A Velcro Relationship

For many people, Velcro changed their lives. Velcro makes it easier to wear certain clothes. It keeps fabrics attached to each other, and even allows small children to keep their shoes on. Some have used Velcro to keep a hem in place or to keep a picture or some other object from moving.

You need to have that same type of relationship with your customer — you need to get attached to them. They need to need you for what you offer, for who you are and for what you and your company can provide.

Let’s consider what you can do to ensure that you have “a Velcro relationship” with your customers. What can you do or provide that will make them believe that they cannot live, or, well, work without you?

Can you provide them with reports they may need to analyze their department’s productivity, or their need for additional staff or perhaps that will help project the need for new clinical programs or assessment protocols? What do you need to do to create that Velcro relationship with your customers?

Consider the following suggestions:

• You may need to provide customers with information they need to make sure they are meeting accreditation or licensing requirements. Keep them updated on what is going on in this area nationally and in your state.
• You may need to be the company customers can rely on for easy handling of those late Friday requests without complaining about the time of day. You want to be the company that says ‘yes’ without pointing out to your referral source all the sacrifices you must make so that the customer receives the product on time.
• You may need to become the company that willingly calls the family — over and over again should it be necessary — to explain how the product works. Making that extra call should not be conveyed as providing an extra service but as a task that is routine and expected.
• You may need to become the company that goes out of your way to make sure the product is taken to the hospital so the customer’s patient will have it as soon as he or she gets home. This must not be seen as a delivery that is out of your way but, instead, as one that is part of the way you operate your customer-driven business.
• You may need to become the company that calls back immediately, regardless of the fact that the referral source said it was definitely not an emergency.
• You may need to become the company that responds just as quickly to a request from the family to pick up the equipment as you did when you originally delivered the product.
• You may need to become the company that makes the referral source look good in the eyes of the patient, the family and the physician. Playing an award-winning supporting role may just be what keeps you in business and remaining profitable.
• You may need to be the company that makes a referral source crisis look like a routine service solution that you can easily offer. You should make it appear that this type of request is handled easily and routinely every single day.

You can become more important to your customer rather than being seen only as their medical equipment supplier. You can learn to be counted on to provide them with information about new programs or services in the community or to become a resource about the legislative and reimbursement changes taking place in our industry.

Referral sources can learn to count on you to share with them the latest respiratory or rehab technology for their patents. You can learn to become one of your customers’ most valued educational resources.

Possibly you have already developed a Velcro relationship with your accounts because of a mutual interest, a similar sense of humor or, hopefully, a shared dedication to quality service and getting things right the first time.

When the day is done and you have a chance to look over your list of key accounts, what have you determined is keeping them attached to you? And if they aren’t, what behaviors do you need to consider changing?

Louis Feuer is president of Dynamic Seminars & Consulting Inc. and the founder and director of the DSC Teleconference Series, a teleconference training program. He can be reached at www.DynamicSeminars.com or by phone at 954/435-8182.