Customer Obsession Drives Customer Retention

How to focus on your client and provide exceptional service to wow clients and fuel growth: 7 steps to service and retain your client

Originally written by Graham Peelle on Medium, July, 18, 2023

When was the last time you considered your customer priorities in front of your own priorities? I continue to see organizations and client-facing teams focus on their own advancement, while missing the realization that you advance with promotions, income, and growth, through advancing your client. In my experience, that is a major factor when looking at those who truly understand account management, and those who just don’t — do they prioritize their customer, or are they really truly prioritizing their own interests? Answering that question usually gives you your answer.

What spurred my thinking about this is what really drives customer satisfaction, retention, and profitability. Some companies are better than others at prioritizing their clients and their clients’ business, but I still see a significant gap in understanding why putting customers first, must be an obsession. Jeff Bezos preached this tirelessly and would not lower his expectations, upholding this core belief. There is a key lesson we should take away from that Amazon mentality when it comes to customers.

Remember, besides price, which most of us don’t want to win purely on price, you win on value because of the service you can deliver. Your customer can like you, but that only goes so far compared to your ability to build value. Value is why customers stick around in the long run — make customer obsession your organizational focus and your growth driver. You can win all the new business you want, but if you can’t retain clients, you aren’t growing. Companies want to ignore that fact continuously, but it’s not going away.

I’m going to attempt to articulate how market leading companies drive customer experience and that wow factor we all look for in a partner.

Here are a few core areas to focus on to drive real customer satisfaction:

• Communication & Commitment — Do what you say you are going to do, tell your client what you will do, and the timing you will complete it

• Operational Excellence

• Customer Service including response time, flexibility, and agility

• Trust & Consistency — be truthful, clear, and up front about what is important to share

• Delivery with FTQ (first-time quality) — get the job done right the first time

• Expertise & Presence — know your craft, don’t be selfish with knowledge, go all in with being there for your customer.

I give a lot of credit to my experience with a past organization. That firm taught me a great deal on how to deliver on a customer program, manage accounts, and grow and retain accounts, with a positive experience that is not only achievable, sustainable, but is also scalable. So, what’s next with retaining accounts through exceptional service operations and customer delight?

7 Key Steps to Build a Customer Obsessive Operation

1. Determine what your customer actually wants, not what you want or think they need — they may not be right, but you must understand the expectation they are laying out and how you will deliver, this must be aligned

2. Set a target- determine a number, a goal, or expectation for where your service level is considered exceptional — determine what good looks like

3. Determine how you will achieve that target — identify the action necessary and owners of that action to transform your account or business using these principles

4. Continue to monitor progress and results — what metrics or data will you use to determine you are or aren’t making progress. Manage your business.

5. Operate, learn, and iterate — you get better by doing, reflecting and adjusting your work. Don’t do the same thing, expecting different results

6. Prioritize and leverage retention to drive growth — use your current business to help learn, operate, and win new business. Companies grow when they retain clients, prioritize their clients, otherwise BD is a no win churn game, and way more expensive than retention. Your current clients should be your biggest source of references, referrals, and ideas for how to grow your business.

7. Don’t jeopardize current clients to win new business — sounds simple, but often not executed. If you win a new client that will hurt your performance on an existing client, customers see right through it and they will replace you when they get the opportunity, with a partner who appreciates them, and doesn’t take them for granted. Appreciate your customers — otherwise you won’t have any.

If you don’t prioritize retention, the expense and your reputation will catch up in the market, and your customer will prioritize finding your replacement. Obsess over customer delight, and keep retention at the highest level of priorities withing your organization’s operations and sales functions.

Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading.

Climb Higher, Raise Your^ROI