PointConcept

Customer first

Over my working life I have adopted a very customer focused outlook. This is in part because I know how I like to be treated as a customer but also because I have seen so many examples of the value of such a view. It goes without saying, to be in business you need customers. Yet communicating and collaborating with customers is something which so many companies large and small seem to get wrong. But others get it very right.

So I ask, do you have relations with your customers, or do you manage your contacts?

Working for a large multinational I was introduced to the idea of internal customers. Other people and departments within the company. This Idea has become a corner stone of my approach to customer relations. I don’t have contacts, I have Customers ( and friends). So everyone you talk to is a customer of your service. They may not be paying money but they pay something else. Return good service and referral.

Customer second

What this means is that every one you deal with could potentially be, or refer you to someone who could be, a customer; who then pays for your services and supplies you with an income. So the lady at the corner shop who says hello and asks you how your day is, when she knows what you do and that you are a nice person she will pass that on to another customer or family member who needs such a service.

Its networking but at a much more subtle level. All too often we think of networking as spending time with those we identify as most likely to pay for our service. Some times the five minute chat every day leads to better results than the regular 2 hour network session.

When ever you discuss your business or attend a meeting and talk to someone of interest record it. Especially if you gave or received a card.

Of course anyone who has received good customer service from you is more likely to pass that on to others and put you forward. But because of human nature people tend to moan about bad service quicker than good service. Which means you have to give good service all the time, and that means pressure, pressure not to forget, pressure to supply on time, pressure to anticipate and pressure to inform.

All of that requires recording information about your customers. Information which is current and accurate. It needs to be easily accessible and understandable by everyone who may need to use it. To achieve this means colaberating on the most fundamental component of your business, your Customers.

So value them all as customers not contacts.

What is the most important thing a small business can collaborate about? Customers.

So why do many get this wrong? There are many reasons but the biggest is a lack of planning. Well not lack of planning as such, but lack of experience about planning. Lets face it a small business owner who is just starting out has so many things to think about. Staff, premises, equipment, phone lines, marketing material, etc thatit is easy put other things off until you have some customers. Then suddenly things start to go well and you have less and less time for admin. Then the new staff join and they are talking to your customers and writing things down on scraps of paper and in emails which no one else can find or read. Then they go sick and no one knows about the order or the problem.

From the outset every small business should employ some system for dealing with its customers and potential customers. Start the habit early and it becomes second nature. Not so many years ago companies had “customer complaints departments”. Some bright spark realized how bad this sounded and changed it to “customer relations department” Although a lot still only deal with customers when they complain. These departments had software written just for them, called customer relations management (CRM). But this was only for big companies who had lots of customers. While the software may have been the idea was not. Another bright spark realized that not all the people in a CRM are actual customers, some are just “prospects” potential customers or contacts.  So CRM also became “contact management”

And that is a good thing to start with. In its simplest form its an address book or file with notes. Moving up a step and lots of people use Outlook from Microsoft. Microsoft built CRM “capability” into Outlook and even released a version of Office 2000 for small business. However most small business owners did not want to go to the cost of a Windows server to get the full potential. Like wise they did not want to buy a separate CRM suite.

Then came the advent of “web 2.0″ and software as a service (SaaS) and the giant of CRM, Salesforce. Which is also a giant and so full of tools it can be totaly scary to someone who sells 200 units of widgets a month. But were one successful company leads other will be sure to follow, and also realise that there are people who do only sell 200 widgets and are happy selling 200 widgets.

What this means is that there are now small niche CRM and CM providers who create just what a small business needs. Without giving them a huge work flow.

So with that brief history lesson over and reminding us why we are here, I have a question.

Are you collaberating with and about your customers?

By the way there are no “potential customers” every single person you deal with is a customer of your service and your Brand. They may not buy your product but someone they mention it to might. I will come back to that.

If you are, well done. If not start now.

Start recording:

Contact details;

Size of company (if a company)

All correspondance;

All tasks;

When to talk to them again;

When is their birthday;

what clubs they like;

What they like about your service or product;

How much they bought;

Do they refer people to you, who, how many?;

Update on a regular basis.

You are now building a picture of your customers and its easier if everyone is involved, but also it is harder to miss that one opportunity to get a sale which starts a real earning customer relationship.

So back to what I said earlier. You have hundreds maybe thousands of potential customers, you just have not met or interacted with them yet. Once you do they are a customer, just maybe not a paying one. But part of the process of turning them into a paying customer is treating them like one and ensuring your staff do the same. The relationship you build before the sale can affect the size of the sale and whether there is a sale. But more, it creates a relationship which engenders return custom. Which has more value than new custom.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

So get talking and colaberate about the who, why, were, when how much of all your customers.