Woo Your Customer!
Author: Anil K. Agrawal
Business Advisor & Mentor
Telephone: 613-521-8838

Revenues are down!
Competition is tough!
Customers are shopping around!
Business is slow!
Marketplace is changing!!!

What to do?

Well, don't just sell, sell, and sell!
Do something different!
Innovate!
Woo your customers! Mine your GOLD!

Create organization-wide
customer consciousness, excellence and value-focus.

Build Employee & Customer Loyalty.
Retain Customers.
Increase Customer Share.
Attract New Prospects.

How?

INNOVATE and
DEVELOP your customer-centered practices.

Are customers dependent upon you ... or, are you dependent upon them?

Both, in fact!

Why do some businesses always win — in good times and bad times alike — whereas many large and small businesses drown in the deluge of economic slowdown, or buckle under the challenge of competition?

What's the difference? What is the secret of winners?

Unrelenting care for the Customer!

Winning vendors woo the customer in every possible way, in all they do. They respect the notion that the customer is dependent on them as much as they are dependent on the customer; they also know that customers stick to vendors that really care for the customer.

When your entire organization genuinely cares for the customer, you will build customer loyalty, retain customers, and attract new customers—customers will keep coming back to buy more; customer will gladly pay your right price—generating consistent revenue flow at respectable margins, and happy customers will brag about YOU to the world.

Caring for the customer IS THE DIFFERENCE. This is also the SECRET OF INFALLIBLE SUCCESS of those who don't just survive, but thrive through thick and thin.

How is your business doing? Ponder some questions in your own context:

Do you command your customers' trust and confidence enough that you are the preferred supplier for their ongoing needs?
How would you rate customer loyalty and retention in your organization?
  Did you ever lose customers? Do you know or did you find out why they shifted?
  Did you ever lose a bid to competition? Do you know why? What lessons were learned?
How would your rate the customer care that your organization renders?
  Do your customers provide you a first hand feedback about your quality and service?
  Do you and/or your senior management accompany your sales people on sales calls to get a first hand feel for how prospects and customers perceive your company?
  Have you ever listened in to your customer service calls, and evaluated the service rendered, response times, and solutions delivered?
  Have you ever sat at your own reception, and seen for yourself how the incoming calls were handled, how the visitors were treated, and the value your reception staff rendered?
  Have you ever impersonated as a prospect yourself, and called your company, requested for some information, asked for a favor, posed a problem and sought help, and such, and experienced your company's responsiveness and service quality yourself?
  Would you engage mystery shoppers to tell you their buying experience with your company?
Do you, and how, you attract new customers and win their loyalty?
Who has the responsibility to increase customer share of your business?
Why would customers do business with you in preference to your competitors?

Is there a recipe that any business can put to work?

Yes, there is.

The recipe is simple, yet profound in the impact it can make on your business!

  • KNOW what your customers want and need; customize your offerings; measure their outcomes.
  • Consistently DELIVER quality and value.
  • And, take CARE of your customer!

That's it!

Your customers will keep coming back to buy more; your reputation will attract new customers — you will constantly expand your customer base, and steadily grow revenues, profits, and boost your business.

Simple! But, not easy to practice!

Alas, there is more talk than real action about customer service, customer-focus, and customer care!

How few businesses really tap into their GOLDMINE — the CUSTOMER! Customer care is what inspires a customer to feel good about your business. Common sense dictates that every business must pay utmost attention to in all circumstances.

But, what's the reality? Perhaps businesses are too busy "selling"—finding new customers, and pushing the wares—to stop and ask "what the customer needs or wants," or "how was the buying experience of the last customer," or "how well the goods and services sold really served the customer needs."

Can you do something proactive, and become
your customers' favorite, and star of the marketplace?

Yes — define your value proposition to each customer; mobilize your entire organization to embrace it, live it, and deliver on it in ALL they do; and partner with your customer — stop selling; help them buy from you now and forever!

Elements to "Woo your Customer"

Customer-centric value proposition:

In all you do — whether dealing directly with the customer, or working behind the scene, know and be responsive to needs of your customer, deliver the best value, and provide each customer, and every time, a memorable experience of doing business with you.

How can you consistently deliver on this proposition? By instilling, at all levels throughout your organization, a fundamental respect (mutual dependence and trust) for the customer; and by creating a pervasive culture of customer-consciousness, excellence and value-focus in all activities throughout your organization.

Partnering with the customer:

Partnering is the top rung in the vendor-customer interaction ladder:

Selling --> Consultative Selling --> Partnering.

In partnering, the intent is to serve — know what your customer really needs and wants; demonstrate genuine concern for the results your customer will derive from your goods and services; pour real value in all you propose; help them buy from you; and be a catalyst in their endeavor, and assist your customer to get the best results.

You develop a cooperative and collaborative business relationship with your customer; the vendor and the customer have full regard for each other's interest.

You augment customer's buying process and results-endeavor with your expertise throughout the sales and delivery cycle — from pre-sales to ultimate results. Be assured that your customer — whom YOU serve well — comprehends your challenges, and will help you in your endeavor to serve them.

That's the essence of Partnering — Cooperation and collaboration.

Vendors, who define and diligently pursue their value proposition and develop customer-partnership as a credo, build solid customer trust and reputation, garner customer loyalty and market-attraction, and thrive in good times and bad times alike.

Reality check

Ponder on your own value proposition and if and how well customer-partnering is practiced in your organization.

Does your organization have a well-defined value proposition?

What are the specific elements of your value proposition with reference to customer responsiveness, experience and value?

How well is your value proposition communicated within your organization, and to your customers?
How well is your value proposition practiced?
  How familiar are all your people with the value proposition?
  How do they relate their own activity to the customer value proposition?
  What measures are in place to ensure adherence to the value proposition?
Are you practicing customer partnering in your organization?
  What is the notion of customer partnership, and how do sales people relate to it?
  Who is responsible for creating and supporting customer partnerships?
  How do you communicate partnership with your customers?

Implementation

What does it take to implement customer-value proposition and customer-partnering strategies?

Do you need to revamp the business, or can you harness what exists — your organization, human capital, and other resources?

The author suggests relentless pursuit of Innovation & Development (I&D) initiatives to make the most of your strengths, assets, and inherent possibilities.

INNOVATION

Innovation calls for thinking in new ways — do things differently to produce new outcomes; adopt creative and proactive orientation; create new solutions and customer-driven take-to-market strategies.

DEVELOPMENT

Development prepares and supports the organization to become innovative and to deliver on the new value proposition — explore possibilities and opportunities; generate alignment on customer-centric culture; focus on employee value, knowledge, and productivity; generate customer partnerships.

Innovation & Development measures only amount to changing the mindsets, mobilizing the entire organization, harnessing the existing assets and resources and opportunities to identify and practice more of what is working well, what can be improved, and to maximize the outcomes for your customer — experience, value and dependability.

The aim of I&D is two-fold.

Instill a customer-centric mindset in all employees, and optimize and customer-ize all business activity organization-wide — harnessing the existing resources, maintaining the current organization, and squarely focusing on the customer.

Ensure that the organization deliberately adopts, diligently practices, and consistently delivers on the customer value proposition.

Wake up the entire organization to the tenet: "Proactively deliver complete customer satisfaction upfront, not in response to complaints or requests; it is too late to reactively deal with customer dissatisfaction."

Make all employees — working directly with customers, as well as those remote from the customer — aware and conscious of customer experience and value at all touch points.

Impact of alignment on customer-centrism

When people are aligned on a credo like "customer is the purpose for all we do," you will hear humming through your entire organization. You will find that:

All employees have an innate urge to be their best, desire to contribute their utmost to customer value and experience, and think creatively — not only generate bright ideas, but put their ideas to work;

Teams self-organize themselves, and keep the customer value proposition at the center of all their deliberations and actions;
Results flow in real time — customers perceive unmatched value, experience total satisfaction, remain loyal, and keep coming back to buy more; new customers walk in; your revenues and profits soar and sustain.

Is I&D akin to R&D? No! Unlike R&D, I&D is not a separate function, nor calls for additional investments. I&D is pervasive — ingrained in everyday sales, production, delivery and administration functions. I&D initiatives happen now; and outcomes are immediate.

Who handles I&D? An I&D Champion, preferably a dedicated person — who acts as a catalyst to inspire and inculcate the mindset of customer-consciousness, excellence and value-focus, and facilitates innovation and development initiatives throughout the organization.

The I&D champion collaborates with functional teams, helps people identify and define specific I&D projects, and oversees execution. Not a functional expert in any specific area, he/she performs the role of a facilitator, trainer, coach and cheerleader.

Call for Action!

Would you like to explore implementing I&D initiatives in your organization?

Please call us. Let us discuss possibilities. No obligation!

Either telephone at 613-521-8838, or send an online email.

About The author — Anil Agrawal:

Anil Agrawal is an experienced high-tech industry intra-preneur and entrepreneur, business manager, consultant, trainer, coach and mentor. In his corporate, entrepreneurial and consulting careers, he developed many new business opportunities (within the corporate umbrella and on his own), and built successful customer-focused, service-dominant ventures.

In this paper, he presents ideas and strategies that emanated from his own experiences.

A facilitator, mentor, consultant and trainer, he renders services as an I&D Champion — a catalyst and a facilitator. His versatile business background is an asset in this role.

An idea generator, articulate communicator, troubleshooter and problem-solver, he is keen to launch I&D initiatives and deliver results in client organizations. Using what exists, he can create new solutions and take-to-market strategies, and act as a catalyst to help business teams contribute to the value proposition, deliver customer experience, and make a difference.

Accountable for results, he brings fresh perspective and a creative bent to support innovation and developmental initiatives.

Contact: Anil Agrawal, Tel:613-521-8838 Contact Online

209-318 Lorry Greenberg Dr., Ottawa, ON, K1T 2R5 Canada
Phone: (+1) 613 521 8838 • Fax: (+1) 720 920 0340
Contact Online