If the bad economic news has you paralyzed, we’ve put together a three step recovery process that will help you survive during slow times and allow you to prosper in good times. It has to do with your #1 asset — your customer. If you’re not paying extra special attention to your customers right now, I can guarantee you that your competitors are and if you’re not careful, your customer will be their customer. If you’re stuck in economic paralysis or looking for ways to improve your business, right now, read on.
Step 1: Take Stock. The first thing we need to do is take account of our customers. Who are they? Are they happy with us? Will they buy from us now and in the future? Can we use them as a reference? Would they recommend us to their peers? It is time to recognize that the greatest asset we have in our businesses is our customer base. Properly nurtured and managed, they will sustain us during the recessionary periods and enable us to grow in strong markets. Let’s get to work answering these questions.
Step 2: What you can Measure you can Manage. If feels a little like “survey” time, doesn’t it? Well, yes and no. Standard surveys, whether administered internally or via an unbiased source provide you with some information, but no real understanding of what the responses mean. I would recommend that you look at the measurement methodology developed by Satmetrix, Bain & Company, and Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter (NPS) is a method of scoring our customers that was first discussed in the book The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld. Net Promoter is both a loyalty metric and a discipline for using customer feedback to fuel profitable growth in your business. The Net Promoter Score is a straightforward metric that holds companies and employees accountable for how they treat customers. It has gained popularity thanks to its simplicity and its linkage to profitable growth. When implemented properly in an organization and all employees are engaged, it can open the door to customer-centric change and improved performance.
argued that there are more efficient methods, but they’ve implemented a method that works for them. You need to come up with some way to track customer activity as well. If you’d like something better than a 3X5 card, there are a number of solutions out there that can simplify and streamline your process. Be careful not to get paralyzed by the analysis and planning for CRM. You can add complexity over time; just make sure you’re able to track critical customer information along with future and past activities. The last critical piece you need is some way to get relevant data back out so that you can be proactive.
Step 3: Customer Relationship Management. Whether you use a Big Chief pad & #2 pencil or a sophisticated software solution, you need some way of managing the activity with your customers and measuring effective activity proactively. Quick story: Every time I go to Southern California on business, I stay at a small beachfront hotel in Laguna Beach called “Casa del Camino”. It’s not particularly fancy and the rooms are rather small, but I am a loyal patron and recommender. Why? From check-in to check-out, they treat me like I truly matter! Their CRM system (3X5 note cards) is a little antiquated and it could be argued that there are more efficient methods, but they’ve implemented a method that works for them. You need to come up with some way to track customer activity as well. If you’d like something better than a 3X5 card, there are a number of solutions out there that can simplify and streamline your process. Be careful not to get paralyzed by the analysis and planning for CRM. You can add complexity over time; just make sure you’re able to track critical customer information along with future and past activities. The last critical piece you need is some way to get relevant data back out so that you can be proactive.
Managing customer satisfaction is important, regardless of the economy, but if you’ll take the time to gather information about your clients, determine the net promoter score for your company, and implement a plan to build that score over time, you’ll find that your customers won’t move to competitors and your profits will improve.
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