find, keep and grow your customer

February 20, 2009

No sale? Just ask your potential customer WHY?

Filed under: sales team development, sales process optimization, 1-to-1 relationship marketing, lead generation, General —

BY J. MARK WALKER

Several years ago I was the regional sales manager for a small manufacturing company.

One of our product lines was made by this German parent, and was often used in OEM applications.We had a prospect in my Region who bought $500,000 per year worth of a product like one of ours, and we wanted their business. I worked through their Purchasing Department and Engineering Group to insure that we met or exceeded all their design specifications, and that our price was right. After more than a year, we still did not have the order.

I called the Purchasing Agent and asked, “We have the best product at the best price. Why don’t we have the order?” His answer floored me. “Our Vice President of Sales and Marketing does not want to change suppliers?” I asked, “That seems a little out of the ordinary. Why is that?” He responded with a story about a big problem with their present supplier which caused a major public relations disaster in one of their markets. They eventually got the problem resolved, but the VP of Sales and Marketing did not want to risk going through that kind of issue with a new supplier.

After verifying that he wanted to order our product, I asked the purchasing agent to set up a meeting. My Vice President of Sales, Director of Engineering, and Product Manager met me at their plant and we sat at the table with their Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Director of Engineering, Quality Control Manager, and Purchasing Agent. We got all the concerns out on the table and demonstrated how the problem they experienced in the past could not occur with our product. We then agreed upon a plan for a site visit to our facility by their people to verify that we could serve them.

From then on it was just a matter of working the plan, and we got the order.

What was the question that I had failed to ask one year earlier? After we became an approved vendor, I should have asked the Purchasing Agent something like this: “Who else needs to agree to this before you can place the order with us?” I could have saved a year of time and earned an extra $500,000 in revenue had I uncovered the issue with “changing suppliers.” Often there are factors in a purchase decision which don’t make sense to us, but which relate to a cultural issue or a historical problem like my customer had.

You will only learn this when you ask questions to pull out the information.

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February 14, 2009

Innovate the Customer Experience (Part 5 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

The typical company focuses their innovation efforts on product development, R&D and delivery of their specific product or service. All those elements are obviously extremely important and vital to the success of the organization. In fact, those elements are also very important to the customer experience. This fourth tactic is about applying that same focus on all customer touchpoints.

When companies apply that same intense focus on innovation to their sales process, customer service and billing interactions, they can find excellent opportunities to create a better experience for customers.

A good example of this is some companies’ recent use of Twitter to provide customer support. Often, when people need support, they’re looking for it now. Rather than have users call in to a call center, you can “tweet” your issue to a Twitter address and someone can get back to you right away. The downside is you then need to make sure someone is there to receive the message and act on it.

One thing to remember as you look at customer touchpoints through the eyes of innovation – don’t forget the other 3 tactics, especially the first one. Figuring out what your customers desire at each touchpoint and then developing innovative ways to provide that puts you on the path of customer experience excellence.

Please post comments on innovative ways your company has provided a superior customer experience, we’d love to hear them!

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February 8, 2009

Customer Experience: Empowering Employees (Part 4 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, Resources, sales process optimization, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

Your front-line employees have a tremendous amount of influence over the experience a customer has with your company. The simple mistake many managers make is that they simply expect the employee to do the right thing. The question is, what is the right thing? Without expressing to your employees how you want them to act, they’ll act according to their own impression of how they think they should act.

This gets right into the next comment – don’t skimp on training. Once you start building the customer-centric culture and measuring the experience, you need make sure all your employees understand how you (as the manager or business owner) want them to act. Is the number #1 priority making sure the customer is happy, no matter what? Is it something else? Whatever it is, your employees need to understand it.

Communicate is key here – employees must have a clear understanding of how they are expected to act. A big part of that is simply defining what you would define as good behavior. Once that’s done, you can work on measuring it and incenting it. Let’s look at an example in a call center.

If the desired behavior is for the call center agents to solve the caller’s issue on the first call, then you should track first call resolution numbers. But, make sure then you incent on that – don’t incent on call time. It doesn’t do much good to say we want to solve problems on the first call and then incent people on how quickly they get customers off the line. It is inconsistencies like this that can cause a customer experience initiative to fail.

How a customer uses your product or service is only part of the experience. How your employees interact with customers goes a long way toward how a customer views the experience with your company. You can influence those interactions – just remember to communicate to your employees how you want them to act. Then back that up with training, measuring and incenting to ensure the behavior you want is actually occurring.

Next, we’ll look at everyone’s favorite word, Innovate.

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February 7, 2009

GrowthANSWERS’ Don Rigby Makes The AJC!

Filed under: 1-to-1 relationship marketing, branding/differentiation, marketing strategy, General —

Business owners are being tested for courage. Some are reacting, others are pro-acting. Here’s an encouraging story published in the 2/1/09 edition Atlanta Journal Constitution how forward thinking businesses are proactively advancing customer growth.  Don Rigby, Managing Director of GrowthANSWERS, believes business owners must stay on the offensive. Smart companies use this down cycle to rethink, reinvent and innovate their way through this and win early in the rebound. To view this article (click here), but we want to know what other proactive business owners are doing today to ready themselves for tomorrow.  Share yours or other acts of courage your observing in the business community. 

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February 5, 2009

Defining, Designing and Measuring The Customer Experience (Part 3 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

The second tactic on how to create a better experience has to do with defining, designing and measuring.

The first step is defining – quantifying and describing what currently exists. You can’t know where to make changes unless you understand what is currently happening. Once you have a grasp of the current experience for customers, you can look to what is important to them.

As you look at creating a better experience, you MUST understand what is important to your customers. It’s imperative for a company to understand what drives the customer’s perceived satisfaction of the experience and not what you think it should be.

For example, if customers want a support call answered by the second ring, then it makes more sense to hire more in-experienced people to answer the phone than to hire a lower number of  “experts” since the phone won’t get answered as quickly. Hold time may be longer because the in-experienced people don’t have answers and need to go find them, but the calls are getting answered quickly. IF they want their issue to be solved by the person who answers and not get transferred around, you’d better hire more knowledgeable people. It may mean the answer/hold time is longer, but their issue will get solved by the original agent.

As you look to what those factors might be, remember this simple statement by television’s Dr. House. “People lie.” In this case, they don’t do it on purpose. But while it’s important to ask them, it’s even more important to watch them. Watch how they use your product or service – even if it means going to their office or home. You can always trust what they DO – it’s what they SAY that isn’t always accurate.

Finally, you should build a systematic feedback loop to continually monitor and learn. Checking back with customers as you make changes allows you to ensure that your changes are impacting the experience in the way you want them to. Also, tracking the competitive landscape allows you to make changes as others in your industry do to ensure competitors aren’t delivering something you’re not.

One final note – don’t be afraid of negative feedback. All too often I see companies not want to hear the “truth” about their customer experience. First off, if you don’t know where a problem exists, how can you fix it? Understanding where the problems lie allows you to fix them for future customers. Plus, expressing what you are doing to fix a problem may save a client relationship.

Second, problems can often give you a chance to shine. How many times have you been in a situation where you were not happy and felt like you would never shop or eat at a particular establishment again? You spoke to a manager and he/she managed to fix the problem to your satisfaction. Often, you will give them another chance.

Remember, these changes won’t happen overnight. But they can happen. And when they do, you’ll see increased loyalty and growing revenue.

Next, we’ll tackle “Empowering Employees.”

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January 31, 2009

Create a Customer-Centric Culture (Part 2 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, sales process optimization, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

The first tactic on how to create a better experience has to do with creating a customer-centric culture.

Step 1 is to shift from a self-focus to a customer-focus. Far too many companies force customers to interact with them in the way that best suits the company, not the customer. Wrong! This demonstrates to customers that they’re not important. Find out how customers want to interact with you and then make the operational changes to best accommodate those desires.

Step 2 is to shift from focusing on product features to customer needs. This is especially prevalent in high-tech companies – don’t build new products or add features just because you can or because YOU think it’s cool. Obsess about fulfilling customer needs, not building a cool new “toy”. Unless you fulfill a need, if you build it, they won’t come.

Step 3 is looking at the customer experience as a company-wide competence, not a function. There shouldn’t be a Customer Experience Department that is solely responsible for the experience. Yes, there should be an executive that “owns” the experience and can direct other departments to change their operations. But, EVERY department has a responsibility to positively impact the customer experience. It’s not just the Customer Support/Service group that has to worry about the experience. This leads directly to the final step.

Step 4 is about reinforcing the customer experience with every interaction. The customer experience begins with their first touch with your company –whether it is a call or a website visit. From that point all the way through purchase, use and billing, the customer has many interactions with your company. Each one provides an excellent opportunity. Remember, every department has a responsibility towards fulfilling the promise of a superior experience.

Make the change to a customer-centric culture won’t happen overnight. But don’t let that stop you. These changes aren’t just about being nice – they’re about generating increased loyalty and driving revenue growth.

Next, we’ll be addressing the second tactic – “Defining, Designing and Measuring”.

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January 13, 2009

January eMERGE! - The Journal of GrowthANSWERS

Filed under: General —

The Prospect Gap

Are we in a recession? When did it start? Did the policies of the Democrats cause it? Did the Republicans fall asleep at the wheel? Who cares! Right now the economy is tough - for everyone. Every day more and more Americans lose their jobs. Budgets are being slashed. There is no doubt we are in the toughest economy any of us have experienced.

At this point, I hope you haven’t hung your head in tears. There is hope - the GrowthANSWERS stimulus package. No, you won’t be getting a check from us - what you will be getting is knowledge. Knowledge that can help you and your business during this rough period.

“What makes us different from our competitors is our quality. Oh not, wait, I think it’s our price. Nope, it’s definitely our service.” says the infamous Biff Manly. Let me tell you something Biff - it ain’t any of them.

Quality, price and service are probably the 3 biggest statements I see when companies look to express what makes them different. How many times have you heard “We’re different because we have excellent customer service.” Really? Better than anyone else? PROVE IT!

You can’t - and that what makes it a terrible differentiator. Now, if you do have great service, that will keep people coming back to you - an equally important point. But it won’t differentiate you in the buying process. Those 3 points are just what you need to stay in the game. Without a good quality product/service selling at a fair price, backed up by excellent service, you won’t have to worry about your business in this economy because you’ll no longer be in business.

I promised you knowledge, so here goes. In our first article, Todd Schnick shows off his social media expertise and demonstrates how important some the new tools are to the success of your organization. Don Rigby follows that up with an article, expressing the marketing challenge that manufacturers are facing. Finally, the venerable Stone Payton completes the trifecta with an article, on Innovation.

Steven Winokur, Turning Point Strategies

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January 4, 2009

Get Innovative, Get Fast, and Give Back

Filed under: customer service, branding/differentiation, marketing strategy, General —

Want to survive and thrive in these tough times? If you believe the press, 2009 will be tougher than last year. So you will need to distinguish yourself and your business to stand out and succeed.

What to do?

Get innovative. Get fast. And give back.  (The first two are obvious, the third less so…)

In this tight economy, you’d better get innovative - both with your marketing and with your service delivery. Innovation is simply a new way of doing things, and it generally applies to a change in your thinking, product offerings, or your systems and processes. Getting innovative may go a long way towards helping you do things better than the competition.

And you better move fast, both in delivering on your products and services, and in being first in the market place with your marketing effort. As my friend Stone Payton likes to say, “speed kills the competition.” You cannot assume that your competition will wait around - you must assume they will be out there trying to beat you to that prospect. Get moving.

And you better distinguish yourself by giving back. As I said, these are tough times, and there are a lot of people in need. There isn’t a better time to make this a cornerstone of your marketing effort.

Not a bad idea to differentiate yourself by giving back. Don’t we always say the more you give, the more you get? And with the social media boom, you now have no excuse to contribute to bettering your community. That feels good in and of itself. But it also reflects well on your personally - and your business.

How can you serve by giving back?

1. Join and serve on a charitable Board (this is what I am doing).

2. Donate services, such as PR or Social Media advice to a local charity.

3. Commit to raise money.

4. Volunteer your time.

There aren’t many guarantees in life, but there is one I can promise: The gift of giving back will make you feel good. And feeling good makes you a better person and a better businessman. And we need that in these times.

I joined a board of directors in 2008, and can’t wait to make my contribution in 2009. On these pages over the coming months, I will share with you my experiences and my learning. I hope you will comment back and tell us how you are giving back.

Todd Schnick. Be Intrepid. http://intrepid-llc.com

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