Start With A Win - Why Do Customers Leave? Interview With Expert David Avrin

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Our guest on this episode of the Start with a Win podcast is David Avrin, speaker and author of several books, most recently “Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back)”. David says that the answer to why customers leave is a simple one: they leave because they can. There are so many choices out in the market and many channels available to customers, from real estate to retail to services to groceries. Business owners are often trying to operate under the assumption that they can control what their customers will buy, but customers don’t always want to do business that way.Consumer behavior is a complex field of study these days, and while business owners don’t have to be experts in predicting what their customers will want or when they will want it, they should have a basic understanding of their customers and what motivates them to purchase. Businesses do not have the luxury of just waiting for customers to walk in their doors, but rather they need to recognize how to meet their customers where they are and meet their needs there. While the primary focus of businesses in the past has been producing an exemplary product that people will want to buy, they must now combine this aspect of the buying process with the wants and needs of the customers. A good starting point for gaining competitive advantage in this realm is to re-examine the points of contact with the customer and make adjustments based on their observed needs and wants. Since there are so many channels for purchasing very similar products, building a relationship with your customers will likely make all the difference in you receiving the business over your competitors. David believes in leading with authenticity, relevance, and in a way that educates the consumer. This also involves a willingness to continually adjust your approach based on shifting expectations and feedback from your customers. David starts his days with a win by spending intentional and uninterrupted time with his kids, getting his priorities aligned before starting his workday.Links:https://www.amazon.com/Why-Customers-Leave-Them-Back/dp/1632651513 Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos 

Well, good morning, Adam. Hey, Mark. How are you, buddy? Or afternoon or evening, depending on whenever anyone's listening to this. We could be on the other side of the world right now. That's right. Right on. Oh, hi, Ogasimus. Whatever that means.

Come on. That's like good morning in Japanese. Oh, yeah. There you go. Well, hey, I'm excited for today's guests. We're talking about really something that is incredibly important for every business that most people don't really realize, and they take for granted. So I'm super excited about this, too. All right. Well, let's get into it.

Let's get into this. Atop of the 12th floor of the REMAX adam conto ceo of remax and start with a win with producer mark how you doing buddy i am so good so good in your sweet glasses that's right i was in the elevator today and someone's's like, cool glasses. You get that everywhere, don't you? I know. And it's like, my wife's like, when are you going to change? And I was like, I can't at this point. Yeah, exactly.

I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I mean, what are you going to do? Right. It changes the experience that people have with you, doesn't it? It does. And I'm all about experiences. Customer satisfaction, really.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It stops people from leaving, right? That's right. Hey, that's our topic today, isn't it? What? What?

So we've got a really cool guest with us here in the studio, another Denver boy, the author of this amazing book, Why Customers Leave and How to Win Them Back, David Averin. David, welcome. How are you doing, buddy? Hey, I'm good. Thanks for having me here in the world headquarters, a phenomenal view of the majestic Rocky Mountains. You can see your house from here practically, can't you?

From high atop the perch, yeah. Or where you grew up, Adeline. Or something. Yeah. That's right, in the same area, which is crazy because my work is, I never work here. I'm all around the world. 24 countries in recent years from

Bogota, Colombia to Dubai and Singapore and everywhere around the world. But it's nice to be home. And as they say, you're never a prophet in your own land. You're a big deal because you come from somewhere else. And so it's nice to be here in Denver. You get to be an expert in your own backyard. For at least the next 22 minutes. There you go. So, funny little fact, David and I, our high schools were kind of the key rivals in the Denver area. We were rivals. We were rivals. I will try to resist ragging on you a little bit for where you went to school. We'll put our histories behind us. We will. We'll talk about that offline.

There you go. All right. Agreed. Agreed. So we're virtually shaking hands here. So I agree to get along for at least this 20 minutes. No knife fights. The Jets. I was going to say.

Versus the Sharks. We hear West Side Story. That's right. We used to meet at Taco Bell and have it out in West Side Story. That's right. We used to meet a Taco Bell and have it out in the parking lot. That's right. What's crazy is where the headquarters are here is sort of remember growing up that this was just field, like all the way to Kansas. And now, of course, like so many of the booming metropolises, it's pretty well filled in. Yeah.

So funny thing. You remember the gas station that was right on the corner down here? Yes. I worked at that gas station in high school. The Shepler's Westernware, when they sort of built this mega Westernware, which of course everybody else in the country

and around the world doesn't necessarily have the Western heritage that we do in Colorado. They built it and there was nothing around it. Like, why would you build this in the middle of nowhere? And of course. Now it's still there. It is still there, but it's a shell. I think it's out of business. Anyway, let's talk customer experience. Experience of growing up in Denver, right?

Yeah. All right. So this is interesting. I love the title of your book, Why Customers Leave. Let's start unpacking that a little bit because the listenership for our show, everybody that tunes into this show has a customer in some way, shape, or form. But ultimately, we do deal a lot in the real estate space, the entrepreneurial space. We have a lot of first responders that listen to this as well. They have customers. Everybody. Anybody who has somebody that they have to impress or sell to, or anybody who has choices, you can call it a customer, you can call it a client, you can call it a prospect. And the world has changed. I think at the most basic level, when people ask, why do customers leave? They leave for one simple reason today,

because they can. I mean, there's so many choices, profound choices. We used to sort of market within that three to five mile radius of where we are, right? Or where our location, if we had a gas station or a record store or something else, everybody online is international. We can buy from anyone, anywhere. And the choices are vast. I mean, it used to be, I mean, the marketplace has become a grocery store, right? Think about it. And you walk down the aisles of the grocery store and you buy things, right?

I mean, nobody's there to sell it to you, right? Go big box and then you go Target or Walmart or Costco or Sam's Club or add the internet, multiply it by 10 million. More choices than ever before in history. In most cases, nobody's there to sell it to us. We go and we buy. I think it's pertinent. And for anybody who's listening, no matter what your audience is, is recognizing that

even if your model isn't that, even if you have a longer sales cycle or a more complex sale, certainly for those who are real estate agents, the mindset of the customer has changed. It's just so easy to buy anything. It's so easy to search for anything, whether it's real estate or, I mean, we used to, everything was required sort of a facilitated transaction. The salesperson knew more than we did. We go to an appliance store and some teenager or some elderly person would explain to us how a refrigerator works. Not anymore. And we just search that stuff on our phone.

So the world has changed and the mindset of the customer has changed. You know, what's funny is sometimes you don't even need to search for something. It just kind of shows up in front of you. Right. And you're going, oh, that's exactly what I was looking for. Right. Well, when people go crazy because they think, oh, they're capturing my information and they're searching my, well, that's why they're doing it. Right.

So that they can deliver something a little more tailored to what you look for. Creating a little more convenience, a little more, you know, when you need it, where you need it. Personally, I have no problem with it. I'm good with it. Follow me. Alexa can listen to anything she wants. It's nothing exciting. It's like the old Gary Hart, right? Where he says, just follow me, you'll be bored. Well, for me, in reality, you would be bored because at six o'clock, we're in our pajamas watching Dr. Pimple Popper on TV. So nothing particularly exciting there. That's a great customer experience.

Yeah, there, I'm just saying. It's a visual aspect to that one as well. Let's start unpacking this whole philosophy of convenience and what's replacing people, what's not replacing people, and how do we as human beings overcome the fact that there are a lot of obstacles to the relationship that we have with our customers? Right. I think you're right in how you phrase that. I think we as business owners are the ones who have to overcome it. Business is extracting the human element. And I understand why. I'm doing a lot of interviews, a lot of podcasts and others,

and they say, listen, and I talk customer experience over customer service, and there's a difference. But they would say, we've been talking about this for 30 years. How could it possibly be getting worse? And I think it's getting worse because as business owners industry, I think they're trying to control what they can. I think the competition is so fierce. The quality has increased in such a tremendous way because if you weren't good today, the internet outs underperformers, right? It's Yelp, it's TripAdvisor, it's Rotten Tomatoes, it's Glassdoor. So everybody's good. And so I think we're getting worse at this because we're trying to control what we can. And we call it the franchise model. If we can create predictability, consistency in how we

do what we do in every transaction, in every interaction, better control the customer journey and the customer path. And they buy this way and then they search this way. And then we have greater control of the path and the revenue and the profit. The problem is our customers don't necessarily always want to do business the way we want to. And so I think we're the ones who have to make sure that we don't go too far in extracting the human element. I just got back from Bogota, Colombia. We were talking offline. And for them, because their big industry is what they call BPOs, business process organizations,

they want to be the outsourced logistics and call centers. So they define customer experience is how much can we drive towards AI, artificial intelligence, bots, chat features that aren't human elements. And we're in the background going, hello, don't forget us. And so we see this in a lot of industries and we see this quite frankly in real estate as well. And as much as we endeavor to make sure that we are catering and listening and available, there's certain elements that are still frustrating people because businesses are trying to do business the way they want and not necessarily the way their customers want to do business with them. I love that concept. We talk about around here a lot a term called meet them

where they're at instead of trying to drag them to where you are at. And it seems like that's what so many businesses are doing. I created a great app and it does this for you. They're like, wait a second, I don't want it to do that for me. I want to tell you how I want it to do that. Right. But let me give you an example. And here's an offense across the board in the real estate industry. So I'm going to play the part of the prospective buyer. And my wife and I, we love driving through neighborhoods.

We love looking at houses. But we'll come across a house that looks interesting or amazing or something else. We see that little loose side box in front of the house. We open it up, we pull out the flyer, we can see the square footage, we can see pictures of it. And then we turn it over because we're trying to find the price, but the price isn't on there. Why is the price not on there? Because the real estate agent wants us to call. Because then they eliminate the veto, right? So even if it's too expensive or it's not in our range, at least maybe they can become our buyer's agent. They can ascertain what we're really looking for and pre-qualify us. Here's the problem. I just wanted

to know the price, right? Or we go to the website and there's a contact form and say, what's your price range? When are you looking to buy? I understand it's exactly the way the real estate agent wants to do business. I just want to talk to a real person. And I understand the game and I understand why. And every real estate agent does it across the board, but I'm telling you there's a way to compete. There's a way to gain a competitive advantage by being remarkably easy to do business with. And almost all of those business processes processes and I speak to real estate organizations across the country and around the world and I hammer them and I say All of this is set up because it's exactly the way you want to do business

This is exactly the information you want to extract from me. You know what I want. I want expediency I want to know the price I want to talk to a real person But you wouldn't let me because you wanted me to call and it's a challenge and it's an uncomfortable conversation because this is how we do business. But I think it's important to have the conversation because people have changed. Everybody says, the only thing that's constant is that people, not anymore. It's been what, 11 years since the iPhone came out? How many things are we used to being able to do very, very quickly? It's not to suggest that we don't want a real relationship and

understand during the buying process, but there's certain points on the front end, certain touch points where we just want what we want when we want it. And that's just a couple examples of it. I was thinking about this shopping experience I had last night. I was on my computer here, flipping through, just looking at different products online. And I kept seeing price too low to list, price too low to list. Really? And you know what I did? I clicked away from that. Yeah, because they're playing a game or the price is so ridiculous, we're not allowed to say it on the radio. So you have to call, right? And say, I'm going to give you another example. So my wife and I were up looking at some land and we're looking at, I've been talking to

my brothers, I'm the second oldest of six, and we're talking about building our own little compound of just buying a piece of land, each of us putting our own cabin, and then the grandkids can grow up together. How fun would it be, our own Kennedy compound or something at a much more modest level? The Averin compound in Colorado. That's exactly right. The sprawling something. So we went online, and I found this company that does great log cabins. Not only can you sort of customize it, but they fly a team out, and they actually build it.

And we were looking at building something kind of nice. And we found the right one, and it said on the website, click here for pricing. So you click it. Do you think I got pricing? No, you got to. Of course not. What's your name? What's your phone number?

I got a contact form. Right. Right? And so it's disingenuous. They said, click here for pricing. I didn't even fill it out. The contact form, here, I'll give you a quick example. So if you call somebody to fix some sprinkler heads

that are shooting up in the air in your lawn, right? And you go on Craigslist and you find a big list of them and you call the first one and you get a voicemail, are you going to leave a message? No. No, you should call the next one, right? Because we can, right? The contact form is the answering machine of the internet, right?

We put contacts where nobody wants to fill them out. We just want to talk to somebody. It's one of those things where the human element is being extracted. We are designing our businesses because it suits us, but it doesn't suit our customers. It's when you get, and everybody who's listening can identify this. You buy from somebody, right? And so immediately you're bombarded with surveys. How was it, right?

And if you don't answer the email for the survey, you get another reminder, please fill out our survey. Well, maybe your experience was fine, but after the fourth time they've asked you for the survey, now you're pissed off, right? Now I did like doing business. Now I don't because you've asked me for my opinion so many times. And that's, there's a whole chapter in the book about that is when we over survey, why I understand why we do it because number one, we want to make sure that there wasn't anything bad that we didn't know about. So they don't go online and complain about us on Yelp or something else. But the other one is so we can capture their information, all this stuff that we do. And this is sort of a new trend in business is we designed it in a way

that suits us, that works for us because we want this information, but we're frustrating our customers. We're frustrating our clients. And I think whether real estate agents or whatever else, I think there's an opportunity to be the easiest company to do business with, to make somebody feel like they had a great experience by not engaging in some of those behaviors. Great. So let's talk about that then, the opportunity here. You mentioned it. We've talked about what rubs people the wrong way, overdoing it, pushing the sale too hard, pushing the lead form or anything like that. What is that solution? How do we become the company to do business with, the real estate agent to do business with, the whatever online business, however you want to phrase it, that people want to come to to have that experience?

What does that experience look like, David? I think the real competitive advantage today, and I think a lot of industries are recognizing this, is by envisioning and crafting and delivering a superior customer experience. Now, I'm not one of these guys that I'm touting the wow experience. Not everything is a wow experience. Sometimes it is. It's a business to business. You're selling an electronic part or you're facilitating a mortgage transaction. It's not a lot of wow. Unless you're getting a shrimp dinner and a gold bar with that, it's just making it easy to do business with. On the customer service side, I think we get that. Service with a smile, whatever.

The experience is different. How was it? Like literally, how was it to do business with them? As you look at every point of contact, as we look as professionals and ask the question, is that how it should be done? Can it be done better or faster or smarter or more personal, maybe with just less friction, right? So as we look at re-examining those points of contact and not just assume that's the way it's supposed to get done, maybe there is a different way.

We have traditionally been what we call, and this is across the board in industry, product centric, which means our expertise is in what we do, what we deliver, what we offer, what we manufacture, what we sell. We're really good at this. And we sell it to as offer, what we manufacture, what we sell. We're really good at this. And then we sell it to as many people as possible. It's market share. Absolutely valid. The shift we're seeing today is organizations that are becoming customer-centric, which means our real expertise. I mean, they're not mutually exclusive. It's not one or the other. We assume that we're going to be really good at what we do, but our advantage is that we're really good at understanding our customers, their life, their day, their pressures.

What do they hate in general about our industry? Whatever your industry is for those who are listening. What are they not like? Not about you, but just about anybody. What would they love? Not what do they love. They would love it if you could do blank. Oh, you know what I would really love? If we were going to focus group this or something, I would love it if you could do blank. Oh, you know what I would really love? If we were going to focus group this or something, I would love it if they could do blank. I would love it if I didn't have to reorder. They could automatically see what's in inventory and whatever. I would love it if I could reach somebody 24-7, whatever that might be. What do they fear?

I fear screwing this up. I fear that I'm going to make a poor decision. I fear that I am going to miss out, right? That fear that I'm, I am going to miss out, right? That fear, that FOMO fear of missing out on a better rate on, on a better house or whatever that might be. And then I, I like the question. I do a lot of this in my consulting work and sometimes I'll do a full day with organizations. And I just got back from Abu Dhabi, little geographic name dropping, but work with an organization there. But one of the other questions is what do they need?

What do they need to make a decision? Not just what they need in their life. And maybe you're working with an organization. Somebody's new. Maybe they need a win. Maybe they need to look good to their boss. Maybe they need proof that you've done this well, multiple times.

So it's, it's endorsement quotes or something else. And as we look deeper into who that person is, what, what's their family situation? How long have they been on their job? Are they in a new financial situation? Are they going through a divorce? The more we understand them to the core, the more we can tailor our approach and our behavior. Maybe it's a different staff person that might be a better person to work with them. How do we make them feel that they're well taken care of? They've developed a real relationship, not a relationship

for the sake of relationship. And Adam, you and I talked about this before. I think people do crave a relationship, but they won't, they don't say it. Like they don't, they don't say, I want a relationship. What they'll say is they just know it feels right. They know if it's an experience they want to repeat. They know if it was so good, I felt so taken care of, I'm so confident that I made the right decision as we get on the other side, that I want to tell other people that this is who you want to work with because choices are vast. That's the experience. It's not, was somebody nice to me? Did I, did I feel taken care of? Did I feel like that they really cared about me?

Inauthentic is easy to spot. So all these things that you're talking about, really, they sound more human than technological. Right. And we're trying to- In an age of technology, how refreshing is that? Yeah, and in a time that so many businesses are thinking, oh, okay, I can turn

this into an app or a click of a button or something that's presented to you online or on your phone or something like that. But all you're talking about here are, you're talking about experience, you're talking about human feelings. What are they going to share with whoever they eat dinner with that night when it comes to the interaction I had with your organization? What do you lead with in order to get that started? Because there's so many barriers to get through to get to that point where you can create that relationship. There's a lot of barriers. And part of the barriers is just the way the marketplace is shifting. I mean, when you talk about sort of feelings or relationships, and I'm not trying to be touchy-feely.

I mean, that is, at the core, that's what engenders trust, right? Right. And it should be a no-brainer, but it's not. Because we're, as consumers, we're being bombarded every day with the reality that you can do things quicker or faster or with technology. And there's a whole generation of people. The biggest population bubble in the history of history never grew up with, you know, I mean, they always could make phone calls from the car, right? They have no idea what whiteout is. I have a t-shirt that has the little symbol from the little plastic thing that went in the middle of 45 records. They have no idea what

that is. There's no reference. So I think the reality, I think even for, especially for real estate professionals, I think the industry is under assault. I think we're being told every day that we don't need you. We don't need to pay for a facilitator transaction. We don't need to pay your five, 6% commission or more. We can do it with a 1% commission. We can do things online. So first is, is, is a recognition of cognizance that the world has changed, that their expectations have changed. And as much as we would like to believe that they're always going to gravitate towards the relationship, I think if they don't know that it's needed or that, I mean, they didn't grow up hearkening back to that time. We did. They've never known that time. I think we have

to educate them. I think the first step is to help them, first of all, recognize the ramifications of underperforming in this realm. This is the most significant, when you're talking about buying or selling a home, it's the most significant financial transaction you will ever make. Most people will only do it a few times or several times in their life. The idea of doing this without a professional who knows what they're doing is ludicrous, but they don't know it's ludicrous. We do, but they don't. And I think it's our fault. I think there's certain things we just assume that everybody kind of knows this. So I think as an industry, and I think certainly REMAX is the largest player can take a leading role in that,

is educate this new generation about the importance of this facilitated transaction. Nobody knows more. Nobody can safeguard your interests more than real estate professionals in an era where rates change and markets change and regulations change. It's absolutely crucial. It's not an option. It's, do you want to do it this way? No, you have to do it this way. And maybe we engage the parents and the grandparents of saying, you understand how this works. There's the 1%, there's the technology things. And I think there has to be a cognizance that we've got to fight for this. And I think once there's that recognition, the cognizance of how important it is, now it's the fight of who's the right one.

Because there's thousands or tens of thousands of people who could do it. I think it's the people that there's some of the traditional things, right? The people who know your neighborhood, the people who understand it's videos online, the mechanisms we have for communicating now are phenomenal. We didn't have them five, six, seven years ago, right? You can show me, here's my approach. Here's the way I do it. Here's the relationships that I have.

You can do it in your voice. You can do it like we're doing it right now, right? With your own channel, with your own podcast, with your own videos. You don't need to hire a crew. A good selfie stick, that's pretty authentic. Just as long as you record it horizontal. It's just my own. Video is horizontal, people. Unless you're going Facebook Live, then it's vertical. It's a generational thing. I'm still struggling with this. My social media person is pointing at you right now. She's going, yeah, yeah, come on.

Video, selfies are vertical. There you go. Video is horizontal. you right now. She's going, yeah, yeah, come on. Selfies are vertical. There you go. Video is horizontal. Instagram, vertical. Yeah, it has to be. Absolutely. So I have taken quite a few notes here already, David. And this is amazing.

I think you put a bow on this whole thing, this whole concept, really in the last statement that you made. Not the selfies are horizontal or vertical part. I get you. But right before that, where we're talking about they need to know what they don't know. Right. I mean, that is the breakthrough in customer experience is opening their eyes to the opportunity, to the potential, to what they're missing. Because people don't know what they're

missing, especially in this noisy environment that we're in. And it's incredibly imperative upon all of us to be those experts, to educate them and to know how to tell that story. So obviously stories break through sales. Stories deliver that message that people are resistant to hearing to begin with because they want to put themselves in the story. And they have to be relevant, right? Oh, absolutely. Because there is so much writing on this transaction, buyer side, seller side, doesn't matter. They have to understand what is really at stake. You and I are in agreement that people want the authentic relationships, but they're not going to say, oh yeah, having an authentic relationship and liking my real estate agent is worth 6% as opposed to a 1%. No, it's that trust engenders, that sense of trust allows for

a measure of behavior, allows for freedom, allows them to walk you through a process, to feel like you're safe and taken care of. It's something that might be very unfamiliar to you, but very familiar to the agent that relationship allows for a greater degree of transparency and trust and communication it's it's not relationship for the sake of relationship it's it's that we will let our guard down and we will let people in we will allow them we will pay for that heightened enhanced experience if it you know we always say to what end if it helps us feel better about what just transpired or what's about to transpire. And then you've got,

then you've got the referrals. Then you've got all of this lifetime. This is my agent. Every time I do it, this is who I use because I so trust them to take care of me. David, we've, uh, we've taken a ton out of today. I mean, there's a lot of gold here that we've just mined. So many things, so many principles that can help us build our businesses in the real estate space, as well as pretty much in any other space where you deal directly with customers. David, we have a question we ask everybody that comes on the show. Sure. The show's called Start With a Win. David, how do you start with a win? How do I start with a win? Yes.

You mean start my day? Let's talk about starting your day, yes. I like that video that has that general saying. The first thing he does is he tells people to make their bed, right? If you've seen that video, it's right there. The first one is make your bed, then your bed. For me, this has nothing to do with this. I start the day with a win the way I've started every morning that I'm home since my children were born.

And I start it with them. And I crawl into bed and I snuggle them and I chew on the back of their arms and I sing them the very special friend song. And my son, I shouldn't say this because it's going to be horrifying for him because he's 16 now. But since the day he was born, I start my day by loving on my kids and grabbing them and squishing them and attacking them and giving a morning hug and giving them a bath and smelling their hair. And it's the best. And then the rest of my day, I know I am doing what I'm doing. I love it, David. That is definitely a win in our book. So thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, check out David's book, Why Customers Leave and How To Win Them Back. I mean, this is a really important aspect of the customer experience in today's business world, really,

not just real estate, but pretty much any. And here's the other thing I'll tell you real quickly. This was great because I think it resonates. Forbes just listed it as one of the seven business books that entrepreneurs need to read because I think it's relevant. There you go. I love it. David, thanks so much for being on Start With A Win with us. Thank you, friends.

Thank you so much for listening to Start With A Win. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to go onto iTunes and subscribe, write a review, or rate the show. It helps us get the word out and reach more people. You can follow Adam on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

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