When you know your product or service is in demand and the market is active there is usually a reason much closer to home why you’re not performing as expected. Often the ‘tell- tale’ signs are ignored!
If your business is experiencing any of the following your customer is already dissatisfied!
- Customers are reducing number of orders or failing to reorder
- Product returns are increasing with little or no feedback
- You are receiving complaints and negative product feedback or no feedback at all
- Customer is unwilling to meet or communicate with you
- Your customers show lack of interest or don’t seem to be listening.
What do you need to do to avoid dissatisfied customers and why it is so important to your business growth that you continue to delight them?
Dissatisfied Customer
Studies show that customer dissatisfaction is often generated unwittingly via business organisation and processes. An often held belief is that ‘this will take too long to remedy’. We do not accept this and neither should you; as a well led team delivers startling results quickly!
It’s essential you ensure the whole company is aligned to one common goal of delighting the customer, by delivering what they ‘need’ and ‘value’.
We believe this cultural change is the responsibility of Management to remedy and sadly; this is often not accepted as one of the principal causes of business decline.
So, be honest with yourselves about failings and identify the platform to your growth plan:
- Organisational Alignment - The senior team must be committed to change and ‘live and breathe’ the remedy as both a business priority and a responsibility; cascading this ‘culture' to all in the business. The CEO must lead and not be side tracked; as ‘doing the same things only ensures the same results’!
- Design and implement an Improvement programme - Create a multi-functional team to gather all the facts, opinions and data. This research must be factual based on set parameters to avoid ‘vested interests’ and be presented in a clear consistent format.
- Team approach - Ensure the findings are shared and actioned within a structured but informal feedback system to encourage maximum participation.
- Key point is that some of the team members may be unused to working this way but their input will be invaluable.
Moving towards a ‘Circular Economy’
transforming-your-business-to-benefit-the-circular-economy
A proven method we use; is to move the business into a ‘circular’ approach, eradicating waste and replacing it with revenue. This is achieved by using the same resource to create “Sustainable Growth”
Change the emphasis = All actions become focussed on putting the customer at the ‘centre’ of all you do!
Customer input – Your senior team should always be available to customers / consumers to ensure open communication is encouraged – please consider that demonstrating the business commitment to improvement will often result in a surprising level of openness!
Plot the journey - The results are measurable and with a consistent focus on key metrics your business grows and thrives.
Our solution is to look at your business differently, by reviewing each activity in 2 ways to identify if it is a cost with no benefit (waste) or a cost with added benefit (value add)
Using this technique; dissatisfaction is best considered as a major contributor to ‘waste’ which is the enemy of sustainable profitable growth!
So what is it a ‘waste’ of? - Easy answer = MONEY!
Ask yourself, what is more cost effective?
Retaining customers and growing the account? OR Accepting the ‘loss as inevitable’ and constantly searching for replacements?
Surely the answer is Making a sale and keeping it!
Problem is; we all set out with this premise, but like any business idea, it needs support, commitment and a way to measure – or things quickly go off course
As we know the target is to remove dissatisfaction and grow each account before ‘hunting for new’ as this also ensures when you do obtain hard won accounts they are sustainable and bring further benefits.
The positive is, once your business accepts there is an issue - you can ‘Manage’ the improvement.
It is never easy, so talk to us! Here at U-look-i-c Ltd we provide professional and practical advice to help you achieve sustainable benefits. We’re very hands on and work with you to set up a programme to deliver the support you need over all your business areas from process to people.
