Daily Archives: October 12, 2008

Save money tips

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Money Saving Tips

1. Utilities
Have you changed your gas and electricity supplier recently? check regularly to make sure you are still getting the cheapest prices. The same goes for your telephone? Think about having a water meter fitted and see if you can lower your water bill. Try to cut down how much electricity you use, turn off lights when you aren’t in a room, don’t leave electrical equipment on standby and change to low energy light bulbs.

2. Mortgage and Loans
How much interest are you paying on your mortgage and loans? See a financial advisor and see if you can cut your payments down.

3. Credit Cards
Try and pay off your credit cards. The interest on credit cards is exorbitant.

4. Mobile Phones
If you don’t use your phone a lot, think about going onto pay-as-you-go, if you use it a lot, see if a contract phone would be cheaper.

5. Insurances
Don’t just renew your insurances when your renewal notice comes in. Shop around for cheaper car and home insurances. Check with your financial advisor that your life insurance is the best deal you can get.

6. Car
Do you really need a car or the second car? if you don’t need a car, why are you paying these? If you do need a car, why not get a smaller one, it’s better for the environment as well as your wallet.

7. Travel
Try walking or cycling if you aren’t going far. Buy a season ticket for the bus or the train to save on your travel costs. Book early for low cost flights, there are only a limited number of cheap seats on flights and once they are gone, the price goes up.

8. Banks
Are you paying too much in bank charges? Think about changing your bank account to one which has lower charges.

9. Food Shopping
Try to do all your food shopping once a week, take a shopping list and stick to it. Eat before you go shopping, shopping hungry will make you succumb to temptation. While we’re thinking about food, take a packed lunch to work, it’s much cheaper than buying a sandwich every day and you can be more imaginative, probably help with the diet too!

10. Shopping for everything else
Check online before you make a large purchase. There are lots of comparison sites which will show you where you can buy the cheapest television, etc.

With this tips, you’ll not only save money but you’ll be much less stressed when it comes to Christmas.

retention vs loyalty

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Customer retention measures how many of your current clients were clients a year ago. To calculate retention, divide your number of current clients (who were also clients a year ago) by the number of ALL your clients from a year ago. It’s good measure for us to measure our customer?? not totally true.

Satisfied customers are not necessarily emotionally invested.
Just because a client renews their relationship, it doesn’t mean they’re emotionally invested, a quality deemed critical for loyalty. You may not particularly like your dentist, but you go back year after year because you’ve neither the time nor energy to look for a new one.

However, a great referral on a new dentist comes your way, and you grab it. Your current dentist is understandably confused. But your perceived loyalty was actually nothing more than convenience. Maybe you complained about him to your spouse and friends, buy you never really articulated your dissatisfaction with him.

Loyal patients tolerate any inconvenience to do business with their preferred dentist. And they send him or her lots of referrals.

There are often no warning signs.
It happens in the ad world everyday. With no warning, an Account Executive from Leo Burnett walks into the office to hear her primary account has signed with Ogilvy. She’s understandably baffled since she had lunch with her client on Friday and everything appeared fine.

What to do.
There are several things account executives and other customer-facing professionals can do to understand who’s loyal and who is not.
Ask your clients if they are happy with you.
Sounds obvious? You’d be surprised how many unhappy clients don’t voice their dissatisfaction until it’s time to dump you.
Conduct account reviews.
Smart companies conduct quarterly account reviews with the sole purpose of tallying their “report card” with their biggest customers. If you’re not doing this, start it now. It’s easy. Just schedule 15 to 30 minutes with a customer to review your performance.
Ask for a testimonial.
This works really well. You ask a happy client to be a reference or a testimonial. If they hesitate, probe a bit further. They may turn you down because they have a ‘no reference’ policy. But if they don’t, this technique will get clients to open up about their relationship.
Don’t just deliver service, deliver a memorable experience
Okay, you’re all getting sick of hearing this by now, but it’s growing more important everyday. Companies that create experiences have higher loyalty.
Measure wallet retention.
Wallet retention measures the amount of contract value you’ve retained with clients over a twelve-month period. Divide the contract value of clients who were clients one year earlier by the total contract value from a year earlier.

here are some loyalty signs from our customer:

  • You negotiate prices with customers. You negotiate costs with loyal customers.
  • Customers pay at their discretion. Loyal customers pay on time.
  • Customers become referrals of your competitors. Loyal customers willingly provide referrals to you.
  • Generally, you will experience turnover rates of 15% or higher. The turnover rate of loyal customers will be less than 5% and will be for reasons out of your control.
  • Most customers seek competitive data. Loyal customers share it.
  • Loyal customers perceive you as a partner not a commodity provider.
  • Contracts keep satisfied customers in place. You have a virtual lifetime contract with your loyal customers.
  • Most customers will leave you if they find a better offer. Loyal customers will stay by your side.