Posts tagged Customer Experience
Another Secret to Converting Leads to Customers
Jul 6th
I have another secret for you. This secret is so important that it will increase your sales, guaranteed. Want to know what it is?
The secret is:
Always forward your office/school phone to your cell phone when you’re not in the office.
When leads call you in the early morning or on the weekend, they expect to get a machine. They expect to leave a message. Show them your awesome customer service skills by surprising them early…and answer the phone when they don’t expect it.
Two nights ago, I got a call from a lead while I was in the grocery store. I went to a quiet corner, took down their information, and talked to them about their child’s math issues like I normally do. Then the person said something I didn’t expect: “If you hadn’t answered, I would have called the next business on my list.” I told him that was how we do things at our business. He signed up for twelve months the next day.
I was surprised he said that because I know that people do that, but they just never tell me that they do that. I was surprised because he was honest.
Remember that I am the owner of a math tutoring business for kids. There’s not a lot of competition. I’ve worked with so many martial arts businesses and martial arts schools that I know this situation happens all the time.
It’s so hard to differentiate yourself as a martial arts business when everyone thinks of karate and tae kwon do as being the same. The one way to differentiate yourself right away is to be available. If you miss a call, return it right away. Especially the ones that don’t go to voice mail.
In my experience, very few people will leave a message unless they’re specifically looking for YOU. Since most aren’t, they’ll go on to the next name in their list.
Don’t forget to carry a notepad and pen with you so you can get their information when they call!
Reward your students for referrals
Jun 18th
If you want referrals, you have to tell people you want referrals. Then you have to reward people for referring other students to you.
There are a lot of issues I will eventually talk about regarding referrals, but for now, I want to mention something that I’ve not seen very many martial arts businesses do.
9 Ways to Improve a Parent’s Night Out Event
Jun 16th
Parent’s Night Out events are a great way to improve happiness of your current students (and improve retention!) and also to gain new students.
A Parent’s Night Out is where you “babysit” your students for a few hours on on a Friday or Saturday evening so that the parents can get a night out. When you do them, you need to make sure you plan them out and improve them every single time.
A few ideas to make your current Parent’s Night Out events shine:
Continue reading “9 Ways to Improve a Parent’s Night Out Event” »
Another community increasing idea!
Jun 11th
I can’t believe I forgot about this next issue. If your students form cliques, then that’s just as bad as them showing up for class, doing their form, and leaving as soon as they can.
New students always need to feel like a part of the school or they won’t be students for very long. This goes for new people in the school, new people in intermediate classes, and new people in advanced classes. This can be an opportunity for huge retention gains, or a way to lose students quickly.
Increasing your school’s community
Jun 10th
Alright, you sat through my lecture/story about one pitfall of enhancing the community feeling in your school without thinking about the rest of your business first.
Remember: Your product/program/curriculum has got to be GREAT all the way through, not just good.
So how do you create a community in your school? The short answer is: you don’t. You cannot “create” a community. You can only give your students opportunities to form more friendships and to create their own community.
Satisfying Students in Your Classes
Jun 3rd
Satisfying your students should be the number one priority of a martial arts business and school, right?
WRONG!
3 Giant Tips to Increase Student Retention
Jun 2nd
There are many quick and easy ways to increase retention and increase your student’s experience at your school. Here’s a few that I’ve seen/found/come up with myself. Note that the best (read: hardest) ways to increase retention is to be a great teacher, and to have a good program that’s deep enough for students to want to stay for a long time. Those issues can be written into whole books so those are not my goal for this post. This post is about things you could do this month if you chose to.
Continue reading “3 Giant Tips to Increase Student Retention” »
Customer Service is Important
Jun 1st
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about customer service. I’ve found that so many martial arts businesses and schools do not put any care into customer service (the customer EXPERIENCE). Martial arts school gurus talk a lot about retaining students (retention). There is only one good way to retain students: improving the customer’s experience, whether that customer is a child or an adult.
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