How do you close the delivery gap and reduce customer churn? This article shares information from experts that you can utilize to help you develop business systems that will cut down on customer churn and ensure your businesses services rate as “superior.”
Customer churn happens to all businesses. According to a recent survey, 32% of respondents told the interviewer that they would no longer use a brand after just one negative experience. That is an enormous load to take on, because customer acquisition costs can be incredibly high.
So, what can we do about customer churn?
This was the topic of a recent discussion between Adi Klevit, CEO of Business Success Consulting Group, and Damian Kernahan, CEO of Proto CX. During their talk, Damian shared numbers found in a 2005 survey done by Bain and Company that showed that only 8% of customers surveyed described their customer service experience as “superior” when 80% of company CEOs surveyed described that same service as “superior.” This brought him to explore and answer the question: How do we close this delivery gap and lower customer churn?
Here is a very brief summary of the solution that Damian and Adi discussed. We will share more about this solution in the article below.
- Discover customer expectations
- Determine what you are doing.
- Find ways to close the gap.
How to Build Systems to Reduce Customer Churn
Gain an in-depth understanding of the problem.
At Damian's consultancy, they interview everyone involved with the product/service. This includes customers, front-facing staff, potential clients, and others. They also look through all social media, complaint data, and more. The idea is to see the issue from all angles and gain an in-depth understanding of what is causing the problem.
More often than not, the issue is deeper than the business owner initially thought.
One example Damian gave was that Syndey Metro advertised the ease of getting into Sydney using the driverless trains, but customers' concerns were about going home at the end of the day. So, they had to switch their thinking and ensure riders knew they could still get home safely at the end of the day.
Find out what is most important to your customers.
Even if you're a small business owner, you can conduct a dozen customer surveys to find out what part of the customer journey was most seamless for them and where they had any difficulty. This information will allow you to spot any issues and iron them out so you can provide a better, more seamless experience to your customers.
Build a customer journey.
Map out the journey your customer takes from start to finish. Answer these questions: How do they find you, how do they access the product/service, what issues are coming up along the way, and how do they find you again? This way, you can address the most common sore spots within the journey and make your product/service easier to access.
Modify business SOPs.
Now that you know the differences between the journey you want to take a customer on and the journey they are actually on, you can modify your SOPs to ensure the changes you make are documented and remain in place.
Finally, check back to make sure everything was implemented appropriately.
Once you have implemented changes to address the customer journey, go back out and collect more information to ensure your solutions are working as you want them to.
Building the business your customers want to find is the perfect way to keep your existing customers and acquire new ones through word of mouth alone. The best way to do this and ensure a consistent experience is to build and utilize business-wide processes and procedures.
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