Recently, a good friend gave me a copy of Design Thinking For Strategic Innovation. I read as far as the fifth paragraph, where the author was describing the effects on business of global interconnectivity, when I came upon this sentence,
“We want more, when we want it, how we want it, and at the price we want.”
This is a stern message for a businessperson to receive and try to internalize because time is compressed and hard to manage.
Some of the ramifications of this insight are:
- We want real value from our purchases.
- We want customized products and services.
- We are willing to pay a fair price for the value we receive but not more. And with social media, finding out what others are paying for similar value is not difficult.
- We know the value of time and will only buy and pay for the opportunity to consume the deal we purchased on our timetable.
I also know from research I did while preparing a white paper, “Because I’m the Customer,” that over time our expectations get set less and less by the seller and more and more by our own experiences with the products or services, social media, competitors, friends and associates, and our experiences with organizations in totally different industries.
These two diverse sets of information have severe implications for our business. They mean:
- We have to improve faster than ever continuously,
- We need to update our feedback collection more frequently than ever before.
- We must stay current about what our customers and prospects value and how we are doing compared to their current expectations.
Unfortunately, most businesses struggle to keep up with the overall pace of change in their world. Few resources are available to frequently update survey scripts, monitor unstructured customer feedback, and link feedback with operational data. They have less and less time to accomplish more and more. However, due to this lagging behavior, they will likely work to improve experiences that are no longer on their customer’s radar screens. And they are slipping back, in their customer’s minds, in comparison to alternatives that customers have or can quickly discover.
What should we do to keep up with this trend?
Undoubtedly, the rate of change is increasing, especially in things affected by technology. If you are committed or involved with your company’s efforts to increase customer retention, then you should start working on these eight things now:
- At least once a year, conduct a critical driver survey for each touch-point you monitor. This process collects your customer’s inputs about what attributes of your business’ performance are most important to them. In the past, many companies did a script review every 3 to 5 years, if at all.
- An alternative or complementary step is to perform a correlation analysis to identify key drivers. The downside is that if you do not ask about an attribute, you will never know when it becomes essential to customers.
- Talk to customers. Ask them about what is important to them, how your business is doing, and what they think will become important in the short and long terms.
- Talk to your front-line employees. Ask them questions similar to the ones you will be asking your customers. Do not discount feedback from either, but blend them into a single priority list.
- Suppose the blended list is too long or “all over the place,” sort customer feedback by customer importance (i.e., segmentation) to your business. When forced to choose, lean on the feedback from your most important customers first.
- Create plans for improving the significant few attributes that drive customer retention. These plans must include measures and timing.
- Implement the plans and monitor progress. Compare results to goals and make frequent adjustments. As the saying goes, “Fail early and fail often.”
- Finally, be prepared to accelerate this schedule. It may be a few years or less before you discover that the annual review is too infrequent; you may decide that a semi-annual review is appropriate.
What does all this mean?
The pace of business is increasing at an ever-increasing rate. This means that the things you review and update annually or less frequently should be on a shorter schedule. Furthermore, the program should be reviewed periodically to ensure that the rate of change has not made the plan obsolete.
Related article: Customer Retention Is All About Time
About Middlesex Consulting
Middlesex Consulting is an experienced team of professionals with the primary goal of helping capital equipment companies create more value for their clients and stakeholders. Middlesex Consulting continues to provide superior solutions to meet the needs of its clients by focusing on our strengths in Services, Manufacturing, Customer Experience, and Engineering. If you want to learn more about how we can help your organization create or retain more customers, please contact us or check out some of our free articles and white papers here.