Are You a Customer-Driven Business?
Inspirational business leader Harvey Mackey said, “No business can stay in business without customers. How you treat – or mistreat – them determines how long your doors stay open.” There has never been a time when this is a more pertinent business lesson than in the 21st century. According a recent white paper from Webby, customers are expecting a higher level of customer service, transparency, and engagement with their brands. Here are some ideas you could on what your could consider, are you a customer-driven business.
Customers don’t just want good service, though. They want to be personally involved with the companies they buy from. According to the recent preview of the Forrester 2014 CXi report, emotional engagement is a more powerful driver for brand interaction and consumer experience than effectiveness or ease of service.
This means that, as consumers become more personally engaged in researching and purchasing, it is vital for you to ascertain just how customer-driven your business is. Use this quiz to help you get started.
When looking over your customer relationship management (CRM) analytics, the data point that interests you most is:
A. How many customers are at the purchasing stage of the sales process.
B. How many sales calls have been made to each customer.
C. The last time your high-profit customers have been contacted.
D. The feedback remarks from your customer service tickets.
When you evaluate your current sales staff, most of them are:
A. Breaking sales records with few repeat customers.
B. Making good leads, but closing few sales.
C. Making moderately good sales from a handful of high-producing customers.
D. Making good sales and leads from both repeat and new customers.
When your business phone rings:
A. Various members of your staff answer promptly, although non-sales related calls are put on hold or dropped.
B. A designated staff member answers the phone eventually, although customers sometimes complain about the length they’ve been on hold or times they’ve been transferred.
C. Someone from your team always answers the phone within a few rings, although current and former customers are given more attention than other calls.
D. Members of your team consistently answer the phone within 3 rings and give equal attention to prospects and callers that may not directly impact your bottom line.
When you invest in coaching, you choose programs that:
A. Teach sales tactics like negotiation, buyer psychology, and closing strategies.
B. Focus on selling, but always include an obligatory section on customer service.
C. Pair good selling techniques with pro-customer service messages – you have important customers to keep happy.
D. Focus on improving sales and service through better customer communication, empathy, and benefit selling.
Your typical social media marketing plan includes:
A. Aggressive marketing updates (10-20 per day) highlighting your company’s goods and services.
B. Strong marketing updates (5-7 per day), with a few “customer interest” links included (such as famous quotes or retweets of helpful resources).
C. Several marketing updates (5-7 per day), with heavy interaction (retweets, direct messages, and conversations) with a few key clients.
D. Mostly high-interest resource updates (5-7 per day) with several direct marketing messages (1-2 per day) and a few short conversations with prospects, current clients, and naysayers alike.
Generally, your sales team’s responsibilities look like this on a weekly basis:
A. 70% cold calls and new business appointments, 10% managing existing accounts, 10% social selling and CRM activities, 10% customer service calls.
B. 40% cold calls and new business appointments, 40% managing existing accounts, 0% social selling and CRM activities, 20% customer service calls.
C. 10% cold calls and new business appointments, 60% managing existing accounts, 10% social selling and CRM activities, 20% customer service calls.
D. 30% cold calls and new business appointments, 20% managing existing accounts, 20% social selling and CRM activities, 30% customer service calls.
When you lose customers, it’s usually because:
A. Your competition had a better price or sales strategy.
B. You can’t make everyone happy. People just leave sometimes.
C. They weren’t really worth putting a lot of time or energy into.
D. The customer no longer needed the service.
When a product isn’t selling the way you want it to, your gut instinct is to:
A. Offer better incentives to your sales team.
B. Mark it down. The lower the price, the more you’ll sell.
C. Increase the benefit – give extra incentives to the customer to buy.
D. Poll your customers and find out what they’re really looking to purchase.
When you have a customer with an escalated concern, you respond by:
A. Making a new customer to replace him or her.
B. Apologizing, but not changing any policy or processes.
C. Providing additional options and opportunities based on how much the customer is potentially worth in the long run.
D. Listening to the concern, making restitution where applicable, and requesting feedback on how to improve your future relationship
A majority of your sales meetings are spent on:
A. Going over recent sales numbers and honoring high producers.
B. Discussing production and business processes.
C. How to further sell a handful of high-producing clients.
D. Ways that sales, office, and managerial staff can support positive customer relationships.
https://www.applecapitalgroup.com/winning-war-building-customer-service-1-2/
