That’s why we need Subscribers
We at cricksyDog prefer to have subscribers instead of repeated orders. At the end of the day it can be the same but there is a tiny difference. The ones who are subscribers can be much easily monitored and are less likely to give up their subscription. Just because they are committed to us.
It start usually with an outgoing call
It is quite rare that people call us because they can not subscribe at our site. Usually we initiate this process. Let’s see how this goes!
As soon as the customer picks up the phone, we can immediately deduce what type of a person he/she is. Someone who – when you ask if the food is good enough – immediately replies that “oh, of course it was amazing”, or someone who tells you all the grievances as to why it did or didn’t work for them. Of course, this intuition should never be taken for granted.
As we have experienced, the most important thing is to strive for confidence. Customers need to feel like you are the person (besides the owner, of course) who wants the best for their dogs. You are the one, who can determine which diet and dog food is best for the dogs.
At first, customers may feel like you only called to “force” them into buying one of our products. This can be felt from how distant and concise they are in the beginning of the phone call. In such cases, we always ask questions that would help resolve the tension they might feel at first.
Best questions to break the ice
1: “Does your dog like and eat our food?”: here you can already found out from the answer whether he/she is a regular customer of ours or only ordered our products to try it out.
2: “Is your dog allergic to certain food that you ordered one of our hypoallergenic dog food?” and/or “Have you noticed any allergic symptoms?”: This is the question that will really start the conversation. Here they already see that you don’t want to force them into buying something, but you are truly curious about their experience. Based on what we have heard, we can recommend them another food or reassure them that they have chosen the best dog food for their dogs. I also inform Them that they should not give up any diet (if they say that they feel like it doesn’t work for them) for at least 6-8 weeks, since that’s how long it takes for the allergen to leave the dogs’ body.
3: “What is the breed of the dog?”; “Is the size of the grain appropriate, is it too small, or is it too big? I recommend some practices they can try if their dog wouldn’t eat the food. (mixing method, starvation). I also inform them about the importance of transition period, which can take up to 2 weeks.
4: “Do you have some dog food left or is the next purchase topical?” Very often it becomes clear during the conversation whether they are open to place an order or not. There are exceptions that can be reversed even here at the end of the conversation, despite saying the whole time they don’t need anything, they still place an order.
In the end, I’ll let them know that if it’s time to order the product, feel free to call, I’ll be able to place their order if it’s easier for them (I think that’s very important because you can let them know without any impertinence that it is in fact better and more practical if they buy from you), and if they have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them, so they can contact us anytime!
If I see that he/she ordered from us frequently and hasn’t reported any problems, such as: the dog got sick, I immediately ask him/her : “Have you heard of our subscription option, do you know what does it entail?” They would usually reply that they have heard something about it, but… Just in case I always tell the most important information about subscription as an option.