Speaking of Business: Attention: Take it easy on your customers
Q. As our business has grown, we are hearing more often from our customers that we no longer understand their needs. I know we provide superior products at a very competitive price. But what else can we do?
A. Like it or not, your business is defined by your customers.
Customers have the information, the choices and the freedom to buy products and services from whomever they wish. Your company must not take an introspective, product-centered view of the world. Your company must not assume that your customers want what you have to offer.
Customers typically care only about how your product or service can satisfy their needs. The best way to get them to care about your product or service is to become ETDBW (easy to do business with). ETDBW was developed in part by Tom Doerr, a founding member of Strategic Leadership Group out of Loveland. He can be e-mailed at tom.doerr@strategic-leader.com.
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“Easy to do business with” means that, from the customers’ perspective, interacting with you and your products is inexpensive and effortless. Think of it like this. & The price a customer pays for your product is only part of the cost of doing business with you. Dealing with your ordering procedures, shipping procedures, billing procedures, servicing procedures and contracts are things that can add significantly to “overhead costs” for your customer.
Keep in mind that none of these “costs” to the customer go into your pocket. If your competition can find ways to reduce or eliminate the “overhead costs” to the customer, they can charge more for their product and you can still be losing business.
Catchy slogans and snappy ad campaigns won’t fix this problem. Transforming your organization will require the development and implementation of business processes that are sustainable and repeatable. Below are four improvement goals that would enhance your company’s ability to be ETDBW:
Use knowledge you have gained from existing or previous customers to create offerings for your new customers. You can begin this process by segmenting your customers and identifying what typical services and products each segment may request.
How many times have you called a customer-service provider who has no idea who you are and does not know that you called two days earlier on a similar issue? Or, have you ever been asked by an automated system to enter your customer number and as soon as someone answers your call, you are asked for that same number?
These are examples of clumsy and inadequate customer-relationship management processes.
Compare the above examples to the process at Charles Schwab. When you call an account representative at Charles Schwab, he or she has access to your entire brokerage account history, even if you did your last five transactions over the Web. Charles Schwab allows their customer a seamless experience for their transaction, no matter what format the customer chooses.
Charles Schwab has also clearly recognized that not all customers want the same level of service. Some customers like to be coddled and some like to manage their own financial accounts. Using the power of the Internet, Charles Schwab allows its customers to be completely self-sufficient. Charles Schwab still collects a standard fee for each transaction even though they do not incur the cost of providing personal support to the customer.
Concentrating on what the customer feels is important can lead to much happier customers. Taking the time and energy to fix your order-processing system may make it easier for you to keep track of orders, but that will not matter if half of the orders are “Dead on Arrival.”
Greeley resident Russell Disberger is a founding member of Aspen Business Group, a Northern Colorado-based specialty consulting and venture-capital firm. He can be reached at (970) 396-7009, or by e-mail at russell@aspenbusinessgroup.com. Concepts in this article are drawn directly from “The Agenda,” a book by Michael Hammer.
Q. As our business has grown, we are hearing more often from our customers that we no longer understand their needs. I know we provide superior products at a very competitive price. But what else can we do?
A. Like it or not, your business is defined by your customers.
Customers have the information, the choices and the freedom to buy products and services from whomever they wish. Your company must not take an introspective, product-centered view of the world. Your company must not assume that your customers want what you have to offer.
Customers typically care only about how your…
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