'In this short article Philip Atkinson highlights the importance of creating a strongly customer focused strategy in any business. He contends that survival is not compulsory and if you are not growing and delighting your customers - your customer management strategy is dead. If you don't have a dynamic, forward thinking strategy in place you are probably losing customers and not benefiting from their potential purchasing power. Once the customer base is at risk businesses can go into severe decline and it may be too late to correct. Every employee should be focused upon the customer and those who are not currently 'customer facing' should be supporting 100% those who are. Whether a business is big or small, central to this approach is a customer strategy spreading down from senior levels and permeating all aspects of customer interaction.' At the end of each day your business is either better or worse than your competitors. If you are fail to strive for perfection to retain your current customers, at the same time growing new customers, your business is at risk. Radical changes in markets, consumer tastes and fashions can have a major impact on buyer behaviour and your 'bottom line'. The actions of other competitors in your industry can seriously deplete your customer base. Vigilance and proactive customer management is critical if you are to maintain and service existing customers and grow in new markets.

Customer retention a key issue

In competitive markets you can lose at least 80-90% of your customer base in a very short time period. Research tells us that while customers die, move away, form new allegiances and get better deals, as many as 68% of customers leave their present provider due to that indifference of the business to them as customers.

Little known statistics

Unfortunately customers do not always complain. If they did so, you could take action. Research indicates that 96% of unhappy customers never complain. And 90% of these who are dis-satisfied with the service they receive never buy from the supplier again. If those who do complain feel that their complaint has been dealt with swiftly, almost 54-70% of complainers will do business with the company again. It is imperative to encourage customer feedback and adopt a rapid method for resolving complaints, thus retaining customers.

Furthermore, a disenchanted customer may tell 8-10 people. As many as 13% of disgruntled customers may share their experiences with more than twenty people. However if 'superlative' service is experienced the average customer shares her or his story with only five people. So the 'bottom line' strategy for a any business is that for every customer you upset you have to create four outstanding service delivery experiences to overwrite the overall impact. That is no easy feat.

If unchecked, Poor quality of service will spread like a virus. The word on the grapevine can kill your business, especially if competitors are offering the same product at similar costs.

Bad service spreads like wildfire

In our Workshops we have been using this example for some time. It concerned a UK Bank which charged a pensioner £5 getting change for a £20 note. On hearing the story a major tabloid newspaper the following morning damned this 25% commission on their front page. It did not help matters when that evening, the Chairman of the same Bank was leaving a business meeting in a Hotel when journalists cornered him on his way into a taxi. As a microphone was thrust into his face he tried to evade the intrusion but when asked -"why did you charge the old lady £5 for changing a £20 bill" the chairman stumbled through an ill thought out reply "well she wasn't even a customer". This led to many accounts being closed. What this tells us is that we have to be vigilant, and at the same time self-critical. We need to ask, how are we doing in the customer service stakes?

What are your moments of truth?

Assess every interaction with the customer - however short, even when measured in seconds. Ask and listen to where you as a business are most at risk. Use your people to address major risk areas and start setting and measuring performance. If you cannot measure customer service then you cannot manage it. And if you not measuring it then others don't think it is important. Encourage behaviours that promote customer satisfaction and act on those which do not.

10 Actions that Promote Customer Focus

• Develop and communicate a strategy for retaining existing and attracting new customers
• The mindset for survival is total customer satisfaction
• Listen to the voice of the customer
• Remember, quality is what the customer says it is
• Encourage criticism and improvement
• Be self critical - what it is like to receive your company's behaviour?
• Set service standards, monitor and improve
• Answering the phone in three rings and then keeping the customer on hold is not service excellence
• Get the internal supply chain right first
• Assess how much it costs you to lose customers