Did you ever think that you serve a lot of tired customers? I don’t mean they are boring. I do mean that they are exhausted.
The formal name for how exhaustion and being tired impacts one’s ability to make decisions is “decision fatigue.” The mind is like a muscle. Basically, the more you use and overuse, the more exhausted the mind becomes.
When you are tired, you do not process information as well as you do when alert. Also, your brain does not detect anomalies as quickly because mental circuitry is overloaded.
Most importantly, either you or your customers have decision fatigue, innovation is impeded.
Start thinking about your tired customers context.
Day after day, customers get stuck, spinning their wheels, plagued with the same problems – and decisions. They are tired of putting out fires, reacting to daily “surprises,” dealing with workplace incivility and overseeing employee incompetency. In addition, they are tired of competitive inadequacy fostering not only employee churn but also potentially customer defection.
Dealing with the never-ending story of the present keeps decision makers stuck from moving forward.
For example, small companies may be hampered because they have neither the number of employees nor the capital equipment to become more competitive. Then again, large enterprises may represent North American outposts of companies headquartered overseas, where the real decision makers reside.
Either way, conflicting organizational culture prevents decision makers from wrestling with the types of critical decisions they really want to be making. From their perspective, they continuously take two steps forward. Then their wrists are slapped. The reset button is pushed. They take four steps backward.
Ultimately, tired customers are really tired of their status quo.
Consequently, make tired customer detection a top priority for not only customer acquisition but also customer retention.
Otherwise, failure to thoroughly understand customer context impacts not only customer acquisition. In addition, customer context impacts the ability of internal teams to deliver extraordinary and enduring outcomes. The type which are responsible for retaining customers over the long haul.
Tired customers might make a decision to move forward with an innovative solution, but become exhausted of thinking about fighting the predictable uphill battle with their own management. As a result, your solution is neither successfully implemented nor is the return on investment fully realized.
What is your game plan when dealing with tired customers?
Far too many times, tired customers make “no decision.” Not because of you, your strategy or the value of your solutions. Perhaps first order of business is understanding the level of decision fatigue plaguing current and potential customers.
Keep in mind that tired customers are frustrated about being stuck in their status quo. Once customers are acquired, they become even harder to retain due to skepticism or resistance about prior decisions made.
- What is your own experience dealing with tired customers?
- How well do you understand their context prior to acquisition?
- Has decision fatigue impacted your customer retention strategy?
- Isn’t it time to discuss further?
Babette Ten Haken is a STEM-trained catalyst, corporate strategist, storyteller and facilitator. Her focus? How collaboration revolutionizes and humanizes the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) value chain. The results? Increased customer loyalty, customer success and customer retention.
Babette’s One Millimeter Mindset™ programs draw from her background as a scientist, sales professional, enterprise-level facilitator, Six Sigma Green Belt and certified DFSS Voice of the Customer practitioner. Babette’s playbook of IIoT team collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Do you know the Top 5 Negative Customer Retention Scenarios? Find out here.
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