Customer Focus in a Slow Economy: Who wants to lose customers?

My strategic partner Ray Miller wrote this article and kindly gave his permission to publish it here.


I wanted to call this article “Sharpen Your Customer Focus or You Will Lose Customers!” but a few of my colleagues thought this was a bit too blunt. Absolutely true mind you, but blunt.

Then I thought why not make the headline a question: “How Many Customers Are You Willing To Lose Today Because of a Lack of Customer Focus?” Again, true but too direct. So in the end I went with what you see above.

So here we are again. The economy is getting tough and for many, life is stressful and difficult. For business, this is not new. We’ve all been here before. Hopefully we’ve learned from the last time the economy slowed … But then again, have we?

Nobody wants to lose customers but you know as well as I that when the economy gets tough, many organizations go into reactive mode. Their focus shifts to cost control and the acquisition of new customers. History has taught us that every time this happens, relationships with existing customers can be put at risk. Financial responsibility is important, as is getting new business, but not if it is at the expense of your existing customers.

Allow me to explain.

During an economic downturn most customers will be looking to increase value for their money. They will try to make their hard earned cash go further and you can be sure that they will be more critical when making buying decisions.

With less disposable income, customers will be less forgiving of a mediocre or poor service experience. And don’t forget that when it comes to service, the vast majority, 90 to 96%, will not complain and most will simply go elsewhere. You can bet that they will want to deal with organizations that demonstrate that they want and appreciate their business.

You can also be guaranteed that your customers will be strongly influenced by the commentary of their friends, acquaintances, family and colleagues when it comes to recommendations for products or services and providers.

As I mentioned earlier, when economic conditions become more demanding, far too many organizations focus on cost cutting and acquiring new customers which invariably puts the relationships with their existing customers at risk.

Quite often training budgets are the first to get cut. This includes all important training on things like Customer Service and Leadership.

Process improvement plans get put on hold often including process improvements that were intended to enhance the customer experience.

Even though it is five times more expensive to get new customers than it is to keep existing already profitable customers, many organizations bolster their marketing efforts trying to pull more customers in the front door, at the same time virtually ignoring their existing customers who simply walk out the backdoor looking for someone who wants and appreciates their business and proves it through their actions.

The retention of existing customers is all the more important during difficult economic conditions. Research proves that existing customers are more profitable and improvements in your operating expenses and resulting bottom line can be achieved through maintaining a high level of customer focus. Just to remind you, don’t forget a five percent increase in customer loyalty can contribute from 25% to 125% directly to your bottom line.

Remember that your customers always have the choice of buying from you or your competition. When times are tough, that choice becomes even more important.

Implementing a customer focus strategy will create valuable and long-lasting relationships with your customers that will provide a secure and growing revenue stream.

Focusing on getting the customer experience right is critical. Making sure that your customers choose you over your competition is essential. If you get it right when times are tough you will certainly reap the benefits and rewards of unleashing the power of customer focus as conditions improve.

So this time, why not dare to be different. Why not unleash the potential of customer focus, while everyone else has their eye off the ball.




Ray Miller is the Author of That’s Customer Focus! and The Customer Focus Companion. He is also Managing Partner of The Training Bank, a full service training and development firm which specializes in fully customizable Leadership, Customer Focus, Service Excellence, Management and Supervisory Development training.
www.thatscustomerfocus.com
www.thetrainingbank.com

Customer Service in Tough Times – The Alligators Get In The Way…

…Decreased liquidity, need to reduce staff, pressures of increased raw materials and energy costs, just to name a few.

In these tough times the (B2B) customers are under as much pressure as you are and really rely on great customer service that will keep them coming back and for which they will remember you when times get better. You want to make sure that the last transaction was not the final one.

So, this would be an excellent time to take stock of how your customer service and experience are performing, and engage for this the expertise of a seasoned Customer Focus Consultant like myself. My fees are a small investment in an “ounce of prevention” and are easily earned back in multiples. [Yes, this is a commercial for my services]

I have three pertinent questions for you:

1) Do you agree that in a recession your customer service needs to be better than ever before?
After all, you don’t want to compete on price, right?

2) How would you like to quickly find numerous small and big opportunities for improving your customer service?
The result will be that customers become more loyal and therefore your profits go up.

3) Can you help me do that?
Yes, that can be done, I assure you. My widely proven one day Customer Experience Workshop will do this for you. I have delivered it dozens of times for my clients in the United States and Canada and always to high client satisfaction. You will be surprised how effective it is, how fast it can be turned around and yes, how affordable. It is simply my best-value service offering I devised in over more than 20 years in this business.

Did I pique your interest? Then why not call me for a no obligation phone consultation at 416-465-0800 (EDT), or use this link? You will get more details, and you can also request a service brochure. http://www.customerfocusconsult.com/request.asp

And please do remember: A Sharper Customer Focus Gives You A Sharper Competitive Edge.

A customer complaint is like a bitter lemon - but you can make lemonade of it

Columinist Lynn Hunsacker, clearAction, wrote recently on CustomerThink:

Love Those Lemons: When They Complain, Make Lemonade

Negative customer feedback is a lot like biting into a lemon — the bitterness is hard to love — unless you give the lemon a good squeeze and some sugar, and transform it into refreshing and healthy lemonade. You’re only as strong as your weakest link, so those lemons — complaints and low survey ratings — are indeed essential ingredients to improving customer experiences.

To squeeze your voice of the customer lemons into useful juice, you’ll want to:

• Make it easy for customers to give you early warnings of their dissatisfaction,
• Strive to see the whole picture of the customers’ experience,
• Analyze root causes.

To add sugar, you’ll want to put a positive spin on your your new-found knowledge of dissatisfiers and their root causes. After all, what better warnings could you have for ways to manage and nurture your weakest links? Working on the root causes of dissatisfiers is the best way of:

• Migrating ambivalent and at-risk customers into a reliable source of profit,
• Preventing your brand fans from stumbling upon your weak areas and becoming disillusioned,
• Building brand equity by delivering company-wide on your brand promise.
  

The average American company loses half its customers within five years. How can your company achieve sustained growth with image-building alone? By addressing the customer group giving you “lemon feedback” you can turn negative word-of-mouth trends to sustainable competitive advantages with a ripple effect on your entire customer base. This

internal branding effort aligns what’s going on inside the company with what’s being promised to customers.It adds customer experience substance to your value proposition.

On a hot day, a cool drink of lemonade is just the thing to re-energize. Similarly, in the heat of competition, lemonade is just what the doctor ordered to provide a compelling customer experience with your brand.

I have a great Customer Complaint Management White Paper and Assessment framework.

If interested, follow this link and contact me?

http://www.customerfocusconsult.com/complaint-management.htm