customer for life. I'm not asking you to sign a contract with XYZ company, but what I'm asking is figuratively or literally a customer for life. What would that look like to you? What would that feel like and look like and what would it have to include? And the reason I partly know, in addition to the insights that I get, is a lot of people have said, well, that's a great question. You know, so that means they're going to give you a thoughtful answer, not one that's off the cuff. And all of this translates into, again, it's relationship building and customer intimacy. So you know what else they say? And this is the fascinating, shocking thing to me. They say, hmm, no one's ever asked me that before. And so when I do talks in front of a live audience, I'll say, so if I asked for a show of hands, I bet most of you would say you'd love to have customers for life, right? No one's ever gonna leave. So you want customers for life. That's what you want. But we aren't taking the time collectively to ask customers what that ideal relationship would look like for them. So what value do they need or want that they don't get today? Where's their business heading and how can you support them? So again, you can infer the answer to this question based on some of the answers to their previous questions, if you think about those questions. But this is a way to, at the, it's again, you're wrapping up the call, "Let me ask you just one last thing. What would make you a customer for life?" And I found that it's, again, it's very effective. And again, because they're not being asked that question, it means your competitors aren't asking that question yet, because those competitors haven't seen this webinar, which they might.
