In the world of a business environment, the winds of change are always blowing, aren’t they? Sometimes you see the effects, sometimes you choose to ignore them. Not the best approach if you want to provide for business growth and become a winning business.
What would be your answer if you were asked to name the most important business success factors for your business? Would it be the most creative marketing … the best knowledge of your market … your knowledge of your market?
Successful businesses grow. Through better products and processes, they win the favor of customers, increasing their volume and margins. That success often translates into further advantages as they invest in new and better equipment, develop expertise and gain bargaining power with suppliers.
The typical story for why good firms fail is that they somehow lost their way, but as Clayton Christensen explained in The Innovator’s Dilemma, that’s not really true. Yet while he attributes the problem to disruptive innovation, the broader truth is that the likely cause of your business’s future failure is a factor in its success today.
Of course, those answers are important. But let’s expand the list. Here are the top 10 most important business success factors to a winning business that we use most often with our clients:
Business growth … best customer understanding
The one who best understands the customer, his needs, and priorities. One of the most common barriers to being intelligent about customer experience is lack of customer knowledge or understanding. When we talk about segments based on this, we’re looking through two primary lenses:
Needs: What your customers actually want, need and expect from you.
Value: What your customers are (or maybe) worth to your firm.
When most companies talk about segmenting customers, they mean segmenting by value. They divide customers into segments based on actual or potential sales. They strive to understand how much revenue they could get from a given group of customers.
Value segmentation is important from the company’s perspective; it helps your company know which customers it makes sense to focus efforts and resources. It also points toward groups who might be better served with a lower-touch, lower-cost digital strategy.
It’s an important first step. But most companies stop here. You cannot afford to. Why? Value segmentation doesn’t help you understand what one customer needs versus another. The bottom line is that if you don’t segment customers by their individual needs, it will be incredibly difficult to deliver exceptional customer experience, much less remain competitive.
The one who can best build relationships with both new and existing customers. Business is a people activity, people like to do business with people they know, like, and trust. Ones with whom they have relationships are at the top of the desirable business option list. The stronger the relationships with your customers, the greater will be their trust and loyalty in your business. So it is very logical for businesses to build customer relationships.
Studies show time and again, loyal customers are the aptest to tell their friends about your business, creating strong word of mouth marketing. And word of mouth marketing is the most important element of any marketing campaign.
Stick to your knitting
There is an expression that holds a lot of wisdom for me, “Stick to your knitting.” It means stick to what you know and what you are good at. How often have we disconnected from our true purpose to pursue some hare-brained scheme or take on some project because it seems to offer an easy path to success?
I have nothing against becoming rich nor do I have a problem with things that are easy. It’s just that to be really successful we have to be centered in who we are and stick to those things (our knitting) that allow is to express our gifts and strengths.
Types of business growth … success starts with your people
One of the most important parts of a brand is the people in the business. They’re living the brand every day. Your people need to know the brand thinking and where your brand is heading.
It doesn’t matter if they are customer-facing, or making the products your customers buy, they need an understanding of your brand vision to help deliver it. Remember, just putting them in a company uniform doesn’t mean they will be on brand!
People matter
Whether it’s your customers, team, community, vendors or even your competition, every individual around you is uniquely important. They all have hopes and dreams. They all have fears and struggles. They are humans, not units of production.
Every single one deserves to be treated with respect, dignity and a caring heart. Doing that well makes all your other tasks much easier.
As a team leader, be consumed with the needs of your team. Are you constantly doing what’s best for them? Treat your team like family, and they will act like family. You’ll be paid back in full with faithfulness, dependability, and profits.
Excellence matters.
Excellence matters
When it comes to your team, having the right people in the right positions allows you to do your best work.
Take plenty of time when filling positions. Pray for God to bring the right people in— and keep the crazy people out!
The concept of business growth … bias for action
The first step in creating a successful culture of execution is creating a bias toward action. People who make things happen need to be praised and rewarded. People who don’t should be coached to change, or weeded out.
Failure cannot be unduly punished. Unless people feel free to make mistakes, they will not feel free to take bold actions.
In their book “In Search of Excellence,” Tom Peters and Robert Waterman list a “bias for action” as the first of eight attributes that distinguish excellent and innovative companies.
Many of the companies they studied were very “analytical in their approach to decision making, but they are not paralyzed by that fact (as so many others seem to be.)
Motivated, talented team
The one with the best motivated and talented team. My choice of the more important of these two? The best motivated is my choice every time.
Keeping team skills refreshed
The one who keeps the knowledge and skills of his team highly refreshed and honed. Many organizations are becoming increasingly aware that they need to maximize the skills of their workforce, in order to compete and grow.
Related post: 10 Lessons for Successful Entrepreneurs You Need to Know
Essential skills help people perform the tasks required by their occupation, provide people with a foundation for learning other skills, and enhance people’s ability to innovate and adapt to workplace change. Most essential skills for us include writing, oral communication, collaboration, computer use, and continuous learning.
Best adapts to change
The one who closely observes the changes in the environment and best adapt to those changes and trends. At the early beginning of the trend. No waiting.
Key takeaway
Winning businesses have a common trait … a unique and different point of view. A unique personality. Winning business requires you to pick your spots that is to do the special things for special customers.
Do you have the winning equation for the success of your business?
What are some of your experiences with the success factors of your business?
Need some help in finding ways to grow your customers? Such as creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers? Or perhaps finding ways to work with other businesses?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your business learning?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on business lessons from our library:
What would be your answer if you were asked to name the five greatest critical success factors for your business? Would it be the most creative marketing … the best knowledge of your market … your customer experience?
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time.
Henry Ford
Of course, those answers are important. But our top 5 factors deal with your team, your customer, and your adaptability.
Studies show that over 90% of startups fail. Even for those rare few that make it big, life doesn’t get much easier. In fact, only slightly more than 10% of the firms on the original Fortune 500 list are still in business today. Making an enterprise successful and keeping it that way is a staggeringly hard thing to do.
So it’s not hard to see why there has been so much effort devoted to narrowing down a company’s performance to a single factor. Some say that focusing on the customer is key. Others believe that building a great culture is the real path to success. Still, others preach the gospel of developing capable leaders.
Doing what you love: Help in Doing What You Love: 20 Enablers for Success at Last
Here are the top five most important critical success factors to a winning business that we use most often with our clients:
The one who best understands the customer, his needs and priorities. Customer and market insights are critical to your success, and their understanding should be a continuous process. It starts with knowing who your target customers are.
I love brands that pay attention to detail as much as I do because it takes a relatively small seed and sparks it to life. I could buy shoes from a local store or anywhere online, but I want to shop Zappos and become part of their story because they show they care and focus on me.
It’s evocative and personal. It creates a desire within me that most brands don’t.
They often show me things by combining behind-the-scene insight with real-world examples. This stimulates me to share.
We all need shoes, and there are many options out there, but Zappos is the kind of brand that develops a cult status through its style and culture. This isn’t achieved overnight and without care, though it takes a lot of work.
The one who can best build relationships with both new and existing customers. The better the customer relationships, the better the confidence your client has in you and the greater the trust. Both are essential to building customer advocates.
The Disney brand is a huge favorite because I love their products so much. Magical, fantasy entertainment. Being bringers of joy, affirmers of the good in each of us, to be — in subtle ways — teachers. To speak, as Walt once put it:
Disney’s brand does this through focusing on customer relationships and by giving guests a few hours in another world where their cares can be momentarily put aside and by creating memories that will remain with them forever. I love living in their world of imagination.
Critical success factors … motivated team
The one with the best motivated and talented team is usually the one that comes out on top. People are the business.
Your team is your business quite literally, and no matter how good you are, your business is no better than the people who represent it. Hire for personality and motivation and grow the talent.
Starbucks is a favorite of mine for their aggressive innovation style and the way their team engages customers. Starbucks brings us a space to enjoy the products they sell, rather than a just a product.
Related: Starbucks Marketing Strategy … Making Social Media a Difference Maker
Some would say that it fills a psychological need that other companies have not had to do in quite the same way. The emotion is all about uplifting moments and daily ritual. Stimulating all our senses.
Look for the ones who keep the knowledge and skills of his team highly refreshed and honed.
First and foremost, the best have great coaches and mentors for their people with continuous hands-on training. Ensure everyone has an assigned and trained backup.
Zappos brand is the top of my list for their awesome culture and skills from the top to bottom of their company. They don’t sell shoes. They deliver that extra dose of love we all need from time to time. There is no secret here. Zappos became Zappos because of the fanatical skills in customer support it offered. That is the company’s brand.
Related: What the Zappos Company Culture Teaches About Branding Your Business
As Tony Hsieh, the Zappos CEO puts it,
Back in 2003, we thought of ourselves as a shoe company that offered great service. Today, we think of the Zappos brand as about great service, and we just happen to sell shoes.
Business adaptability
Look and be the ones who carefully observe the changes in the environment and best adapts to those changes and trends.
Watch your competitors, both locally and on a national scale, and learn from them. Experiment with new ideas fearlessly.
I prefer brands that are most innovative and very eager to try lots new and different ideas. And not afraid of a failure or two. KLM Airlines certainly deserves to be this camp. Real social media marketing innovators. They frequently come up when marketers are discussing the best in social media marketing.
They have been successfully executing their social media marketing plan for over four years, and their strategies have played a key role in their marketing and customer engagement.
Related: How KLM Airline Marketing Uses Social Media for Winning Campaigns
If you’re not familiar with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, known by its initials KLM, it is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. With headquarters is in Amsterdam, KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to more than 90 destinations worldwide. It is the oldest airline in the world, still operating under its original name (Founded in 1919).
Their brand identity is built around a culture of innovativeness. Over the past four years, KLM has launched some social campaigns – some big, some small. They had a few failures along with great successes, but they keep exploring and testing what consumers like the best.
Do you have the winning equation for the success of your business?
Do you have an element of the equation you’d like to add? Which one of these five would you substitute?
What are some of your experiences with the success factors of your business?
Please share an experience with this community.
Need some help in finding ways to grow your customers? Such as creative ideas to promote the differentiation with potential clients? Or perhaps finding ways to work with other businesses?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is entirely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting to changes in your business environment.
It’s up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
Check out these additional articles on business and its performance from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
It’s not that they can’t find the solution, they can’t find the problem. And Chesterton knows. Does your business focus on handling customer complaints and the problems behind them? Handling customer complaints correctly is an incredibly important part of the overall service experience you deliver.
Oftentimes, a negative experience that a customer has with your business can be salvaged and turned into an opportunity to win them over for life. But handled poorly, and you could lose customers for life.
But being able to handle negative feedback in a positive way takes plenty of practice. Your business can get a head start by avoiding some common mistakes in interacting with customers in these less-than-ideal situations.
Below we’ll dive into some strategies on how to avoid these mistakes, but first, we need to look at why handling these complaints incorrectly could be hurting your bottom line.
Related post: Deadly Mistakes that Destroy Employee Engagement
The Importance of Customer Complaints
Poorly handled customer complaints are one of the quickest ways you can destroy an otherwise stellar service reputation.
Consider the following statistics from the Jim Moran Institute and Lee Resources:
Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor and they will do business with you again 70% of the time.
Up to 95% of customers will give you a second chance if you handle their complaint successfully and in a timely manner.
So while you won’t be able to satisfy every unhappy person who contacts you, the returns that your business may see from turning an initially bad customer service experience into a “win” are significant indeed.
Handling customer complaints … don’t complete your complaint understanding
There is a fine line between simply following up after handling a complaint and inadvertently inviting customers to complain even more.
Let’s look at the following two responses:
“Is there anything else wrong?”
“How else can I help you today?”
Asking a customer who just complained a leading, negative question such as #1 will lead to compounding the complaint and a mistake to avoid.
Conversely, inquiring about how you may be able to further assist a customer lets them know that you are willing to stick it out if they have any other issues to address.
We often discuss some pretty strong cases for spending more time with your customers, but you saw the data above … complaints are a slightly different beast that greatly degrades when slowly responded to.
Work to close issues as quickly as possible. Benefits increase from complaints being resolved quickly.
A customer leaving a feature request won’t sweat the fact that it took you a day to get back to them. However, unhappy customers want resolution yesterday, so you need to make responding to them a priority.
In almost every other instance I would encourage you to slow down your service, but in this case, you need to make moves to right the wrong as soon as possible!
handling customer complaints examples … forgetting that complaints contain insight
In a recent article on Inc.com, Evernote CEO Phil Libin spoke about why he loves his angriest customers.
In particular, Libin addressed the need for balance between internal innovation and customer feedback, saying:
Customer feedback is great for telling you what you did wrong. It’s terrible at telling you what you should do next.
Don’t give action or
Please hold while we transfer you. Your call is very important to us.
Don’t you hate this response? While you’ll experience less of this problem when handling support via email, it’s still important to get people to the right employee quickly.
Never miss an opportunity to briefly explain to a customer why this transfer will be to their benefit. It’s hard to get any customer happy or excited about being transferred, but consider the two choices you have:
You are getting transferred. “Well, this stinks!”
You will be transferred to our ____ specialist who can better answer your question. “Well … okay, then!”
Without this relevant insertion, customers won’t know that you are actually trying to do the right thing.
Being too formal
Customers want to be treated with respect, but if you stop treating customers like regular people and start talking like a corporate stiff then they won’t interpret the interaction as genuine.
Research suggests that personalization is powerful when interacting with anyone, but especially with your customers.
Remember that you’re not speaking to the Queen of England, so refer to your “chat” with a customer rather than your “correspondence” with them. Remember to speak as if you were talking with an acquaintance. A little familiarity can go a long way toward getting customers on your side.
Don’t validate what you learn
Have you ever tried to contact customer service through an online form, and after you hit submit there wasn’t a single follow-up notification on whether or not action had taken place?
There is nothing worse, is there, because you don’t have a clue where your issue—and any hope of resolving it—stands.
The same thinking applies to resolve customer conflicts via email or phone. You want to be absolutely sure that the customer is clear on the resolution that occurred and that it met their needs. So if you’re not ending your responses with an inviting question to do more, then start now.
Handling customer complaints … never involve customers
You already know that you don’t have to ‘buy’ great customer experiences, so throwing freebies at customers over issues that could have been resolved in other ways is not a good business decision.
Instead, if a complaint is genuine and the mistake is on your end, involve customers in resolution decision-making through phrases such as, “What do you think would be fair?”
Yes, the barnacle customer will try to use this opportunity to take more than they deserve, but this language brings out the best in most people, and you’ll likely get asked for much less than you might have offered if you hadn’t solicited their input.
Assume all customers are equal
Not all customers are alike and there are not all worth the same to your business. So, if a customer wants to cancel their account, do it for them right away. Better yet, let them cancel without having to call your company at all. It should be just as easy to cancel as it was to sign up.
Winning customers back with exceptional service is an important aspect of your business that you should focus on, but when customers already have one foot out the door let the parting be as frictionless as possible.
Customers aren’t necessarily done with you for good just because they cancel their account once, so don’t hassle them as they exit. Remind them what they’ll be missing by simply being sincerely helpful.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job and pay for results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on customer engagement from our library:
Influence Consumer Behavior Through Personalization Strategies
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
