Do you have a customer retention scorecard? You know what I am talking about. Any of the plethora of scoring systems which measure customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Chances are, your organization already has a scorecard or two. And your own performance is measured and compared with the ratings customers provide on a quarterly basis.
Do you know which factors these scorecards measure? Do management and leadership address these factors with you? Every now and then? Always and ongoing? Or only when there is an emergency?
I offer the following three ways to improve the health of your customer retention scorecard.
- Familiarize yourself with just what is being measured on the scorecard and platform your organization or association uses.
- Discuss the relevance and value of these measurements with your current customers, in advance, without biasing them.
- Determine whether, or not, your organization really is measuring the right stuff for your own customer base. One size just may not fit all.
Have I made an impact? Are you thinking about the same thing, only differently?
When you take ownership of not only acquiring, but retaining customers, you develop your own customer retention scorecard.
Now, for sellers, this statement represents a real pain in the butt. After all, they are hired, and compensated, to go out there and hunt prospective clients. Close deals. Crush quotas and the competition. Once they consummate the sale, and the contract is signed, they hunt up their next deal. End of story. Customer retention matters when it is time to renew that contract.
Then, post-sales customer support teams often find themselves in fire-fighting mode. Reacting when customers report gaps in service delivery or product quality. And the first notification of these gaps are – yup you guessed it – “uncovered” during periodic customer satisfaction, experience and loyalty surveys. As a result, customer retention matters when there is a negative customer retention scorecard. Or two. Or three.
What happens when both sides of the business table become proactively accountable for managing customer retention scorecards?
Here’s a little video I created about this issue. Click on the link to watch.
It just could be that the key to creating more relevant and valuable customer retention scorecards is to become more externally-focused. Instead of relying on internally-focused measurements which reinforce existing products, services and programs.
Your clients have a revelation for you. They continue to do business with you and your organization based on the value of post-sales support. Not how awesome the pre-sale activities and customer courtship are. The day-to-day experiences of “living” with suppliers, vendors and consultants are what add up to whether customers are retained, or not.
Are your customers’ experiences of you and your organization becoming better and better? Or do customers easily fall out of love with you?
Isn’t it time to move one millimeter beyond what is Comfortable? Instead, discover what is Possible when you take control of your customer retention scorecards. Get started today by taking one of the three action steps, below.
Start moving one millimeter forward, today.
- Engage me to speak or conduct an interactive workshop at your next corporate or association event.
- Has what you read Today started you Thinking about tomorrow? Contact me. Let’s create a One Millimeter Mindset™ program that fits your needs.
- Subscribe to my blog. Never miss another insightful post.
Babette Ten Haken’s One Millimeter Mindset™ keynotes, breakout sessions and workshops help individuals, teams, organizations and associations leverage productive and profitable collaboration to catalyze professional innovation, workforce engagement and customer retention. She serves organizations as an inspiring speaker, strategist, coach and storyteller. Her speaking programs combine her training as a STEM design thinker, Six Sigma Green Belt and Voice of the Customer practitioner with her background in new product development, startups, market research and sales. How’s that for walking the cross-functional collaboration walk? She is a member of SME, ASQ, SHRM and the National Speakers Association. Babette’s Playbook of collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Image source: Fotolia
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