Archive for the ‘Client Retention’ Category

CEOs, we all spend a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money acquiring new clients.  We have sales people, marketing brochures, and advertising plans.  All of this costs valuable time, money and resources.  Despite your investment in acquiring new customers, you could be growing by 15%, but shrinking by 10% at the same time.  When you do the math, you are actually only realizing a 5% net growth.  The problem is we often forget to measure our retention.  Retention is growth.  Statistics show that the cost to acquire a new customer is seven to ten times greater than the cost to retain a current one.

Here’s a tip:  Run a client revenue report for a particular period from last year and one for the same period from this year and measure your retention.  You may be surprised.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

Please click here to listen to the CEO rule of the week

When we review the Executive Maturity Curve, we realize that an effective CEO spends 50% or more of his time delegating and then following up to get his results through others.  Once a CEO understands this, making a list of things to delegate is not a difficult task and we often delegate many things.  Why, then, are we not always successful in our delegation?  The most common source of failure in delegating is in the method of follow up.

Here’s a tip:  Start a journal, maybe on a notepad, using the name of the person that you are delegating to.  Each time you delegate something to them, write it down in that journal.  Be specific by including the date you assign the task and what it is that you are going to follow up on.  As you come in contact with that person throughout the week, just pull out your list, review it with them, and perhaps make a note or two about the progress they have made.  Better yet, if you conduct coaching sessions, start your sessions by reviewing these open items.  You’d be amazed how much gets done through effective follow up.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

Please click here to listen to the CEO rule of the week

Think back CEOs:  Think of a time when you called a vendor and left a message and nobody called you back.  So you called again, and still didn’t get a call back.  How did you feel?  What was your attitude toward that vendor?  How quickly would you change if another vendor with a more responsive customer service system came along?  Now imagine how your customers feel if they call and nobody gets back to them.

Here’s the tip:  First, develop a system to make sure that every customer’s incoming calls and your team’s responses are tracked.  When you find customer inquiries that have no response within a reasonable time, make it a point to ask why.  You may be surprised at what you hear.  Your team may say things like, “I had nothing to tell them, no update to give them, and no changes to communicate.”  The lesson here is very important.  Remember, to make and keep a happy customer the key is not fulfilling the immediate request every time.  Customers understand that orders take time and sometimes things happen to slow down delivery.  No matter what that status of the order, for the sake of the relationship it is often enough just to respond to their inquiry.  It’s true:  Responding to a customer’s request is as important as fulfilling their request.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

Please click here to listen to the CEO rule of the week

CEOs, we all know that the best way to learn how we can improve as an organization is through consistent and regular feedback from our customers.  For some companies this happens by accident.  Other companies track this through complaints they receive.  The better companies have a well structured system to get customer feedback.  More often than not, those structured system surveys contain 20 to 30 long questions. Many of us have been exposed to them.  The survey is either delivered through a phone call or they mail them to us.  We may pick up the survey after dinner and look at it, but we never fill it out.  More often than not, we simply throw it away.

So, here’s a tip:  When you are putting together your client feedback system, focus on the three high impact features of your product or service that you feel set you apart from your competition.  Create your survey from those three questions.  You might find that you will get feedback containing more focused information that is very relevant as it relates to setting you apart from your competitors.

This has been your Estrada Strategies CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your next move.

Please click here to listen to the CEO Rule of the Week

You know CEOs; we all work very hard to ensure that the quality of product and service that we offer exceeds the customer’s expectation.  We build and refine systems to provide the very best customer service.  We work hard to avoid problems and we work even harder to respond when the complaints come because we want make sure that every customer’s expectations are met.  But did you know there is a kind of customer service expectation that is rarely communicated and often missed?

Here is a question:  What systems do you have in place to respond to the unexpected customer request?  How will you respond to make sure that every request is heard and acknowledged?  Do your systems allow and even encourage your customers to ask for things that may not be immediately visible as part of your product or service?  When they do ask, will you be able to respond quickly and fulfill their request?  How will you respond when their request is real, but your service is not able to respond?

Here is a tip.  Take some time in the next 30-60 days to identify as many possible requests for additional or alternative services or products that your customers might want.  Determine how you will respond if those requests become realities.  Now, go one step further, work with your team to create a plan to respond when requests that you did not foresee come in.  Make sure everyone on the team knows their part in this customer service system.  Remember, an unfulfilled request IS and unspoken complaint.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

When we review the Executive Maturity Curve, we realize that an effective CEO spends 50% or more of his time delegating and then following up to get his results through others.  Once a CEO understands this, making a list of things to delegate is not a difficult task and we often delegate many things.  Why, then, are we not always successful in our delegation?  The most common source of failure in delegating is in the method of follow up.

Here’s a tip:  Start a journal, maybe on a notepad, using the name of the person that you are delegating to.  Each time you delegate something to them, write it down in that journal.  Be specific by including the date you assign the task and what it is that you are going to follow up on.  As you come in contact with that person throughout the week, just pull out your list, review it with them, and perhaps make a note or two about the progress they have made.  Better yet, if you conduct coaching sessions, start your sessions by reviewing these open items.  You’d be amazed how much gets done through effective follow up.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

Click to listen to the CEO Rule of the Week

Think back CEOs:  Think of a time when you called a vendor and left a message and nobody called you back.  So you called again, and still didn’t get a call back.  How did you feel?  What was your attitude toward that vendor?  How quickly would you change if another vendor with a more responsive customer service system came along?  Now imagine how customers feel if they call and nobody gets back to them.

Here’s the tip:  First, develop a system to make sure that every customer’s incoming calls and your team’s responses are tracked.  When you find customer inquiries that have no response within a reasonable time, make it a point to ask why.  You may be surprised at what you hear.  Your team may say things like, “I had nothing to tell them, no update to give them, and no changes to communicate.”  The lesson here is very important.  Remember, to make and keep a happy customer the key is not fulfilling the immediate request every time.  Customers understand that orders take time and sometimes things happen to slow down delivery.  No matter what that status of the order, for the sake of the relationship it is often enough just to respond to their inquiry.  It’s true:  Responding to a customer’s request is as important as fulfilling their request.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

CEOs, we all spend a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money acquiring new clients.  We have sales people, marketing brochures, and advertising plans.  All of this costs valuable time, money and resources.  Despite your investment in acquiring new customers, you could be growing by 15%, but shrinking by 10% at the same time.  When you do the math, you are actually only realizing a 5% net growth.  The problem is we often forget to measure our retention.  Retention is growth.  Statistics show that the cost to acquire a new customer is seven to ten times greater than the cost to retain a current one. 

Here’s a tip:  Run a client revenue report for a particular period from last year and one for the same period from this year and measure your retention.  You may be surprised.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.  Your Next Move

Click here to listen to the CEO rule of the week

Nobody Likes a Long Survey

CEOs, we all know that the best way to learn how we can improve as an organization is through consistent and regular feedback from our customers.  For some companies this happens by accident.  Other companies track this through complaints they receive.  The better companies have a well structured system to get customer feedback.  More often than not, those structured system surveys contain 20 to 30 long questions. Many of us have been exposed to them.  The survey is either delivered through a phone call or they mail them to us.  We may pick up the survey after dinner and look at it, but we never fill it out.  More often than not, we simply throw it away.

So, here’s a tip:  When you are putting together your client feedback system, focus on the three high impact features of your product or service that you feel set you apart from your competition.  Create your survey from those three questions.  You might find that you will get feedback containing more focused information that is very relevant as it relates to setting you apart from your competitors.

This has been your Estrada Strategies CEO Rule of the Week.  I am Ruben Estrada.

Your next move

Click here to listen to the CEO rule of the week

Man, this speaks to so many different parts of business. We think about the relationships that we have with our customers, with our employees, and with our prospective customers, and see that it all goes back to the strength of your relationships.

Here’s a tip: If your receivables are aging beyond 90 days, ask yourself: What was it this customer told me was the reason why they’re not paying their bill? You might find that you don’t have an answer. So, what do you do? You go out and get face-to-face with your customer and talk to them, work on the relationship. If your sales people are not selling and you know they have a lot in the pipeline but they’re just not closing, you might ask them what do they know about this prospect personally, beyond what their business needs are? Your sales people may be so focused on the transaction that they forget about the importance of the relationship. With your employees, ask yourself how much do you really know about them, their personal goals, their personal dreams, their families, their lives, their hobbies, their wishes. For the foundation of all sales, truly is the relationship.

This has been your CEO Rule of the Week. I am Ruben Estrada. Your Next Move

Click here to listen to the CEO rule of the week