During these uncertain times the core focus of all leaders is to protect your business by strengthening the relationship with your customers and looking after your accounts.

In this article, we will share six CX tips that we know will protect your business.

1. Identify your top 10%

In order to protect your customers, it is important to identify the ones that financially and futuristically will have the greatest impact on your business over the next two years. Quite often who we think are our top customers, are actually more middle of the table. So if you look at the customer spend over the last 12 months and rank them and then look at which customers can grow the fastest with you and rank them again and then put the two scores together you would have identified your top 10. Depending on the size of your business often the top 10% of customers can equate to more than 30% of your business.

2. What would be the impact if…

Ask yourself the question “what would be the impact on my business if one of my top 10 customers were to leave and move to my competition?” Not only could this be an emotional blow but financially it could be game changing. And then the secondary question to ask is what do I need to do now to prevent that from happening?

3. Are you listening?

It never ceases to amaze how little customer listening goes on within the business world. We conduct a high proportion of business in the professional sector and when we ask our clients about their top 10% and what their customers say when asked how they feel about them, the majority of replies are” we have never done that.” So asking your clients / customers on a regular basis how they are feeling at a current time, is possibly the best investment you could make. It will identify if they are happy and if they are not, what you need to do to put it right. Most of all it makes them feel special you have asked and secures the long-term relationship.

4. How are you listening?

Since the pandemic began we have had an influx of new customers who have required help with listening and how to go about this most crucial of business tools. There are two solutions to this opportunity. The first is to have an ongoing feedback system which asks on regular intervals how the customer is feeling. This system should allow all stakeholders in the company to see that feedback, to benchmark it against your competition and if the feedback is good link it to a review site. Our system is called instant insight and we will be more than happy to demonstrate this to your business.

The second most popular method conducting an in-depth interview with key customers to unearth “the good, the bad the ugly” to help your company strategically plan for 2021.

5. Use the customer experience data to increase revenue and profit

You can’t argue with data. It is what it is and allows you to make a compelling argument in your organisation to the changes required to improve your customer experience. The biggest challenge within organisations is doing something with the data. We often witness lip service being paid to feedback programs where the feedback has been conducted but not a lot has been done with the data. For example, no real tangible actions have been taken following the feedback. Developing a proper plan and involving a CX specialist (here is a link if you need a local one!) you can develop a concrete CX plan for 2021.

6. Measure, measure, measure

The final part is to ensure that you measure the outputs of your 2021 plan. So looking at the customer spend, all your customer experience KPIs, or your churn rate you will see that the new strategy is working and where it will need tweaking. Again, it is important that you have expert help with this, in order to gain an objective view of your business AND the expertise of someone that knows how to interpret the results and take action.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of our CX tips  please get in touch.