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Customer service

3 mistakes to avoid if you want to keep your customers

It hurts when you lose a customer doesn’t it? Particularly if they were a good customer. How do you avoid losing customers? This blog highlights three mistakes that can trip you up and what you can do about it. A client of mine has just sacked their bookkeeping service for making three mistakes which could all have been avoided if they had managed things better. Not only has this company lost a client, but they’ve also left someone who is extremely disgruntled and will be expressing his displeasure far and wide. And I will never recommend them to anyone else. […]

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The high street fights back!

Despite the demise of yet more large retail businesses over the last month, there are some who are getting with the programme and working out how to keep customers coming to them through clever technology or providing an inviting experience through their shops. There is definitely still a place for the high street. I’m not a big fan of shopping, but sometimes you do want to go and browse and look at the products you want to buy. Shoes, clothing, books and computers are the ones I would happily go and rummage around for. Shoes, only because I can’t be […]

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Lean Consumption – the new way to happy customers

As I’ve written in several blogs on customer service, getting and keeping happy customers isn’t rocket science. Unfortunately, it seems to be a challenge for many organisations. Given it takes a lot less effort and money to keep your existing customers than to find new ones, it makes much more sense to set up your business to ensure they have the best experience with you so they stay with you (and hopefully buy more from you and tell lots of other people how amazing you are!). To that end, I give you – lean consumption. Not a summer diet… Lean consumption […]

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The Apprentice – Episode 8 – Canine Capers and a shock in the boardroom

Staggering new statistics this week in The Apprentice –  A quarter of the population has a dog (over 11 million). That’s a lot of poop that needs scooping!  And owners spend £11bn, yes, eleven billion pounds, on their dogs. I couldn’t believe that figure so I looked it up on line – it’s actually over £12bn!! I’m in the wrong business! All of which leads (see what I did there?) neatly to this week’s task. Running a doggy day care service. The two services available were running a dog spa or doggy training classes. They also each had a mobile […]

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The Apprentice – Episode 4 – Corporate Hostility

Who says you learn nothing from watching the Apprentice? For example, did you know that the football industry is worth £4bn? That was quite an eye opener. And women’s football is a fast growing part of that pot. This week’s task – a return to the usual format – organising an event. In this case a corporate hospitality box at Wembley Stadium for the women’s FA cup final. The candidates also had to run a match day stall outside the grounds to raise some extra money. They were given clients with whom they had to negotiate a price to pay for […]

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Why selling on price is a bad thing (and why differentiation is a good thing)

It’s very tempting to be the cheapest because that’s what you think you need to do to win business. This blog explains why it’s not a good idea.

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Ask not what your customer can do for you, ask what you can do for your customer

Why do organisations take us for granted? In the light of my recent experience with Sony, (including yet another highly unsatisfactory call during which it became abundantly clear that hell will freeze over before they will give me a refund) I have decided to write about the differences between good and bad customer service. 86% of customers will stop doing business with you after a bad customer service experience it takes 12 positive customer service experiences to make up for one poor one The irony is that the majority of companies say they pride themselves on good customer service. A Forrester report […]

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How to sell the way your customers want to buy

One of the key questions we ask our clients when we work with them is ‘ What business are you in?’  Most people will tell us they are the thing they sell, so for example, this week, I had ‘a financial adviser’, ‘an events planner’, ‘an accountant’, and ‘a sales trainer’. But is that really what the customer is buying? The customer using the financial adviser may be looking for help to ensure they can retire with no money worries, or the customer using the events planner may be trying to organise a surprise 50th birthday party so will be […]

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One really simple way of knowing how loyal your customers are using Net Promoter Score

Do you know how loyal your customers are to you? In my last blog , I talked about the importance of talking to your customers and how to implement an account management strategy for your top ten customers. This week’s blog is going to look at another aspect of engaging with your customers through customer feedback, in particular using the Net Promoter Score to assess the loyalty of your customers. There are three types of customer feedback you can actively use: Net Promoter Score In-depth interviewing of your key customers (different from the key account conversation you have with them) […]

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Do you know how much more business you could get from your customers?

I’m sorry if that sounds quite a mercenary question, but it’s meant with the best intentions. Not only for you and your business, but also, and as importantly, for your customers. The cost of getting new customers In business, we spend a lot of effort and money trying to get new customers, sales people are rewarded for bringing new customers into the business and probably the largest proportion of our marketing spend goes on trying to acquire new business rather than keeping the customers we’ve got, let alone thinking about how to grow our business with these customers. We’ve seen all […]

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