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| mattselker.com newsletters Articles from June, 2009 "Sustainable, Positive Change" -Newsletter- |
June is here and in this edition of "Sustainable, Positive Change" we will address two critial areas relating to your business success; Strategy and Positive Thinking. In the article "Got Strategy" we will discuss why now, more than ever, developing a sustainable strategy for the pending economic recovery is vital to your success. In the article "Keeping Yourself Positive" we will discuss behaviors you can adopt that will keep you positive as we move thoufh our current economic climate. Lastly we will see why good customer service is much more than good pr. Enjoy these articles and reach out with questions or thoughts. I can be reached at matt@mattselker.org. As always, I look forward to improving your bottom line, one experience at a time. Enjoy your day! Matt Selker
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Got Strategy? by Matt Selker Now, more than ever, you must be engaged in a generative conversation about strategy within your organization. You can't turn on the TV without hearing the doom and gloom circumstances the United States, and for that matter the global community, finds itself in. With the stock market plummeting to near 1990 levels, cost of living increasing exponentially and the housing crisis unfolding a new chapter each and every day, one cannot help but take on a negative attitude. However, there are businesses out there that are prospering; there are business sectors that are not faltering.
Empirical evidence shows the economy evolves in a cyclical pattern. Business must prepare for the negative downturn incrementally over the years. One thing that is critical today, more than ever, is that we prepare for the economic upswing that is before us. We must use this time to prepare strategically for future prosperity. Business leadership must plan strategically for the demand that will be upon them when the economic rebound begins; economists believe to happen in the late third quarter of this year.
Business leaders know they must take a well-researched, strategic approach to all of their operations, yet so few actually do. This applies to mainstream, small to medium size organizations as well as large conglomerates. Taking a short-term, parochial view of your business may lead only to mediocrity and will likely lead to lack of sustainability. The key to sustainability is a constant, generative conversation within your organization that reviews operations from a to z, over and over again; a perpetual state of renewal and discovery.
Interested in knowing how Matt Selker can help you convene a generative conversation within your organization? How can we work together to design your unique, authentic customer experience strategy? |
Do you have a Customer Experience Strategy? by: Dr. Andrea Blackwood-Harriott | | Most businesses are just not tapping the potential to do more business, more frequently with their existing customers and are leaving money on the table for their competitors. Lacking the internal systems to manage the customer experience, most businesses invest too much in chasing new customers and do too little to delight and retain existing customers. It is well established that Satisfied customers are predisposed to purchase again, purchase more and purchase different products.
It costs less to motivate a known customer to purchase again than to acquire a new customer. Customers are only fickle when a new competitor is paying more attention to them than you are. Recipe For Customer Delight Woo the Customer as much before as AFTER the sale. How much do you really know about your customers or clients? Is it possible that some assumptions you've made about your customers are incorrect? Ask yourself "Are there commonalities that are shared by many of my customers that I am unaware of"? Find creative ways to meet and ASK them. Develop a system to 'touch' your customers at least once per month. The most successful companies are touching their customers once a week or more.
Continue to Market to Existing Customers
Do not make the mistake of assuming that current customers know what you are about? Do not take shortcuts or feel that you are boring customers by constantly promoting to them. If you have quality, service, guarantee price or other advantages point them out. Remind the customer why they came, what they have and what they can still get. Let them know more benefits will come from having MORE of your product or service.
Develop a Loyalty Reward Program
Determine who your best customers are. (Recently I asked a client of mine to do this exercise, and I was shocked at the lack of clarity in the determination of "best customer" - Her top revenue producing clients were the worst payers, drove the company's margin down, created the most logistic problems and bought a limited number of items in the company's product range). Here is my rule of thumb. Your best customers contributes 80% of your profit, buys more/large ticket items, buys often, buys on your recommendations, and Pays Well. Create a Loyalty reward programme based around what they value most. Some of the factors that drive this group are symbols of exclusivity such as VIP parking, quick personal access to you, regular updates, and private promotions or cross promotion with other VIP groups. Ask! Ask for Advice and Get Creative.
Use the Law of Attraction
Make your best customers aware that you are in the market looking for others just like them and would appreciate referrals who may want to experience the kind of service they have been receiving from you.
At the same time you need to identify the next level of customers say 5-10% who you assess aspire for VIP status. Create a buzz among this group, give incentives such as discounts and volume upgrades for them to cross the hurdle and elevate to your VIP club. You will be amazed at what people will do for recognition or what a well thought out loyalty programme could do for your business
Now You Have Them, Keep Them
To who have you assigned the job of Customer Relations and Retention? Have you accepted the notion that your clients are mobile assets? Are you leaving your customers vulnerable to theft by a partner or employee with whom you just parted company? Are you implementing checks and balances that will alert you to customer maltreatment or negligence? Many customers will not take the time to complain they will simply vote with feet? Entrepreneurs and business owners who don't take orchestrate a system for customer relations and retention, place their company's fortune on shifting sand.
Regardless of the number of layers of distribution between you and your customer find a mechanism or forum where you can periodically establish some direct link. The owner of a restaurant can do that by coming around and chatting personally with the customers. The chief executive officer of a large company can do it with a hotline telephone number, well designed easy to fill and return comment cards or maybe a newsletter featuring a voice of the customer segment.
Your customers are the most powerful assets in your business, even if you sell the business, they can become a great source for referrals and given the multidimensional nature of most clients they have desires that transcend the ability of any single industry or product to satisfy. A strategy top delight your customers should be an integral part of any business strategy tool kit.
Interested in learning more about incorporating these ideas into your organization's customer experience, email Matt Selker today!
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Good Customer Service Is More Than Good PR
by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE
In the throes and stresses of our workday lives, we sometimes forget how our customers see us. One single negative contact can ruin your reputation in the eyes of not only that one customer -- but everyone he or she knows as well. After all, word of mouth works both for or against you.
You need to make sure everybody in your organization knows he or she is an important part of it. Each department depends and dovetails into the other to produce quality in service or product. Everyone makes a difference: the sales force, the service technicians, the clerical staff, the PR department all work together toward the same goal -- keeping the customers satisfied.
A perfect example of how everyone makes a difference is when I was in a Nashville hotel attending a board of directors meeting for the National Speakers Association. After the meeting, several of us went to the coffee shop to continue our deliberations. Each of us asked for exceptions or additions to the menu items; we wanted separate checks; and to make things even more confusing, being speakers, we talked to each other the whole time the waitress patiently took our orders.
"My dear, all this confusion is going to be worthwhile -- these guys are big tippers," I said.
She said, "I'm not being nice for a tip. It doesn't even matter if I get a tip or not. If we give you good service, your group will bring back its business here and not to the competition."
Isn't that a marvelous attitude from someone on the front lines? I was so impressed, I wrote a letter to the hotel manager congratulating him on his staff and especially the waitress at the coffee shop.
I never received a reply. That waitress "wowed" me with her service and her attitude; but the manager's lack of response almost nullified her customer service savvy. Everyone makes a difference. I think the manager and the waitress should change places for a couple of weeks, she knows more about good PR than he does.
As Paul Harvey says, "Advertising strategies work if everyone knows about them, from the highest corporate executive to the entry level worker."
This article is part of a series on openings which appears in SpeakerFrippNews. To subscribe to SpeakerFrippNews visit: http://www.fripp.com/newsletter.html Or send an email to Subscribe@Fripp.com
Announcements Matt Selker, Senior Consultant, Chief Experience Officer and Principal at mattselker.org has been selected to participate as a group facilitator at the 2009 Business as an Agent of World Benefit (BAWB)-Global Conference hosted by the United Nations, American Management Association and Case Western Reserve University, June 2-5, 2009. For more information, please click the link below. | |
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