My mom had a saying she learned when she was in school…. It went like this…. Good, better, best, never let it rest… until good is better and better is best. I like the saying because it exemplifies the desire to continually improve and not stop until you’ve achieved the best you can. Find out how to avoid falling into the trap of “good is good enough” in this blog post. We recently conducted a project for a division of a company to gather customer experience feedback. We learned what the company was doing well, what they needed to improve on, and their unique identifier from their customers’ perspective. But … we also learned why their customers chose them and why they stay with them. We also identified at- risk customers, one of which was their second largest. The results were used to successfully develop a sales strategy based on their customers’ experiences and needs. After this initial project, we suggested conducting a similar project for another division. The management team told us that the other division was breaking sales records so they didn’t need to gather any customer feedback. Why would they need to, right? Things are going well…
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A customer-first strategy is just what it sounds like. This means working consistently and proactively to deliver a positive experience for every purchaser by establishing operations and practices with the customer in mind. In the end, you want someone who will be loyal to you and your business for a long time to come. Plus, customer loyalty and happiness have a tendency to spread. When people find businesses they like and trust, they want to tell their friends about it too. Regardless of what industry you’re in, your customers are the most important part of your business. Without them, you have no sales. Getting to know your customers and their needs and wants, will help you do a better job of putting them first and creating a great experience for them. Not doing so can cause situations where your customers don’t return. Recently, I went to dinner with a few friends to a new restaurant. The server was pleasant, took our drink orders and returned quickly to serve us. I ordered a popular seltzer drink and she had asked me what flavor I wanted. When she returned, she told me that I was not allowed to pick my flavor and hoped
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How much of your business strategy is based on hunches? How much risk can your business afford if your hunches are incorrect? Good decision making often comes with experience. We have a gut feeling or hunch about something and often that’s what we run with for decision making purposes.
However, if you’re looking to make strategic business decisions, relying on your hunches or gut may not be the most effective or reliable means for success.
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Many companies track customer satisfaction as a key performance indicator… whether it be Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort or a Customer Satisfaction score. It’s often necessary to go beyond the satisfaction score to determine who might be an at-risk customer and more importantly, why?
Many customer satisfaction measurement surveys are quantitative in nature and focus solely on numbers and statistics. They don’t answer critical qualitative questions about the experience or the overall customer journey and can be misleading if evaluated improperly. Let me give you an example.
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One of the greatest benefits of using a professional research firm is the ability to draw upon that company’s best practices, expertise, and resources. A quick and dirty DIY approach is often just that.
There are important elements to consider when conducting your own market research.
To begin with, make sure that you have clarity on the ultimate goals of the research project and that you are very clear as to what decisions the data will drive. Ensure that the questions you are asking will get to the results you are looking for. There is no doubt, that there have been more than one DIY market research project that has been completed and failed to answer the one main question that needed to be answered.
Let’s take a few moments to review the important elements for a successful DIY market research project…
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At some point as your business grows, it’s necessary to gather feedback from your customers so that you can better understand their wants, needs, and pain points, along with evaluating their experience interacting with your company. Some companies choose to hire a professional market research firm while others think it best to conduct their own DIY customer research. Let’s take a look at the pitfalls of a DIY customer research approach. We worked with a B2B company for several years conducting an annual in-depth customer experience survey. Our goal was to evaluate their interactions and experiences with the company and identify opportunities for improvement. As part of the project, the expectation was to follow up directly with customers that had issues or complaints so that specific action plans could be put in place to track, resolve and rectify problems. One particular year, the company wanted to save money and decided to conduct the survey themselves using internal resources vs. hiring our organization, as they had in the past. As a result, they were on their own to set up the survey, manage the data collection process and analyze and evaluate the results. We followed up with them after the project
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What’s your sales team made up of…. Order takers or opportunity makers? No doubt, the last few years have been challenging for many. There have been so many staffing, resource and operational changes in companies, and it isn’t going to let up anytime soon. How is your sales team managing these changes with your customers? Because there’s been so much change, order takers need to stop doing things the same old way or they’re going to get left in the dust. Consider a recent study we did… when asked how many bidding opportunities they were participating in with their clients, the sales reps were convinced it was at least 75%. Meaning, they had an opportunity to bid on at least 75% of client projects. The reality was that they were only getting to participate in 39% of the project bidding. This is a huge discrepancy of perceptions vs. reality. Think of all of the lost sales as a result. In addition, 55% of the customers surveyed stated that their sales had increased over the past year– combine that with the gap in bid participation and it’s huge missed opportunity. Let’s review three questions that can turn an order taker into
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As part of the due diligence process during an acquisition, it is typical for the investor to reach out to top tier customers. The purpose is to determine how satisfied and loyal these customers are to the company and if any of these customers are at risk of scaling back or leaving. But, what could you be missing by only focusing on the top tier?
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Is the foundation of your business strategy based on your assumptions or rather on concepts that have been validated? Good strategy is at the core of any organization’s success. But running your business on baseless assumptions or half-truths can point you in the wrong strategic direction. Imagine if your assumptions are wrong? What damage can this do to your business and how long could it set you back from achieving your ultimate goals? Recently, we were referred to a company that began planning their business strategy for the next year. They were lining up sales, marketing and finance teams, but were encouraged by a consultant to engage our firm to gather customer experience feedback before formalizing any plans. As a result of our efforts, we were able to eliminate the guesswork and debunk three major assumptions that they had. Assumption #1 – We know our top customers love us… This company had incredible confidence in the strength of their relationships with their top customers and didn’t necessarily see the need in contacting them. We interviewed two different buyers from their #1 customer. One buyer did, in fact, love them, however, the other buyer was not at all satisfied. Worse yet,
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A brand promise incorporates what customers can expect from interacting with a specific company. It’s important to get your brand promise right, every single time. A brand promise identifies a value or experience that a company’s customers can expect to receive every single time they interact with that organization. The more a company delivers on that promise, the stronger the brand value will be in the minds of the customers and employees. But what happens if your company isn’t living up to its’ brand promise? A brand promise can have a negative impact on a business. While a brand promise is a statement establishing what customers can expect from the company, the successful execution of a brand promise relies directly on the team members delivering on that promise each and every day. If the team members fall short on their delivery, this will negatively impact the customers’ perceptions of that organization and negatively influence their trust. Ultimately, the company may or may not be aware of the damage that was done. We recently worked on a project for a company to gather market intel and to help evaluate industry trends. The business had taken a negative turn over the last
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