PLANS AND PRICING
Essentials
Annual accounts, tax, gst, plus all your other compliance needs.
Track Your Business
For the business owner that wants a closer relationship with their financial adviser.
Growth & Strategy
For the business owner that wants to set up a strong management and planning function.
129 Kolmar Road,
Manukau, Auckland
P: 279 3787
F: 279 3789
info@quinnbiz.co.nz
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Customer Advisory Meetings
Imagine one of your customers sitting down at a luncheon with several other business owners. The subject of your business comes up. What will your customer say about you and your company?
Will it be positive? Will it be negative? Or worse yet, will it be nothing at all? Will your customer, instead, be silent, listening carefully to what’s being said by others while internally running down a list of comparisons of your company versus the other companies being discussed?
It’s a given that customers are thinking about you and the service your company provides. Even if they aren’t talking about you to other business owners, they’re evaluating your company every time you provide a service. They’re also evaluating your company every time you answer the phone, return a call, or send out an invoice or other correspondence.
Ironically, it’s often the non-technical aspects of what you do that are noticed most by customers. We know that customers often leave a company not because the company was technically incompetent, but because of the way they were treated.
It comes down to the issue of perceived indifference. You know, the little things that communicate to the customer that they aren’t as important to the company as they think they should be.
What are your company’s areas of perceived indifference? Your phone procedures? Your invoicing procedures? The way you serve customers? The amount of contact with your customers? The attitude of a team member? Delivery of product?
Whatever your issues of perceived indifference, you owe it to yourself to find out what they are and fix them—now! Every day you wait, you risk losing a customer who feels unheard or uncared for.
So, how do you determine your issues? We’ve found the best way to reveal what those issues are is to ask. Here’s the really important part, you must really listen to your customers. They already have the answers and are more than willing to share them.
When you think about it, wouldn’t it be better to get your customers talking to you directly about their concerns, frustrations, and desires rather than telling someone else? Of course it is, but the benefits don’t just stop there.
Here’s the interesting part.
You and your team probably already know much of what your customers’ concerns are. It may be that the greatest benefit from the feedback you get at the Customer Advisory Meeting will help you set your reengineering priorities.
Based on the intensity level of your customer feedback, you’ll know which issues need to be addressed and in what order.
Beyond that, your team will be motivated more than ever before by the feedback. You see, for the first time, you and your team will be held accountable to a whole new level of customer expectation.
This is a day like no other in your business. For many companies it’s truly a turning point and the beginning of great things.
You can organise the customer advisory meeting yourself or alternatively some clients ask an independent person, such as their accountant, to act as the facilitator of the customer meeting and to prepare a summary of the matters discussed. Using an external facilitator to chair the customer advisory meeting and guide discussion towards preferred topics encourages your customers to 'open up' and discuss the business' strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, without feeling they need to justify their comments.
Some of the items that could be raised at a customer advisory meeting could be:
- How do you rate the firm’s services?
- Are there additional services that the business could supply to you?
- Have you asked the business to supply these services to you?
- What do you like about this business? What do you dislike about this business? How does this business compare to those of competitors?
- Do you receive prompt replies to telephone, email and fax contact?
- Would you like to receive periodic information on products and services being offered by the business?
- What are the strengths of the business as compared to its competitors?
- What are the weaknesses of the business as compared to those of its competitors?
Many businesses are conducting customer advisory meetings 3 or 4 times per year, and using the meetings to gain valuable feedback on the perception that their customers have on the business operations.
If you are interested in commencing a series of customer advisory meetings and you would like our input, please contact us.
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