Dear All.
After writing to you about Who is our Customer ???.... i thought about
RELATIONSHIPS.... more importantly about Customer Relations... To put it in simple words .....A Customer
relationship is actually very similar to any Relationship that we maintain in
life....
It takes 2 people to connect to form a relationship, be it a simple
friendship, or, relations within a family, or a marriage or even a business
deal struck by two company's executives ... It all a Relationship.
What really happens, is, like all relationships, the new ones are always
nurtured with extra care... You land up
spending lots of time together, thoughts -emotions and feelings are constantly
exchanged and shared ,the days routines are expressed and discussed ... If you
are sad, your friend cheers you up and vice versa...
Later as time passes by ... and as you get to know your friend or
relative better..... You naturally & slowly start taking them for granted (
it's human nature )...then you start
expecting them to understand everything that's on your mind , and also that
they should know what to do all the time... Slowly, The sharing and caring part
starts to disappear. And you begin to take each other for granted L.
HELLLLLOOO...
Stop right here.... and think....
This is the point where you really have to wake up & realise, that
you are going wrong...you have to stop .. .. because if you don't it spells
doom for the both of you... If it's your friend or relative ...He or She will
start getting upset... which will lead to fights and some arguments... which
will become stressful for both of you and lead on to a unhappy phase and
relationship.
Similarly, Even though customer relationships are one of a company’s
most valuable assets, they are often one of the most undervalued assets too.
All Companies by default focus more on customer acquisition than on customer
retention, which is what we at Oxigen need focus on dually. While our mission
currently is to deploy 1,00,000 new terminals, it is definitely not at the cost
of our old valuable customers, who have been using our services.
Technically , Every customer is an asset and has an economic value or
Lifetime Market Value (LMV). A customer’s Lifetime Market Value is determined
by taking your average customer transaction amount and multiplying it by the
number of transactions he or she will conduct with our organization over time.
For example, if one average customer pays a premium of INR 1000 per
quarter and stays with the organization for 2 years than the average LMV is 1000
x 4 = 4000 x 2 = 8000
Companies start devoting majority of their resources and energy in
aggregating new customer start doing so sometimes at the cost of the existing
customer. This erodes the ‘trust’ and ‘customer loyalty’ found in repeat
customer relationship, which is why we are looking today at being customer
centric.
Google advertising professional Tim
Cohen gives the reason why customers leave their existing brand.
What if the customer leaves the Oxigen brand in one year rather than two
years? A loss of INR 4000 per customer!
And we all know it takes 10 times more to get a new customer than to retain an
existing one.
In rising competition, retaining customer becomes a source of repeat business
as well as reference business. Companies such as ours can establish a better
customer relationship by being present in our customer’s life on regular basis
in a much personalised way. This can be done
very simply by applying the same funda's or rules we would to make our human
relations (friends and family as discussed earlier) more effective, thus,
making our customers feel wanted...
We have to LISTEN to them, patiently.
We have to be SYMPATHETIC, if they are complaining.
We have to be UNDERSTANDING, towards their needs.
We have to SORT out their PROBLEMS, QUICKLY,
however big or small they may be.
We have to time and again, REASSURE them , that we are here to HELP them.
BY DOING THIS, we would take the
first step towards RETAINING our
customer and building a Strong BOND with
them.
So can we safely say that today
onwards,when we or our teams interact with our customers , we will make them
feel "Special", as Special as
we try and make our family or friends feel ??...Can we make them feel good
about us?
I end this note hoping you realize that a building a relationship
with all our customers will help us all prosper together...... So work on this
relationship and make it beautiful with your individual contributions !!