How to Stop Driving Customer Away
By leadership author and keynote speaker Ross Shafer
I’m Ross Shafer and I want to thank you for finding the Relevant Leaders Club. Every Monday I post ideas and tactics to help you grow your company and your career. And this week I want to talk about how easy it is to disconnect from the people who keep your company alive. Look, I know you have demands coming at you from all sides because, as leaders, we’re expected to drive growth, manage people, and cut costs. If revenue is lagging or costs are escalating, we call a meeting and strategize, we buy industry research, and we hire third-party companies to compile Big Data. But, it rarely occurs to us to actually witness the process our customers go through to buy from us. If the process is clumsy or requires too many steps or paperwork, your revenue is at high risk.
I’m urging you to get out of the office and physically watch your buyers as they go through the process of buying from you. If you can do it anonymously – like the Undercover Boss TV show – that’s even better. You’ll see first-hand if buying from you is easy and fast or confusing and slow. You’ll see what training has been neglected. You’ll see if your website has glitches that prevent people from finding what they want. In the flurry of running a business, these kinds of problems can go on for a long time… right up until you bump your head on Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
A couple of years ago, I did a field report on a young man who wanted to own a Denny’s restaurant franchise. There was a struggling restaurant for sale in Arizona. This man had never owned a restaurant before, but when he took a look at the operation in person, he knew exactly how to double the revenue. Most of the customers who came in, took one look at the menu and had to point to what they wanted. The young man knew immediately that he needed to print the menus in English AND Spanish and a hire bilingual wait staff. When he did those two things, his revenue doubled in less than a year!
When was the last time you physically got out of the office and pretended that you were a new customer trying to buy something from your company? Fresh eyes on an old problem can prevent complacency and keep you in business.
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