By their very nature your key customers can place you as a supplier (of product or service) under much greater pressure than your smaller customers. Large customers deliver the much needed revenue and often prestige for [...]]]> Managing your large and key customers is an important yet often tricky act for many businesses, especially smaller ones.

By their very nature your key customers can place you as a supplier (of product or service) under much greater pressure than your smaller customers. Large customers deliver the much needed revenue and often prestige for your business or brand but they are also able to apply pressures to your supply chain, margin and time.

How you manage these customers can be vital to the future success of your business, manage them poorly and they can ultimately be the downfall of your business.

Know their business - Allan Leighton (former CEO of Asda) once said “If you don’t know my business, you don’t have a business!”. Find out everything you can about their operation, understand what pressures they may be coming under and build your service around that knowledge.

Relationships are key – People by from people, it might be a cliche but its true. If you need a customer to get behind a new product or to implement a change it all happen much faster and smoother if you have a good relationship with your buyer and the team around them.

Have a plan – Take time to write a 2/3 year plan for your key customers and option build for possible future scenarios. Be clear on your strategy to develop these accounts and understand where you want them to be in the future. Look to have a ‘What if?’ solution ie: What if they go bust? What is the impact and alternative for my business?

Move from being Transactional to Collaborative - If you spend all your time with your key customers talking about investment, prices, deals, service levels, margins you have a transactional relationship. Work on moving the relationship to a more collaborative one by bringing more to the table than just price. Look to discuss joint business plans, offer strategic insights and thought leadership, demonstrate your understanding of their business and trading environment. Make yourself a strategic partner and position your product/service as far away from being a commodity as possible.

Share/Save

We suggest you ask your customers one simple question – How do you rate our service from 1 [...]]]> Businesses large and small who have a loyal customer base out perform their competitors time and time again, but so many firms never take the time to understand what their customers think of their service and products.

We suggest you ask your customers one simple question – How do you rate our service from 1 to 10?

This one question will give you a great understanding of what your customers think of you, those who rate you 9 or 10 a loyal customers and advocates of your business. 7 or 8 is a moderate score these people are content but they won’t be shouting about your business to their friends and family. Anything below a 7 is the area of concern and where you should look to dig deeper. You should look to interview a handful of these low scorers and find out what is really hurting your business. Research has shown that you will gain more of an insight by interviewing in depth a handful of customers than surveying a vast number.

Once you have all your results build a plan based on the in-depth feedback and record your score (number of 9 & 10′s – number of 6 & belows). Keep gaining feedback track your score and adapt your plan to build customer loyalty.

If you need inspiration or motivation to take action and address your customer loyalty just take a look a the likes of Apple I-Tunes or Amazon for examples of businesses that have out grown their competitors off the back of customer satisfaction, just imagine your business could be next.

Share/Save