Creating raving fans

In our line of work, of course we always want clients to be happy with what we deliver. But we also know that we can do better than happy clients – in fact, we want to create raving fans.

You might be familiar with the term ‘raving fans’ – but if you’re not, allow us to break it down for you: raving fans are clients who are so delighted by your service, they can’t help but rave about your business to anyone who will listen.

Raving fans are genuinely enthusiastic about your work, and they’re loyal in the face of an ever-increasing landscape of options and competitors. Put simply, they are a critical component in any business or organisation not just surviving, but thriving.

Here at Gill & Hooper, we believe passionately in the power of creating raving fans – and that empowering and aligning everyone in the business around the work of creating a base of raving fans is what can truly set one company apart from another.

Here are five things that you need to consider when working to create raving fans.

1. EXCEL WHEN THINGS GET HARD

In our experience, raving fans are not created when things are going swimmingly. Rather, it’s how we work to overcome challenges and obstacles that truly has the power to connect our clients with our work. Ultimately, it’s how we solve problems, how we demonstrate our value when things get tough that leave the biggest impression on people. The pursuit of a problem-free work life isn’t realistic for anyone; so we must focus on embracing the negatives and leveraging the opportunity to excel that they present.

2. KNOW YOUR CLIENTS – REALLY KNOW THEM

Get to know your clients, not just their properties. Have they got a family? A miniature schnauzer named Dave? A passion for macrame or fly-fishing? Discussing property goals are great and all, but there’s nothing like getting to really know your clients. Understanding someone’s passions and motivations not only makes for more enjoyable conversations, it also provides ample opportunity for you to understand their pain points; and subsequently work out ways to solve them.

Equally – don’t be afraid to open up about your life, too. Positive client relationships are built between people, not a client and a robot.

3. BE STRATEGIC – TAILORED ADVICE OVER INFORMATION

The property management space – and the value of property managers – is increasingly about the provision of bespoke advice, rather than just information. Creating raving fans requires property managers to understand a client’s unique challenges, and then use all of our knowledge and industry insight to not just offer facts and figures, but to offer targeted, tailored and strategic solutions. This switch from providing information to providing sound advice will fast make you indispensable to a client.

4. DELIVER UNEXPECTED VALUE

Creating raving fans is ultimately about delivering value to your clients, and delivering it in spades. The objective needs to be to delight clients with the service they receive – and that’s a pretty high bar. That will look different business to business and indeed client to client – but focus your efforts on surprising clients with unexpected value and you can’t go far wrong.

5. INCENTIVISE THE RAVING

So you’ve created raving fans! Congratulations. Now… how do you make sure they stay raving? Reward them for their raves, of course! Make sure your ravers know that you see their raves and want them to keep raving. Reward them with priority status and create financial incentives for referrals to keep them raving about your team – not your competitors.