With more customer choices available than ever before, Hudson Valley organizations must never present reasons to leave. While many companies try to improve sales by increasing the quality of their products and services, they often overlook a major weakness. How hard is it for customers to do business with you? We are doing business in a “customer economy” in which customers have all the power. The customer is in charge in this choice driven world and we can win more business by offering even more control and reduce cost while making it more convenient for the customer to buy. From the customer”™s standpoint, being “easy to do business with” means that interacting with you is effortless. Rethinking your organization, its mission, and operation in “customer terms” is necessary to make it easy for your customer to order, receive and pay.
One of the best ways to become easy to do business with is by letting customers do some of your work for you. Providing access to your computer system so they can enter their own orders may make their lives much easier. A well-designed computer interface makes entering an order painless and can prevent errors. The computer will not misquote a price or misstate product performance data.
Have you interacted with a company for years and find you”™re still being treated as a complete stranger. Even some online retailers have taken steps to create what the customer wants, a relationship. By using Caller ID they route calls to the same service representative the customer spoke to last time. What steps can you and your business take to build stronger relationships?
Measure what matters to customers. GE aircraft engineers know the measure that counts to customers is how long it takes from the time the engine comes off the airplane until it goes back on. That is how long the airplane is grounded. GE is working to help its airline customers reduce this time and, in so doing, is winning their loyalty.
In 1954, when Ray Kroc saw Maurice and Richard McDonald”™s small hamburger shop in Southern California, he realized that fast-food customers wanted convenience, consistency and low cost. Realizing that these customers were not interested in a better quality burger he focused all of his efforts on what the customer wanted ”¦ convenience, consistency and low cost. What do your customers want?
As McDonald”™s has demonstrated, becoming an organization that”™s “easy to do business with” works to your advantage in at least two ways. It saves your customers time and money while boosting their satisfaction, thereby making them loyal to you. It also saves you money because virtually all of the refinements will lower costs in your operations.
Dell Computer had captured the PC market when it introduced a completely user-driven Web interface for ordering customized computers. This eliminated mistakes and customer delays while saving Dell a ton of money because they carried no excess inventory.
How can you make it easier for your customer to deal with you? What is it like trying to return a product or get a refund or credit for a service that disappointed your customer? Make it effortless for your customer to order, receive and pay for your products or services.
Questions for discussion:
Ӣ Do we, like Ray Kroc, know what is important to our customers or are we devoting resources to improve things that donӪt matter to them?
Ӣ How can we reduce our cost, make it more convenience for our customer to buy and give them a greater degree of control?
Joe Murtagh is The DreamSpeaker, an international keynote speaker, meeting facilitator and business trainer. For questions or comments, Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com, www.TheDreamSpeaker.com or call (800) 239-0058.
