Really Simple Strategy for Business Professionals: How To Get and Keep Customers

I'm sure if you asked a group of your selected customers if they care whether or not you have a cohesive strategy, their response would probably be "Not really. As long as they continue to provide us with value, what difference would it make? If they do it by accident or on purpose, as long as we get what we need, it's all good."

Except it probably wouldn't be. Because without a cohesive strategy, you will miss out on serving your customer in the following ways:

• You will fail to understand and harness future trends, markets, and technologies and subsequently not be able to provide them with the latest support and knowledge in your marketplace or theirs
• It will be harder to align your business in a way where all of your resources are invested in things that serve them and their satisfaction with your product or service
• You will lose good employees which, eventually, will hurt your customers directly

So, while it's unlikely that your customers have a direct opinion on whether or not you formulate and adequately implement your strategy. It's evident that having an organization that knows where it's going and engages employees to be a critical part of getting there will be in a much better position to serve customers well into the future. Let's take each one and explain how they are relevant to serving the customer.

Planning requires examination – both of where you are as an organization, and where you are in relationship to your marketplace. Organizations that don't ask themselves realistic questions about their strengths and weaknesses, the position they want to occupy in the future, or where new technologies can be harnessed for maximum effectiveness, are going to struggle with relevancy. And the lack of forward-thinking means eventually they will have missed some critical opportunities to grow and pass that increased knowledge along to their customers.

Organizations that don't align themselves to pull in the same direction will most often run out of resources to accomplish even their core businesses competently. When an organization is siloed, and each department or location is operating in a bubble, it lacks the essential tools to pool and share information, talent, ideas, and capital. At that point, productivity is at risk, as is primary communication channels. You can't serve customers properly if you can't communicate with yourself.

And finally, when an organization doesn't communicate or engage employees in their work, relevance, and ability to have a stake in their future – its talent leaves….and quickly. And without solid talent, it's almost impossible to serve your customers adequately. People who are just warm bodies are not those who will typically go the extra mile to satisfy customers. People who are just collecting a paycheck probably aren't pro-active when they think about customer needs. People who can't wait for the clock to chime at 5pm are not at the forefront of new developments.

To obtain and keep customers, you must have a plan for where you are going in the future and put a path in place to get there. Otherwise, your customer is not going to see you as a trusted partner who is able to move forward with them. You have to be able to communicate transparently and with accountability, shifting as both internal and external pressures are applied. And you have to be able to attract the right talent who can be given a vision for how they can contribute and work to make your organization the best it can be.

In light of COVID-19 I have added a link to help with #workingdifferently. Take a look at Paylocity's - Work Differently ToolKit: Engage that can give you tips and templates provide you with a few easy-to-apply ways to help make the job of engaging your workforce in today’s world a little easier. We believe happier employees, just do better work, and generate happy customers. Rinse and repeat.

I hope this helps. :-)

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.