Boost Your Customer

Market share is at the nub of every business. 

If you are new and appealing, gaining a toehold will show that you can go on. If you have been in the game longer, you will know just how difficult it is to turn that toehold into quantifiable market share. 

So, how do we actually keep what we have fought so hard to win? 

Strategies that focus on the

customer’s need and the competitor’s weakness

have the best chance of winning. 

But can we say that both are in our strategic plan? Can we say that both are always on our minds?

Sadly, in my strategy planning experience, the most neglected of all approaches to business growth or survival is the customer. And I think that in Australian businesses it is a chronic cultural blind spot.  

Here is how we can win, protect and grow our customer base:

1.    Analyse your customer base to discover your core clients. This can be refined to an adaption of the Pareto Principle where perhaps 20% of your customers provide 80% of your revenue or margin. You are going to have a deep, long term conversation with these customers.

2.    Get close to your customers. Find out their contact details and whatever you can about them—without breaching confidentiality or good relationships. We cannot hope to delight or anticipate our customers unless we understand them and have their confidence. You will have heard the term 'customer intimacy'.

3.    Ensure that the next stage of your data collection becomes information collection by having face-to-face discussions with your customers. This is no remote exercise—make time to meet them and listen. Do not fall into the temptation of talking about your features and benefits, this is about them.

4.    Define your ideal customer. This may be an actual person in your customer base or an amalgam of ideal attributes. And give your ideal a profile and a name—so everyone can speak about and ask “Would x like this?” when considering new offers or changes.

5.    Own your position with the customer. At this stage you are now able to identify and articulate the unique reason that your customers should and will buy from you—your value proposition. If properly pitched, this will make you unassailable—for the time being at least.

6.    Educate your people. There is a customer service process to be learned, certainly, but above this is a way of thinking. At its heart is the need for an ongoing conversation to determine what the customer wants, what you can stretch to create and then the delivery.

7.    Empower your people. Determine how far staff members can go in your process to meet customer needs without referring to a higher authority. “I’ll have to ask my boss...” must be rarely, if ever used—it’s disempowering. This autonomy will delight customer and staff member alike. 

8.    Design variations of your offering. Is this faster than ever changing world, competitors will copy or even surpass your offerings and customers will be looking for even better service or the next big thing from you. Your ongoing conversation will reveal what, before they need to ask you. 

9.    Develop the unity of your process team. Having educated them in the customer service process and empowered them to make reasonable commitments to the customer, each process participant needs work as a team member—clarify their values, select a leader, build their trust in you and each other.

10. Recognise and empower the internal customer. Every process participant will be both supplier and customer to the other team members. Apply these principles to boost the value to the business of each internal customer. This will increase their effectiveness in the team and for the external customer. 

Needless to say, this is a deliberate strategy—it does not exist just in your head. It must be written, it must form a plan, with actions and responsibilities. Planning is immediately followed by action. And getting the balance is critical:

Not enough planning will dissipate your efforts. Too much planning will cripple you.

So then, how do you exploit your competitors’ weaknesses?

Next week: Bust Your Competitor

About the Author

Jeff Bell is Principal of executive consultancy ResultsWise in Perth, Western Australia. He is also a coach at The Executive Connection, a division of the global CEO network, Vistage.

To take your leadership to a new level, ask Jeff about TEC, consulting, coaching, strategic facilitation or his leadership course: https://www.resultswise.com.au/leader-as-coach-program