It’s a question most people tend to overlook. You get so busy working in the business that you forget to work on the business.
Unfortunately, this dilemma isn’t isolated within smaller organizations – it’s an ongoing problem for companies of all sizes. The Silver Bullet Group recently reported that the true cost of ineffective customer communication is between ten and twenty percent of a company’s annual revenue. In the U.S. alone, B2B companies lose hundreds of billions of dollars annually due to ineffective customer communication*.
Take a minute to think about your recent customer outreach efforts. Have you communicated with your customers your efforts to improve your organizational structure to better serve their needs? Have you directly addressed issues by offering a quick resolve? Do you regularly meet with clients face-to-face to discuss your business relationship and potential areas of improvement?
If you’ve answered no to any of these, you might be losing a substantial amount of business year after year. Fortunately, there are some quick (and cost-effective) ways so that you can begin improving the customer experience today!
- Be realistic about what you can tackle immediately. Something as simple as a monthly e-mail communication that keeps customers informed of pertinent events within your organization can be quite effective.
- Perform quarterly review meetings with your key accounts. This is a prime opportunity to get all main decision makers together to review past work, upcoming challenges within their industry, changes and/or new service offerings within your organization as well as discussion(s) on any areas where your organization may not have performed to the level the client expected.
- Implement systems that allow your customer the ability to easily and quickly get project updates. By simply allowing your customers the ability to get a real-time snapshot of where a project or order stands allows them to feel more in control and eases their mind when needing to provide status updates to management.
Think about the organizational impact that simply improving your customer communication could have on your bottom line. Make it a priority to do one thing each week that brings your organization closer to having an effective customer communication.
Source:
http://silverbulletgroup.com/buyers-guide/what-is-the-cost-of-ineffective-customer-communicatio ns/
