Customer Relationship Management.
Customer Connection takes Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to a whole new level.
Use the feedback from all your customers to develop your business, refine your processes and coach your customer facing team.
There's no doubt that the competition in any form of retailing is fierce and recent years have seen the demise of many well-known household names from our high streets.
Whilst there was a multitude of reasons for this - including the economic situation - that provided the catalyst for these businesses to disappear, most will agree that a key factor was that retailing had changed and they had not moved with the times or the demands of today's consumers.
The problem is of course that when your customers begin to defect, the first you know about it (if at all) is when the customer has already chosen to go elsewhere.
It's a well-known fact that in terms of marketing spend and incentives that it is much cheaper to keep a customer than gain a new one so why is so little investment made in understanding the thoughts and feelings of those who engage with the business every day?
What is forgotten by a lot of businesses is that - especially in the case of a high value product - that your customer touches the business several times during the enquiry stages or if they are already an owner many times during the ownership/replacement cycle. It is during this period that opinions are formed.
The reason why I say this is forgotten is because the majority of companies only survey the opinions of people who have recently bought from them. This is very good, but the data is only relevant to those who are spending money with the company anyway.
To complete the circle, what the team at Customer Connection (CC) provide are low-cost, but highly effective tools to bring a business data on customer loyalty and gaining conquest sales. In effect Customer Connection install an 'early warning system' that let you know trends and areas of possible unhappiness by customers or potential customers.
In effect Customer Connection help you find out the thoughts and feelings about your business from two main areas: -
There's no doubt that the competition in any form of retailing is fierce and recent years have seen the demise of many well-known household names from our high streets.
Whilst there was a multitude of reasons for this - including the economic situation - that provided the catalyst for these businesses to disappear, most will agree that a key factor was that retailing had changed and they had not moved with the times or the demands of today's consumers.
The problem is of course that when your customers begin to defect, the first you know about it (if at all) is when the customer has already chosen to go elsewhere.
It's a well-known fact that in terms of marketing spend and incentives that it is much cheaper to keep a customer than gain a new one so why is so little investment made in understanding the thoughts and feelings of those who engage with the business every day?
What is forgotten by a lot of businesses is that - especially in the case of a high value product - that your customer touches the business several times during the enquiry stages or if they are already an owner many times during the ownership/replacement cycle. It is during this period that opinions are formed.
The reason why I say this is forgotten is because the majority of companies only survey the opinions of people who have recently bought from them. This is very good, but the data is only relevant to those who are spending money with the company anyway.
To complete the circle, what the team at Customer Connection (CC) provide are low-cost, but highly effective tools to bring a business data on customer loyalty and gaining conquest sales. In effect Customer Connection install an 'early warning system' that let you know trends and areas of possible unhappiness by customers or potential customers.
In effect Customer Connection help you find out the thoughts and feelings about your business from two main areas: -
- People who have tried to do business with you, but failed.
- Existing customers of yours who are not enjoying the after sales experience and could be tempted away by your competitors.
If you look at point #1 this is a huge opportunity, because you might have an amazing product and it may be competitively priced, but something about the service you're providing is putting people off and more often than not you'll never know anything about this. What's more it could be damaging your business reputation which has huge ramifications in the long-term.
Customer Connection is there to help you engage with your customers and to discover the reasons and causes given for having failed to make a sale. They are usually very simple for the business to rectify or solve but because people vote with their feet they are blissfully unaware.
The data we receive rarely cites the product as the issue. The question of price does raise its head, but not as often as you might think. Unfortunately we can group 80% of causes for lost sales as being related in some way to the people who represent the company.
This isn't to say that all the people are wrong or they are not good at their jobs, it can for instance (and often does) highlight a need for training, but without this data you will probably never know.
For example: We all have a story or experience of our own where we went to buy a product and got what we consider to be terrible service or didn't like the purchasing experience in some way. The story usually ends with us finding someone who did appreciate our business or did things the way we like and we're now loyal customers. Best of all we're recommending that business to everyone we connect with.
Chances are that the very business that you walked away from has an owner or management team who are oblivious to your dissatisfaction and would not only be horrified to hear your story, they would have liked to have done something about it.
Could that business have been yours? And would that kind of information be valuable to you??
To sum up 80% of reasons we see given for not buying a product are caused by something going wrong in the interaction between customer and the company in the very early stages of the buying process or the aftersales service not matching-up to expectations. What Customer Connection gives you is this information and allows you to take action before it is too late.
The feedback in Point #2 is very interesting because it relates to customer and brand loyalty. Net Promoter (NPS) talks about Promoters, Passives and Detractors. Promoters love your business and recommend you, but Passives are the ones to watch because they are not complaining or shouting and therefore not on your 'radar', however these are the ones that could be quietly slipping away to your competitors.
Customer Connection take customer relationship management to a whole new level and install tools that act as an 'early warning system' to spot those who may not be completely satisfied with the goods and services that you are providing. These people may not plan to return, so any information is passed back to you quickly, giving you the opportunity to take necessary action as you see fit.
At Customer Connection we also realise that perceived poor customer service might not be a company wide problem and that a small minority might be dragging everyone else down, which is why our data can be broken down by branch or outlet and even drilled down to individuals within that business.
If you would like more information or to understand how Customer Connection can assist your business please call us on 0845 123 5412 or request more information here>>
Customer Connection: Gives you the REAL reasons why people did not buy from you and provides the information to let you do something about it before it’s too late.
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Labels: CRM, CustConnection, Customer Loyalty, Customer Relationship Management, Net Promoter, NPS, Twitter, www.customerconnection.co.uk
