Satisfaction was never a reason to stay — only the absence of a reason to leave. Most customers get stuck exactly there: nothing to complain about, and no reason to come back, until one day they quietly hire someone else. Customer Excellence Service (CES) is my system for moving them past it — six stations that turn one-time buyers into loyal advocates who return, refer you, and forgive the occasional mistake. It's the method at the heart of my book, New Customers Without Cold Calling.
Understand what the customer truly wants, and whether the relationship is worthwhile for both sides. Tools: the in-depth interview, the Six-Month Question, and Customer Lifetime Value.
Deliver reliably and set clear expectations — who does what, by when, at what cost. This is the price of admission, not the finish line.
Reach out before a problem appears. The reverse-firefighter principle: don't wait for the fire — stop by and check the smoke detectors.
Create deliberate moments of delight where they genuinely matter to the customer. This is what turns mere satisfaction into loyalty.
Evaluate feedback and a handful of metrics, then adjust. Change something because a customer told you — not because a podcast did.
Retention, repeat business and referrals that flow back in as new, better input. Not a sixth mindset — the yield of the other five.
I'm Michael Andresen. Customer Success has been part of my work far longer than I've used the term — years at Oracle, Cisco and AppDynamics, watching what turns a good deal into a lasting relationship: someone genuinely paying attention after the signature is on the contract. Today I'm helping clients to build Customer Success in the United Arab Emirates, a country where even government ministries run initiatives on Customer Happiness, and Germany.
I've also been self-employed since 2012 — years of testing, discarding and improving the processes, structured conversations and customer events that make people stay, refer me, and come back. Global corporations refer me, and former customers still join the roundtables I host in Dubai. CES is that system, written down at last for other solopreneurs — because happy, loyal customers never happen by themselves.
“Customer relationships work a little like any other relationship: if you call after the first date, you give true love a chance.”
Growth strategy for entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals. Six stations, from understanding your customers to generating referrals and repeat business — every chapter hands you one tool and ends with a single, manageable action, plus a 90-day roadmap that tells you what to do and in what order.