Train our people on our message.
What do we do to be better than our competitors?
Based on the focus group feedback, what else do customers want from us?
How does our pricing compare to the competitors?
We need to increase wallet share by up-selling those products our clients don’t already have.
What can we do to lower defections?
Which are the most compelling bundled offers to get higher margins?
Should we increase our channels or can we get more from those we have?
Having worked for some of the largest and most successful companies in the world as a consultant and employee for 30 years, I am still surprised how different “Customer Focus” can be interpreted.
There are those companies who define “Customer Focus” from Headquarters out. A lot of companies focus on how to sell customers more and more even when the customers hope to buy less and less. To sell them more and more means stealing deals and customers from competitors, locking customers into software, platforms or business models where it is hard to get rid of a product in the short-term without a lot of cost and effort.
HQ out companies spend research dollars, sales training budget, product development effort, and major parts of all department’s staff are fixing customer challenges, explaining why what the customer REALLY wants is what they already have, justifying various types of costs that just don’t seem right and discounting to overcome a true lack of value.
All the time Headquarters is pushing out a message of “Buy lots of what we’ve got,” the customer is screaming “I have lots of problems I need solved if I could find someone who will help.”
The amazing part of this is what HQ wants to sell is seen as a low-value expense the customer can get from at least two or three other vendors.
What the customers are talking about is “if this problem were solved, I would make a lot more money” and would compensate the business partner who continually solves this and other problems based on the value received. That kind of partner is NOT an expense but an asset, and the more these two organizations learn about each other, the better they will both do. Just find partners with THAT focus.
Companies who invest heavily in status quo have decided to NOT focus on customers who are trying to improve their business.
Business models are either HQ focused or customer focused. If a company staff and communication is all about “telling” vs. engaging around the problems the customer needs solved, that company is not a customer focused, value-adding partner.
By listening to the customers, the customers provide the best form of market research. Then the customers pay for prototypes, while helping you make the product even better and then sharing the success with the world.
The learning from working with this customer is transferable to other customers, and the seller is now designed into the solution for the long-term.
Everything the seller who invests in the customer focus accomplishes is faster, easier, cheaper and much more profitable for the customer and the seller.
Status Quo is a slow death for a HQ out company. The HQ out company ends up providing short-term price sensitive commodities for their customer. So START focusing on the customer’s problems and build a supporting business model.