Top Customer Goals for 2007
It is important for every business to have a focused customer strategy in order to grow. A sound customer strategy enables high levels of Customer satisfaction. Happy Customers mean repeat sales, positive press, and testimonials which lead to new customers, growth and more success! So what are the key Customer focused goals for 2007?
A recent survey by CIO Insight found that 80% of the businesses had their Customer strategy focused on revenue growth while 20% were focused on cutting costs. The trend is to focus on initiatives which help acquire new customers, generate more revenue from the current customer base and to identify their highest-value customers in order to deliver to them better service. While there is still business focus on reducing the cost of service in order to increase customer satisfaction, the majority of the focus is on revenue growth.
Let’s examine three differing Customer strategies based on the business models they employ; Business to Business (B2B), Business to Customer (B2C) and a combination of both (B2B & B2C). When we review the top Customer goals in 2007, the number one customer goal for 45% for all three models is acquiring new customers, whether they are B2B, B2C or B2B & B2C. This should be no surprise. New Customers generate new revenue. How do you acquire new Customers? Mainly through marketing efforts like advertising, press releases, industry conferences, networking and more. It is extremely important that the first contact with a new Customer be highly successful. You want the Customer to be delighted so that they will become a repeat buyer and tell their business associates. If you do not have a highly effective first contact process in place, more than likely you are losing potential Customers. Consider making this is a key initiative for your team.
 So what is the magic bullet? What does it all mean? Which one should you focus on? All of the Customer focus areas are important. Where you spend the most time is dictated by your business model. Are you running a B2B model, B2C model or a combination of both?
Whatever your focus area, it is important that you institutionalize the practices and processes in order to make sure they are measurable, repeatable and scalable. This helps to drive consistency and avoids repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Another critical element is an effective Customer feedback process. Various measures can be employed like: Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty, Customer Complaints, and more. Whichever method you use, it is important that your Customer’s feedback is trended, and then utilized to drive continuous improvement. Customers have options, and when the decision time comes, you want it to be easy for them to pick your company.
It starts from understanding the business model you are running and the key success factors for that model. Then you can set clear strategies that focus on your key Customer goals set the pathway to success. So ask yourself; “Do our key strategies align with our business model?” If the answer is no, then you need to reset your strategies. If the answer is yes, then you’re on the right road to success.
contributed by Michael Vigil
Co-Author of Driving Complex Change
Spotlight: Changing Without Baggage!
Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to create, accept, and successfully implement change? Recently I had an opportunity to work with a talented group of individuals that had aspirations of greater success and personal fulfillment.
The engagement started out very similar to other engagements. Our objective was to explore how the team could achieve more. We employed a series of tools and techniques to facilitate the conversations including; displayed arts thinking, visioning of what they wanted to become, how they wanted to be perceived, defining and prioritizing a set of SMART goals to get there, and more.
The openness in the exchange of ideas, the suspending of judgment, the willingness to participate without limitations, enabled this group to move quickly and easily through the tools towards a common desired outcome. Typically it would have taken a couple of days to take a team of 7-10 people through the process. This was a group of 15, and they went through it in about 3.5 hours. The outcome was renewed clarity and team focus with the commitment to make it happen while having FUN.
After we finished I wondered - Why was it so natural to administer the change activities with this group? The answer, basically this group did not have all of the baggage that you and I typically carry around with us. Their protective mechanisms were not as hardened and they were more willing to open up and share.
Who was this mysterious group? The group was my Girls U13 Class 1 competitive soccer team the 'Fusion'. Life at 12-13 years of age for young girls is complex and requires much nurturing and support. Thank goodness that they have not become biased by the daily routines that we all experience as adults. Their personal commitment is grounded in the belief that they can make a difference if they want to.
As adults we often close down and chose not to make the difference because we just don't feel the difference will be noticed. We also seem to lose sight of having FUN. People really do have more fun when they are making a difference and it is being noticed. The bottom line is that we all need to learn let go of the baggage and sign up to make a difference. Thanks Fusion - you rock!
contributed by Pete Pazmany
CEO / President ASIL, Inc
Industry
Trends
Business Intelligence - 2007 Top 10 Trends
Each year Knightsbridge Solutions LLC publishes its top 10 BI trends that will shape global companies BI priorities for the coming year.
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BI Governance: Ensuring the Effectiveness of Programs and Investments
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BI Strategy: Stepping Back to Plan the Way Forward
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C-Level Involvement: Senior Executives Recognize the Importance of BI
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Performance Management: Striving to be More Strategic
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Service-Oriented Architecture: Information Management is Critical to Success
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Master Data Management: Moving from Hype to Reality
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Global Delivery for BI: Helping Enterprises Handle Growth and Cost Pressures
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Influence of Large Vendors: Market Consolidation Expected in 2007
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Data Visualization: The Next Wave of Innovation in Information
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Challenges of "Shadow BI;" Pervasive Use of BI Can Have a Downside
Some of these trends have continued over from 2006 with some slight perspective differences. While some trends are newly added: BI governance, C-level involvement in BI and data visualization. According to this Knightsbridge report, "Overall, organizations will continue to advance their level of BI maturity in 2007 while adapting to shifting vendor and technology market forces."
To access the white paper, go to: http://www.knightsbridge.com/news/whitepapers/trends2007/index.asp
contributed by Deborah LeBaker
Product
Highlight
The Integrated Project Management tool in the MAX Partnering software suite gives complete project deliverable status visibility to the Program Manager. The PM is one click away from all tools and open actions. Reports can range from being generated for all actions across all projects or limited to status for a single owner’s deliverables. All due dates are color coded to indicate where there is a need for an escalation or corrective action. The PM can use mouse flyovers to quickly reveal the latest status as well as review the complete history for an assigned deliverable. For a full feature description of the software tools that are available please visit us at:
www.asil-inc.com/Products/Products.html.
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