Survival strategies take many forms. But for any business to survive, it must focus on its most important resource: customers. Nonetheless, and for a variety of reasons, in times like these the focus is often everywhere else.
Importance of Customers
Businesses can be born with a product, but they die without customers. Companies do not fail because they run out of money. They fail because they run out of sales. Having no cash is usually a symptom of a deeper problem - the business has failed to attract buyers for their products or services. Think about it…there are few problems within a business that seem insurmountable when sales remain steady…be it product quality, long delivery, bad design…but those exact same ones become life threatening with a bad order book. Over simplified? Sorry, I don’t think so.
Customers provide the revenues needed to achieve profitability. Delight them and they will come back. In addition to the revenue from purchases, satisfied customers provide free word-of-mouth exposure that enhances your visibility and brand equity. Satisfied customers are quick to tell others about effective products they've discovered and helpful services that saved them time, money or aggravation. A happy customer will bring more loyal, buying customers, which in turn bring in more loyal, buying customers. In addition, they can provide feedback to improve.
Connect with your customers and give them reasons to come back. It takes more than good deal to make a satisfied customer. Your most loyal customers keep coming back not because of your competitive price but because they like doing business with you. Create a positive experience, which is the combination of everything the customer sees and interacts with. The quality of their experience is the key to a business' survival.
Customer Experience as Core Strategy
Customer experience should be an umbrella strategy of any firm, large or small, if it wants to survive in today's highly competitive marketplace. Everyone involved in the business -- from top guns to cleaning staff -- should be focused on enhancing customer experience. And the company's success metrics should be measuring customer experience. More importantly, resources should be allocated to improve customer experience, and maintained during slowdowns. All areas of the firm's strategy should boil down to one question: is it good for the customers?
How do you go about increasing your customer equity? Make it easier for people to buy from you! Start by getting to know them. Really know them. Gather as much information as you can about your customers. Learn their demographics, and analyze their buying practices and habits. The level of your customers’ willingness to recommend you is an exceptionally useful bookings forward indicator. Measure it. Get to know them even better and find out what they like and don't like, their needs and motivations, their perceptions and attitudes. Incorporate their likes into the way you do business, and avoid their dislikes. Try to identify the things that make life difficult for the person making the buying decision and then do everything to remove those obstacles.
Many businesses spend exceptional energy determining why they lost an order. Very few take the time to really confirm why they actually won one. Don’t assume that you know. Ask…it can be a very surprising experience.
The key is to make them value their relationship with you. Contact them with tips that will save them money. Tell them about unadvertised opportunities before you make market wide promotions or product announcements. Communicate and make them feel special. They are.
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