Newsletter Dec 2006

Business Customer Service - Satisfying Your Customers Without Breaking the Bank - by Malcolm Mills

BUSINESS, is selling to customers. Let’s face it. Even I’m selling you something; I'm selling you on an idea. It's free... but I’m selling. I know you’ll benefit from it because it’s information and we all need specific information to profit these days. And when you profit, I profit.

Hey, it really is a Tough World Out There! Business is getting more and more complex by the minute. But does it have to be extreme?   The short answer is NO, it doesn’t.

But for some suppliers and distributors up to 50% of thei customers leave them within a year or two. So who is kidding who? Is the Buyer kidding the Seller or the Seller kidding the Buyer? Who is doing what, wrong? Why the fickle finger of fate in so many fine faces?

You are probably working for (or own) a company who is facing this exact problem. You are losing clients. Customers are ditching you like unfaithful lovers on party night.

So what are you doing about it? What steps are you taking to resolve this colossal negative predicament?

Well at least you’ve recognized there’s a problem and I know you think you’ve heard this all before in a hundred different formats …. Well, maybe you should LISTEN this time!

Nothing happens on it’s own, you have to make it happen. Stop, step back, dissociate your head of all of the technical wizardry and complex software you’ve spent a bundle on in the past few years and follow these few simple steps.

1.   Question yourself about your business issues. Sit down and write out your thoughts about your customer exodus. Forget the price crap. Think about WHY customers may have left you. Write down everything you can think of.
2.   Having identified the problems as you see them, obtain a second opinion or even a third. Establish and propose an action plan.
3.   Review your action plan with a partner or partners and calculate what it would cost you in dollars and cents to implement the needed changes.
4.   Identify your support network. Map out where your support will come from and what they will do.
5.   Measure your goal, measure your progress and measure your success.

Now what have you come up with? You should have answered questions like this but deeper.

1   Question yourself. Sit down and write out your thoughts.
For example:
Why are your customers leaving you? YOUR ANSWERS
What is your turn over rate? (it’s called “churn” these days right?)
What is this customer turnover costing you?
What can you physically change to reverse this costly trend?
How soon can you reasonably expect to see a turn around?
(you’ll have many more thoughts but these are some of the basics)

2   Having identified the problems as you see them, establish an action plan.
OK, so you are the Owner, the President, the Manager, the Supervisor, the VP or the CEO. Not to belittle your station but no man is an island or a mountain and you shouldn’t try to be. We tend to forget that no-one has built a pyramid in thousands of years for a very good reasons. Pyramids are costly and inefficient. Pyramids are passé.

However, if you invert that pyramid and adjust to that inversion, you will succeed beyond your wildest expectations. If you know how it's simple. Assemble the team. Draw from the team. It needn’t always be you who has the brainstorms. And keep in mind that it doesn’t always have to be a brand new wheel … maybe all you have to do is balance the old one.

Don’t get me wrong. Your job is critical. As Owner, President, Manager, Supervisor, VP or CEO … it is YOUR job to come up or inspire others to come up with new ideas. It’s also up to you to make them happen.

How well do you know your company? How well do you know your customers? How well do you know yourself?

Find out.

3   What will it cost you in dollars and cents to implement the needed changes?
First of all, remove any negative thinking from your mind.   Don’t even remotely consider that you can’t afford it. Don’t think how much your sales team is costing you as it is. Don’t dwell on all of the accounts that have slipped away from you in the past five years.

Look at your staff, your new goals, your strengths, and what you can do with what you have. I could show you how your new awareness wouldn’t cost you a cent but will pay big dividends. There will be no need for wage or commission cutting. All you need to know, is your own business.

4   Where will your support come from?
Build a support network. You already have the team but are you utilizing it well? (Obviously not or you wouldn’t’ have this problem would you?) Better yet are you leading your army?

Good leaders are not isolationists. They aren’t despots. Good leaders establish support networks and then rely on them to take some of the load. Good leaders draw ideas from those around them and then weave them all into the fabric of the challenge. Good leaders like good actors will know their co-stars and be highly aware of their nuances and be able to play off of them, to use every detail to enthrall their audience.   Good leaders are only good if they know their roles and their cast.

You already have the support staff. Build from within. Build moral, build esteem, build unity. How, you ask? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not in your software.

5   Measure your goal, measure your progress and measure your success.
So you’ve asked the right questions, you have enlisted your team members, you’ve developed an action plan.

Now you are determining the cost, rallying support and measuring your target, your actions and your progress.

Utilize your reporting tools to quantify and record your improvement. As they say nowadays, benchmark it.

Summary
Your customers have wandered away. Or should I say slinked away? Either way, they aren’t here anymore.

You’ve tried technology. You’ve reworked your policies and procedures. You’ve hired more outside talent. You’ve improved your website but still no luck. Customers are still leaving you.

No, it’s no good checking your deodorant again. It’s not the physical you but unfortunately, it is you.

The game is follow the leader and you are the leader. As a leader you have failed the team. And to be fair, as a team they have probably failed the leader. Are you getting the picture here?

Churn is an internal problem and contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t cost much to fix.

As a Manager, CEO, Supervisor or President you are cast in the leading role. You and your staff have heard a lot of polite coughing of late. That IS the sound you hear when you call up the customers who don’t buy from you anymore isn’t it? Polite coughing? Like Ralph Richardson said, the toughest role you have, is to keep that crowd from coughing.

Lozenge anyone?

Malcolm Mills is part of ToughWorld.Net, a consulting, motivational speaking firm who specializes in identifying problem areas in the area of “churn”, companies losing customers. He can be contacted through his website at www.toughworld.net <http://www.toughworld.net> or via email at speaker@toughworld.net