Yesterday Bullet for my Valentine pulled out of the Zero Coke Fest citing studio commitments as the reason. Zero Coke Fest is an annual rock festival in Cape Town and Joburg hosting some the world’s biggest bands, this year Oasis and Snow Patrol are the headle acts. Tickets for the event are around R600 for the Golden Circle (the mosh pit area!). So the point is that hundreds of Bullet for my valentine fans have scrimped, saved and borrowed to get a ticket to see their idols up close and personal. They’ve committed their time and money to support them and now they’ve been jilted at the altar. Ask any one of those fans whether they would rather the boys spend the day in the studio so they could hear the new album 1 day earlier or share a day of excess and loud live  music with their loyal fans and guess what the answer would be?

This is bad CRM (Customer Relationship Management). It requires much less effort (time and money) to keep an existing customer than it does to convert another. Any marketeer knows the value of an existing customer, you do what it takes to hang on to them. If you convert and then keep them happy the chances are they will convert others and so it goes on. The same applies to owning a holiday rental accommodation. Treat each guest as a potential marketing potential for your holiday home. Don’t just wave goodbye to them at the end of their stay and hope they tell a few people while the trip is still fresh in their minds. Before they leave get their email address, in fact get the email address of their friends who might be looking for somewhere to stay in Cape Town. Then treat these people as royalty. Send them an email with an ‘only for previous guests special discount rate’ or a thank-you follow up email asking for their feedback or how you could improve your service or new features and facilities about your accommodation. In fact anything you can do to make them feel special will be enough to keep your rental accommodation fresh in their minds. But whatever you do, don’t promise them something and then fail to deliver because, as Bullet for my Valentine may eventually discover, they will never return.