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Learn How To Keep Customers Profitably Satisfied

Keeping the Customer (profitably) Satisfied. Which is more enlightened: the company that cuts costs across the board during the downturn, not knowing the impact on customer satisfaction; or the company that spends whatever it takes to keep satisfaction scores high? [BNET.com - Recent Marketing Strategy White Papers]

Customer satisfaction must be linked to sustained profit growth. Often enough companies only cut costs to improve profits, or invest in blind notions to increase customer satisfaction. Keeping the customer (profitably) satisfied (Mercer Management Consulting, Jan 2002) addresses both of these areas from a consumer prospective.

You can still use the examples from the original report, but here is a summary that teaches you how to keep profitable customers satisfied.

1. Finding the satisfaction that matters. What areas of the entire customer experience does the customer choose as keys to repurchase? Survey your customers to determine which of those areas are most important to them as a factor of repurchase, not general opinion. There is a big different between what a person wants, and what they are willing to purchase.
2. New insights from old research. What is it that you already know about customers that can contribute to key factors of experience? Look for areas that when changed influenced revenue directly. By looking at older research for the factors that influence repurchase, you'll gain new insights previously overlooked.
3. Tailoring for different customer groups. How do different customer segment see keys to repurchase? Some customers are willing to pay a premium for small improvements in the areas the influence their repurchase, while others won't pay more no matter what you do. Use segmentation strategies to extract those more profitable customers.
4. Acting on insights. How should you use these new insights of which aspects of customer satisfaction drive customers' repurchase behavior? Improve one influencing area at a time and measure it against revenue, look for those factors that increase revenue, customer satisfaction, and repurchase behavior. Testing will take time, but will produce a greater return on investment over any other method.

After you make your first iteration, repeat these four steps to reinforce repurchase behaviors and improve customer satisfaction in a profitable sustainable manner.

Cutting costs isn't the only way to increase profits, blind cuts often hurt customer satisfaction. Before you consider any initiatives, look at what influences customer influences customer repurchase, improve on these areas and have more satisfied customers.

/ customer-service | profitable-customers /

By Justin Hitt at November 30, 2003 11:01 AM  Subscribe in a reader