1. Death of Profit:
Customer Power Requires a Mind-set Change to Improve Customer
Retention and Profits
Last week, I wrote about companies professing they had more important
priorities than Customers. In more and more studies, we are finding that
companies are losing existing Customers. The profit increase from
retaining Customers is shown below
In a recent Business Line article quoting a global study, they stated that
80% of the Customers in India and globally who complained about poor
service or product deficiencies had their complaints ignored. Companies
lost at least 18% of their annual revenues because of poor complaint
handling. In my opinion the number is higher but is masked. Companies
cannot afford to lose Customers and allow profits to leak through the poor
Customer experience sieve. They need to heed this. So what are they
doing?

2. Companies are planning to spend more in Customer support technology.
They are thinking that technology will solve the poor Customer experience
and retention problem. But what they need to do is to change the mind-set
starting at the top with CXO’s and getting all departments to focus on the
Customer and Customer issues. They need to break internal silos, and
build a circle of promises internally to make sure the Customer remains
happy and stays with the company (and even attract new Customers by
word of mouth). They also need to incorporate Customer Circles like the
Quality Circles to start a Continuous Customer Improvement program. This
will give them more mileage and will be cheaper than a mere technology
intervention. Companies beware of Customer Power! Do not let your profits
die!
Gautam Mahajan
President, Customer Value Foundation
Mob: +91 9810060368
email: mahajan@customervaluefoundation.com
website: http://www.customervaluefoundation.com
Unsubscribe me from this list