Customer Strategy on a Shoestring Budget

Someone asked me if customer strategy could work for a small business that didn't have a lot of resources or technology available. The answer is: of course! Here are some small-business friendly, shoestring budget suggestions on how to begin implementing a customer strategy:

1. Create a list of your top customers. It could be your "Top 10" or your "Top 50" list. Use whatever data you have available - even if it is qualitative in nature - to create this list. Then make sure that everyone in your company has a copy of this list so that they can easily recognize a top customer when they interact with one. One client of mine wrote up their Top 10 list on index cards and taped them to each employee's computer monitor. Low cost, and, it worked.
2. Develop a list of "do no harm" rules for all of your customers. These are the basic customer service rules that you expect your team to abide by so that no customer feels that he hasn't received good service. Make sure your team has input into this list - they're the ones that will be implementing these rules.
3. Develop a list of "do no harm" strategies for your "Top 10" list of customers. How should these customers be treated? How can each of your employees feel empowered to go above and beyond to satisfy these customers? One client I know tells each employee that they are authorized to spend a certain dollar amount to resolve any issue for a top customer, no questions asked and no permission needed. It is rare that an employee uses the full dollar amount, but it has opened the door for employees to take a personal stand in making these customers happy.
4. Define the 3-5 key pieces of information you need to know about your customers. And then build a plan to get that information and use it in your sales, marketing and customer service activities.
5. Be a mystery shopper for your own company. Spend a few hours doing all of the things your customers typically do. Call your office to ask a question. Try to order a product on your website. Pretend to have a problem that needs to be resolved. Keep a list of all the things that are confusing, frustrating, or just don't work - chances are your customers have the same experience. Then fix them.

Each of these ideas is low cost; however, the impact can be huge. For my small-business (and not-so-small-business!) readers out there - I'd love to hear how these ideas work and others you may have.

Customer Strategy in Action: Hospitality Case Study

The situation:

A large hospitality organization relied significantly on referrals to grow its business. Competitive pressures and a saturation of the potential market had led to a decrease in sales and referrals. The organization wanted to:

1. Drive profitable growth by focusing acquisition resources on highest potential prospects and increase revenue streams from individual owners, and
2. Understand vacation-related needs of high-value owners and then tailor strategies to prospects with similar needs.

The solution:

My team and I began by interviewing existing high-value customers to understand their needs from the hospitality organization and vacationing needs overall. Based on the insights from those interviews, we created some initial hypotheses on how customers differed and what their needs were. Using this information, we created a survey and implemented it. The resulting analysis of the survey results revealed that the primary reason why customers did business with the organization was different than the organization had thought.

Based on this information, we helped the company re-define their positioning in the marketplace. This helped them ensure that their marketing and advertising efforts resonated with as many prospects as possible.

A deeper analysis of the survey results yielded five distinct customer segments based on consumer needs, motivations and requirements. Using this information, we created customer experiences across all touch points for each customer segment. We consciously incorporated points in the experience for the organization to request referrals and leads from satisfied customers. By implementing these experiences, the client further positioned itself as a unique experience in the minds of its customers and had the opportunity to increase referrals.

The result:

By implementing the differentiated customer experiences, the client achieved the following:

1. Increased customer satisfaction levels
2. Improved customer retention and usage levels
3. Increased high-quality referrals that resulted in more sales

Building a Customer Strategy from Ground Zero

I’ve spent the last few weeks helping a client define the specifications for their CRM strategy and system. The exciting thing is that this client is a start up organization, so they are able to create their customer strategy (and supporting processes, experiences, and technology) from scratch.

It’s been a great experience, because the client and I are having meaningful conversations such as:

1. What type of data do we want to know about customers and how are we going to use it?
   


2. How do we incorporate the online behavior of a customer into our CRM system? Can we infer needs and motivations based on their behavior and then translate it into marketing and sales activities?
   


3. What is the “correct” view of the customer for each of the customer touch points so that we can ensure that a customer never has to repeat himself?
   


4. How do the various touch points need to interact with each of the databases to ensure that the “correct” view of the customer is always up to date?
   


5. What type of data would allow us to infer a customer’s value – even though we are a new company and have no customer data yet?
   


6. What is the balance between product marketing and customer relationship marketing?
   


7. How can marketing manage the relationship with customers? What types of communications should be sent out and how do we prioritize them? And, how do we measure success?
   


8. How do marketing and sales complement each other in the sales process? Which team is responsible for what? And, how do we ensure that the two touch points don’t step on each other’s toes (and cause confusion for the prospect or customer)?
   

Now, not every company has the luxury to start with a completely blank slate like this company has, but the questions above are thought-provoking ones that all companies should spend time thinking about. These are the foundational questions any organization must answer when embarking on a customer strategy.