These days, busy people participate in conference calls on their cell phones while gobbling down fast food to make up for the breakfast they missed while flipping through files and responding to a text message while their GPS screams directions while they argue with a colleague about the focus of their next meeting….and that’s while they are driving a car on the Turnpike!!!! Budgets are tight. They didn’t get a raise or can’t provide the bonuses they wanted to pay their employees. Their vacations are shorter and closer to home. Their youngest child had to switch from the expensive university to take a job near home and finish his degree at the state college at night. The cost of healthcare keeps rising. And to add insult to injury, their favorite competitor didn’t win the reality show they don’t admit to watching every week on television … and even Facebook was hacked! Can you feel the incidence rates of road rage, obesity, drug abuse, and diabetes rising by the minute? Are we having fun yet?
During times like these, it is really easy for service providers to slip into commiserating with clients who want to whine.
“Why not? After all, I am supposed to serve, right?”
“My client needs a safe place to ventilate.”
“There aren’t a lot of new projects coming up any way.”
“The people I’m talking with on the phone don’t have the authority to make big decisions, unfreeze the budget, or try something new.”
“Maybe my client will be more likely to bring a project my way when things lighten up because I am the one who understood how they felt when times were tough.”
“Cut me a break…it’s hard enough to work under these conditions!”
It is very easy to lose a long term client during times like this. All they have to say is “our budget got cut” and “your line item doesn’t exist any more”. Leaders in your company may simply accept that reality and walk away saying something lame like “we’re here for you” or “we’ll keep in touch.” Studies show that those clients don’t tend to come back.
When you and your clients are not super busy taking orders, doing lots of projects, and making money with/for one another, it is a good time to meet with your clients, conduct a customer satisfaction survey, and look for new ways to work together. This is not the time to wait for things to change. That approach leaves your company vulnerable to a more assertive, more energetic competitor to approach your long term clients, analyze their needs, propose new ideas, solve their problems, and help them survive the recession; while your service providers sit on the phones commiserating with the client’s lower level employees.
It pays to break customer research into chunks. You can start with a customer satisfaction survey focused on the past. This step could surface phrases that more effectively capture how your best customers describe the results you achieve. Those phrases could add some power to your marketing and proposals. Customer satisfaction surveys can surface concerns you did not previously know about and could resolve. Reviewing what your team has provided in the past can remind a key customer about your value, your relationship, and the important role you play. Think about how they drive down the Turnpike. You may think you are important and have done a great job, but these days, you are not on their minds. A customer satisfaction survey puts you back in their minds. You can come back to customers you have surveys to show the list of their suggested improvements. This step reinforces that you actually listen to them. Not many people are listening very well these days. You can select a few of the most important suggestions and show your client(s) how you are improving service based on their advice and priorities. That saves you money because you don’t feel compelled to simply throw money at multiple improvements hoping something will work. And if you improve a few key services well enough, you may have a competitive advantage you did not have before. You convey that you want their business and are doing more than just commiserating or waiting for things to change.
Another chunk of customer research could be more future oriented. Could you find out what your client would like to be doing in 5 years? What new products and services were they working on when their budgets got smaller? What competitive advantage would they like to have? What are their biggest problems? Could your team ask the kind of questions your new competitor is probably asking your long term clients right now? What would it cost for you to do a series of meetings, surveys, interviews, phone calls with long term clients?
The summer of 2009 brought record setting rain where I live. I have never seen such large geraniums and marigolds in my gardens. And the summer brought us strategic assessment projects for three new clients. Interestingly, one of the findings surfaced from the INTERVIEWS step was exactly the same for each of three otherwise very different organizations (a healthcare provider, a non profit entity, and a professional service firm). In all three instances, they were not getting the repeat and spin off business they could be getting because they:
- had not sustained purposeful contact with long term customers,
- do not really know the phrases their customers would use to describe the results they achieve,
- are not presenting improvements and proposing new services based on customer advice,
- have not asked for referrals in a long long time,
- were reluctant to do a survey because people are so grouchy these days,
- don’t approach existing clients with the fresh questions their competitors are undoubtedly asking
- can’t imagine that a new initiative to help themselves and their customers could result from looking for it
One interview surfaced 10 business opportunities for one of these clients. That kind of result MORE than covers the costs associated with a customer satisfaction survey.
Tell me again why you aren’t doing this while people are cranky and worried enough to tell you important information.
