Putting the customer back in focus

It’s in our human nature to be drawn to the excitement of new things.

Same thing applies to commerce. New customers and new orders from existing customers are the coolest of all things commercial. They rule.

Most organisations when they talk CRM have fantasies of a business process architecture with supporting software and integration built to drive in more sales from new customers. The intention to make life better for existing customers is usually there as well, but always gets less focus.

It’s because the business case for investing in customer retention is a fuzzy one.

It’s usually calculated on future turnover that, if everything goes well, the company will enjoy already anyway. In other words, it’s already in this year’s and next year’s budget. Only pessimists would build a business case based on the premise that customers might be lost.

The business case for new turnover has no fuzzy element whatsoever. It’s made of hard facts based on turnover minus cost means profit. And profit = bonuses + promotions + shareholder + dividend payouts + shareholder value.

This is why it’s so hard for organisations to invest in making their customer so comfortable that taking business elsewhere is pointless. The attraction of growth fronted by the organisation’s most influential players (the marketeers, sales people and shareholders) will leverage the business case such that investment is made to build a Sales CRM with some extra functions for the back office as a bonus.

Exclusively targeting turnover expansion is like a chronically ill person trying to build new muscle tissue in the gym. The payoff is almost immediate, but rarely sustainable.

As a result, customers will stop being cool. They will feel the tension in their decision making.

Why would existing customers place new orders if they are not being looked after? And why would new customers place orders once they learn the company doesn’t look after them?

It all seems so obvious, but a lost customer is rarely mourned even half as much as a gained customer is celebrated.