Michel is known as the publisher of the Comanche Marketing newsletter; he wrote the marketing manuals for five different service franchise organizations, a business alliance, and a business consolidator; he founded a nationally recognized franchise group; and he is founder and CEO of the Service Roundtable, a national private contractor group.

"It costs the typical service company from $200 to $400 to capture a customer," said Michel. "But it only costs 20 percent of that figure to keep an existing customer. It makes sense to implement a strong customer retention program in advance of customer acquisition. Otherwise, companies are churning through customers, spinning their wheels, never getting ahead."

Michel explained that building a service business without a customer retention program is like filling a bucket with holes in it - you can never stop pumping new customers into the bucket. Never Lose A Customer is designed to help service company owners patch the holes so that business owners can focus on building a bigger bucket.

Michel added, "Companies do not make money on most first time customers. They make money on repeat customers. Yet, most people focus the majority of their marketing effort on customer acquisition. This is putting the cart before the horse."

First published in 1999, the second edition includes major revisions as entire sections were rewritten and updated.

Additional information and an order form can be found at www.ServiceRoundtable.com/temp/NeverLoseACustomerInformation.pdf.

Publication date: 04/04/2005