Marketing sells the first, Service sells the rest

In most business, it isn't the first sale that generates the revenue and the profits that businesses seek. It's the repeat business. Getting a customer for the first time is expensive. Sales costs, marketing costs, it all adds up. But assuming that the job is done correctly, customer purchase 2 and 3 and so on should cost the company less time and less money.

Customer retention is like dating. When you first start, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Flowers and dinners and trips. But once you get married, the maintenance is less in order to keep the same level of happiness and excitement. A well-timed flower, card or compliment.

How does this translate? It's about service. As great of a job that is done by sales and marketing up front, it is up to service to maintain the relationship and keep things moving in the positive direction. For me, this became very evident on a recent trip. I absolutely refuse to fly Delta now. I will go out of my way to avoid them. It's not that the plane wasn't sufficient, or that I didn't get to my destination, or that there aren't problems on other airlines. It's that the customer service was so poor that I refuse to deal with them any more.

As marketers, this is important for us to keep in mind. Service should be a huge part of any marketing plan that we put together, and should be kept in consideration at all times. Work with the service organization to make sure that they are living up to the promises that you are making on behalf of the company.