If you want to know why customers leave and how to win them back, you’re in the right place.

Our guest this week is David Avrin, a customer experience and marketing keynote speaker, consultant, and author, whose most recent book is Why Customers Leave and How to Win Them Back: 24 Reasons People are Leaving You for Competitors, and How to Win Them Back.

He shares interesting and valuable insights into topics like:

how customer expectations have changed
how their relationships with our brands have changed
why need must be more vigilant and “always-on”
why to empower employees to make their own decisions
why quality is no longer enough
why “wow” moments aren’t as important as good outcomes
why he recommends simple, personal videos to connect and communicate more effectively with our cutomers

Why Customers Leave

Listen to The Customer Experience Podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher.

We’ll also embed each conversation into episode-by-episode blog posts like this one.

Hear the entire conversation with David Avrin right here …

Listen to “9. Why Customers Leave and How to Win Them Back w/ David Avrin” on Spreaker.

Common Problems with Customer Experience

“Customer experience is how your customers experience doing business with you at every point of contact,” says Avrin, “What’s interesting today is a failure at any of those points or even falling short at any of those points can be enough to drive people away and into the arms of your competitors.”

Avrin’s latest book examines 24 reasons that people get frustrated with companies. In almost every case it’s inadvertent on the part of the company.

They’re not intending to frustrate or annoy their customers, they’re just trying to be efficient or predictable in terms of their behavior.

For example, how employees respond to unique customer scenarios that are outliers that maybe aren’t part of their training is really important. If a diner asks to have shrimp substituted for chicken but the restaurant has a “no substitutions” policy, that customer very well may post a very negative review.

David explains the importance of trust in and empowerment of employees in this short video clip …

“I think companies would be stunned if they really took a step back to see how often they say no to their customers and prospects,” says Avrin. “Maybe it’s not even the word ‘no,’ maybe it’s just, ‘oh sorry, we can’t allow that.’”

Across many industries, staff needs to be trained and empowered to make changes to make customers happy (within reason). Even if you have to charge a premium, the customer is likely to pay it gladly.

Armed and Impatient

David’s brand is oriented toward the word “visibility,” including his company name and website Visibility International. When I asked him about this theme, here’s what he shared …

Since the advent of the iPhone 11 years ago, everyone’s become increasingly acclimated to instant gratification.

The problem today is that every failure in customer experience becomes magnified because every person you encounter is armed with a video camera on their phone.

Everyone is on camera. Everything is being recorded. Everything is being shared.

People feel it’s not only the right, but it’s their responsibility to go online and rant about any slight or infraction.

Unfortunately, most companies haven’t adapted to this faster pace.

Only 15% of companies have adopted an always-on business model to accommodate their always-connected customers.

Rightly or not, people expect an immediate response.

The Permanence of Infractions

The problem with this immediacy is that someone’s instant reaction or comments are carved into the permanent granite of the internet.

Many business leaders don’t take such negative comments as seriously as they should.

“I still hear organizational leaders, CEOs and others get in front of their companies and say things listen folks, at the end of the day it’s still about quality. I could not disagree more,” says Avrin. “At the beginning of the day, it’s about quality. Quality is the entry fee. You better be good at what you do.“

For Avrin, at the end of the day it’s about competitive advantage. But that competitive advantage has to be lasting.

Great customer experience is about managing expectations.

Wow moments are shared more than others precisely because they are extraordinary. Wow moments are episodic but a well-designed, well-executed, well-reinforced customer experience program is persistent. It is predictable.

Both customer experiences can be valuable, but one is sustainable.

In this video clip, David takes on the permanence of infractions (which would be a cool band name, btw), quality, and “wow” moments …

Why Personal Videos for Lead Conversion and Customer Experience

David and his team consistently rely on simple, personal videos in place of some of the plain, typed-out text they might otherwise send to communicate, connect, and convert.

In this video clip, he explains why and even demonstrates a sample script …

In this video clip, he explains why it’s so effective at converting leads into closed and won opportunities (80%)…

This post is based on an interview with David Avrin, author and custoer experience and marketing keynote speaker. To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Customer Experience Podcast.

You can contact David Avrin on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, or his website.

Coming Soon To The Customer Experience Podcast

- Customer experience expert Joey Coleman (Never Lose a Customer Again)
- Branding expert David Brier

(Brand Intervention)

Customer Success professional Nick Hart (Outreach.io)
Marketing leader Samantha Stone (Unleash Possible)
Sales leaders like Jeremy Donovan (SalesLoft) and Charles Green (Trusted Advisor)

Podcast questions or guest recommendations? Email: Ethan at BombBomb dot com

Increase conversion and improve customer experience with simple, personal videos.

Like David, you have the opportunity to get face to face with more people more often. You have the opportunity to have people feel like they know you before they ever meet you. You have the opportunity to accelerate the sales process and improve customer experience.

And all it takes is a webcam or smartphone. It’s easy to do once you know how to do it.

Your definitive guide better business communication is available right now for individual or bulk orders.