Customer Service Readings - part one

A selection of Customer Service blogs and articles

• Customer Service - Back To Basics - how to decrease costs by 10%
• 
  
• Ritz-Carlton Update – how the professionals do customer service
  
  
• Exceeding Customer Expectations - A Seven Point Plan - Are customers really are in charge when it comes to dealing with organisations. Here is a seven-point plan to make sure the customer is 'king' (Customer Management)
  
  
• 10 Ways To Keep Your Customers Happy
  
  
• Customers Fight Back On Youtube (6 million views)

see also: Customer Service Readings - part two

Do you lose sight of why you are doing this?

Just done a quick review of recent consultancy assignments with larger businesses selling into the small/medium sector.

While the’ necessary’ processes are usually in place it is the basics that so often seem to be missing.

It seems that programmes and initiatives designed in the ivory tower of head office have the capacity to lose focus and direction. Inevitably the initiative becomes an end in its own right rather than being a means to an end (more customers, more sales or more profits usually).

More specifically, head office rapidly loses contact with end players (customers, staff, partners, carriers) and build programmes built on false assumptions.

Maybe this goes some way to explain why the corporates are not so great at selling to the smaller business. (See Marketing to Independent Businesses)

Corporate myopia becomes entrenched as direct reports will tend to feedback the positives to their seniors. Any new initiatives will be designed by the very people who wrote/designed the initiative that you are replacing. How ironic? The Training Dept is pulled in to write a new training initiative to replace the last one they wrote. The new product development team is briefed to find a newer, better product… You get my point. We end up with more of the same old same old.

Smaller businesses have the capacity to do the same thing. Change for change’s sake or worse, a naive belief that you are right and they are wrong permeates so many businesses.

And where should we look for most of the answers? Talk to your customers, it is as easy as that. Take the execs into the shops and let them hear salesmen saying that the product is rubbish, let directors spend a day behind reception at your hotel to hear what customers really think, get managers to shadow customers as they try to navigate their twins and shopping around your supermarket.

When was the last time you spent a day in the customer’s shoes?

Quick Fix vs Fixing the Problem Properly

I would love to think that the world has finally had enough of get-rich-quick, instant-gratification programmes that promise instant painless solutions at the click of a credit card payment… solutions to what are, in effect, deep-seated issues we have in our businesses. (eg have we got the right product, the right processes, the right people, the right partners, the right customers, the right channels to market…?)

The irony of the Quick Fix vs Fixing the Problem Properly argument cannot pass me by.

I am amazed at the sheer volume of products and services that claim to be a must-have, success-guaranteed, “you’d-be-a-fool-not-to-buy-while-stocks-last”, time-sensitive, unique opportunity.

I hope that these only appeal to the relatively gullible, the innocent and the needy who have no-one to protect them from themselves. And, of course, do the offers bear any resemblance to what the business actually needs!!!!?

Enough.

You can sign up for the quick-fix solutions but in reality the issues you should be addressing are probably symptomatic of something more fundamental that needs to be addressed in your business. You can confront this stuff or sweep it under the carpet… (or behind the curtain or wherever...!).

Companies Should Sack Their Accountants (Part Two)

I certainly kicked off a storm of comment when I suggested that companies should sack their accountants if they were not contributing to their business growth. (Clients Should Sack Their Clients [mysteriously withdrawn on AccountingWeb and then brought back])


I would now like to explain my thinking behind the remark.

There is only one direction for successful companies – and that’s forward.

It’s why start-ups often succeed at first – they are focused on their future, on their destination – and it’s also why so many companies stall after a few years, losing their momentum, and focusing on the past (“Business was really good a few years ago”) more than the future.

That’s why all companies, especially owner-manager businesses, need help to maintain a forward direction and focus.

So the question is this:

How many accountants really help their clients grow their businesses?

The answer, of course, is that some do and some don’t, but why is that?

I believe the answer is very clear: there are essentially two very different sorts of accountancy firm.

Which one are you?

Accountant Historians: as their name suggests, AH’s are focused on the past, on analysing it, preserving it, but what do they then do with that information? Often, very little. When asked by clients what the figures might mean for the future, they don’t feel comfortable making predictions – and rightly so. In truth, they know very little about their clients’ businesses.

To be fair, that works for many companies – and many firms of accountants. It’s horses for courses, but the fact is that clients tend to hold AH’s in comparatively low esteem. They want to minimise costs, so HA’s get paid less. What’s worse, the AH service is commoditised – “anybody can do that” think the clients, so will go to a cheaper competitor. Not only do AH’s, therefore, earn less, their clients churn more rapidly, and they have to spend more time and money winning replacement clients.

It’s all about the lifetime value of clients: the ideal is long staying, high spending clients, and the nightmare low paying, short staying clients.

Accountant Entrepreneurs: a very different kettle of fish with very different attitudes towards the contribution they can make to their clients’ businesses. They do the basics as well as anybody else, but they know information is power, and use it to help their clients – and earn themselves higher revenues. They use their knowledge of many companies to provide a real world, really current perspective for clients. They know what has worked for other companies – and what hasn’t. They earn the respect – and the fees – accordingly.

They earn more, and keep their clients longer, so the average lifetime value of their clients is considerably more than the AH’s. They also get new business opportunities, and tend to be retained even when companies really take off.

So are some people born AH’s and others AE’s? Absolutely not. It is a matter of attitude, of a little training, some practice, and the enthusiasm born out of successful attempts to change the way you approach clients.

Related Articles

• Clients Should Sack Their Accountants
• Accountants: Love Them Or Hate Them?