Marketing Aquaculture Products — 1

to be a non-confrontational and stress that you
sincerely wish to resolve the situation to the
client’s satisfaction. Be sure to stress that you
appreciate the client’s business and that you
will keep the client updated as needed as you
remedy the situation. If you have employees,
and this problem resulted from an employee’s
mistake, consider hand delivering the product
to ensure the client that you personally
resolved this issue. If the problem was clearly
your company’s fault, then reduce the price of
the product or include additional product or a
voucher for future savings.
Going above-and-beyond the call of duty, does
not mean big give-ways or groveling before
your customers. Be accessible; make your
company accessible. Consider reinforcing that
your customer is important to you by holding
an annual customer appreciation event where
they can view your facilities, try product and
meet your staff . Th ink about opening direct
lines of communication between specifi c staff
and certain clients. Stress to your employee
that, “Th ese are your clients, they create your
paycheck. If they have problems you work with
them and bring me into the loop if necessary.”
Th is builds your organizational capabilities and
increases the person-to-person relationships
between your company and the client. If you
have a few select clients to whom you would
like to deliver a holiday gift , have your staff
take time away from the facility to do so. If
you are unsure of their communications skills,
accompany them. Again, this builds organizational
capability in that you have a chance to
mentor your employees on what is essentially a
public-relations sales call. When you meet with
the client, be sure to direct the conversation to
customer-service issues. What has been good
the past year; what needs to be improvement.
With the employee by your side, there is a good
chance customer service will become a personal
issue and subsequently improve.
As we leave this section, please consider the
following encapsulation as a personal mantra:
“Customer loyalty is hard to win and easy to lose.
Repeat customers are the backbone of a
successful business. Loyal customers are the
backbone of an outstanding business.”
Marketing Aquaculture Products — 39