3 Ideas to spring clean your customer relationships
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon said “we're not competitor obsessed, we're customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards. ..we know customers want low prices”.
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The current surge in general price levels is causing great anxiety among many customers.
This is not what any customer will wish for. For some customers’ this situation has been compounded by tax hikes, shrunken balance sheets, and household investments caused by the Domestic Debt Exchange Program.
Consumer confidence has been punctured. How can businesses continue to offer value to customers, and preserve the customer relationship for a brighter day? It takes a crisis to reveal the strength of a relationship including customer relationships. It’s time to spring-clean your customer relationships for the trying times ahead.
In this final episode of the spring cleaning series, I suggest a couple of steps businesses can take to deepen their relationships with customers and serve them profitably in spite of the crisis.
Re-learn, know your customer first
It’s time to get back to the basics. First, start the spring cleaning with a proper “Know Your Client” [KYC] exercise.
Your customers, whether businesses or households are experiencing the same economic challenges you are faced with since they also operate in the same market.
Your customer’s business might have been disrupted significantly by the recent economic disruption.
This is the time to get to know your customers again, and better.
It’s time to connect with clients in a meaningful way to learn what has shifted and what has remained the same.
These engagements require a heavy investment of time and emotional labour but it must be done.
It’s important that you engage them to understand their situation, pain, and changing needs caused by the economic crisis, and their (new) aspirations.
It’s easy to ignore this and give excuses because every business is overwhelmed and leaders are dealing with disruptions in their own businesses. It may seem this is the time to look inward and focus on your own problems.
This is not an ideal decision for any business that expects to build a good reputation with customers and continue to enjoy their patronage.
Organisations should design engagement opportunities that enable them to get to know their customers and deepen relationships.
This could be one-on-one sessions, structured phone calls, targeted customer visits, customer forums, or customer surveys. Any of these is an important signal. It shows your business cares.
Your business can take the lead on organising an industry forum for various customers group to discuss common challenges and provide expertise on how to address some of the challenges.
Customers appreciate these events and they expect the organisations they do business with to lead them and show them the way, especially in a time of crisis.
These events pave the way for meaningful customer relationships that sustain business performance over long periods. Also, insights gained from the engagements will enable businesses to target their marketing efforts.
It provides an opportunity to update customer profiles and effectively segment your customer base.
There are customers you might have served well in the past and who appreciate your brand.
They will be supportive as ambassadors of your products and services. Engage them for referrals in this difficult time.
Re-boot the service experience with empathy
Every business is going through economic distress but that is no excuse for poor customer service. In most industries, customers are not looking for extravagant service.
They are seeking a welcoming, responsive approach to problem-solving from the organisation and its representatives.
They are seeking sensible solutions that work and alleviate their pain. As we say, “town make hot” and many cedi-wielding, paying customers will not countenance poor service when parting with their hard-earned currency.
How can you help anxious customers to deal with all the changes in their lives and the changes they may have to go through to do business with your organization? It’s time to freshen up the service experience to inspire loyalty in customers.
Customers enjoy the service experience when they are not subjected to unnecessary form filling, emails are responded to quickly or within the time frame promised, customer service persons communicate clearly and fully the information they require from customers to resolve a service challenge without the needless back and forth, etc.
Unfortunately, all the above and more were ignored in my recent encounter with a service provider when I engaged them to understand the changes I am witnessing in my billing.
This is totally unacceptable especially when the business can access my entire transaction history with a click of a button. In this instance, spring cleaning is long overdue.
First, conduct a review of the customer experience journey and remove redundant processes and requests while adding meaningful experiences customers can look forward to.
Second, put your best service-oriented people at the frontline if you have a frontline that interfaces with customers directly.
Third, make it easier for customers to give your organization honest feedback about the service that’s being rendered.
Implement easy-to-respond to customer satisfaction surveys and work on the feedback you receive from customers.
Fourth, develop your team’s capabilities to understand and serve customers in ways they have not imagined.
The service team must undergo refresher training and be primed to handle client frustrations effectively.
Re-load your value offering
Every business is defined by the value it offers to its customers. Never give in to the temptation to short-change the customer and save on pesewas at the expense of ruining a hard-earned reputation.
Armed with a better understanding of the customer needs and aspirations through the KYC exercise, it’s time to re-design and enhance your customer value proposition.
Do not continue to push down existing offerings that might not work as a result of the disruptions your customers have experienced.
Note that adapting to your client’s needs is not an opportunity to cut back on some of the valuable services you offer to your customers.
Such actions must be communicated to customers first especially if they are offered as part of a bundled package.
It’s important that you pay attention to specific needs within the various client segments.
Always take the opportunity to share with customers and other stakeholders how your organisation’s purpose supports a thriving community.
Communicate your mission boldly and use it to inspire hope in your customers and stakeholders. Being a brand of hope and inspiration in such a time that is badly needed will cement your place in the minds of customers as a worthwhile partner.
Tough times don’t last forever, so set a forward-looking agenda in all your engagements with customers.
Just a couple of years ago, organizations moved in unusual ways to support clients and communities to save lives and livelihoods.
This may be required again in some other ways. It is still possible to have win-win situations with clients even in a difficult environment.
A business with no client is no business. Start understanding and delivering your offering with extraordinary service, one customer at a time and you will have many customers beating a path to your door soon.
Customer relationships take time to develop and your business must invest in them.
Let’s make customer service an organization-wide effort. Amazing customer experience starts from the top and is carried through to the frontline. As the founder and CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, said, “Customer service shouldn't just be a department, it should be the entire company.”
The writer is a Leadership Development Facilitator, Executive Coach and Strategy Consultant, Founder of the CEO Accelerator Program, and Chief Learning Strategist at TEMPLE Advisory.