As we collectively try to gain visibility to what is happening in the marketplace, the following contains some good basic reminders of necessary requirements to survive in the marketplace today. I’d love to hear about how your company has implemented some of the ideas below and how that has helped your organization succeed.
No doubt as the recession takes hold companies are at risk to lose more customers than new ones coming in.
The problem: If you don’t invest in keeping and developing your existing clients – especially in tough times – then it’s more than likely that your business will decline.
You’re no doubt familiar with the mantra that states that it costs about 5 times more to bring in a new customer than to sell to existing customers.
So the question is what are you doing to communicate with your customers? Do you have a structured customer development program to upsell, cross sell and above all manage your relationships in such a way to make sure these customers – whom you’ve already spent a long of money acquiring – from walking?
Here are some ideas you may want to focus on:
1. Establish a systematic, formal process to cultivate and grow high potential accounts
2. Create a schedule to “touch” key accounts regularly
o Build variable schedule based upon account potential not current value of the relationship
3. Develop a strategy to manage marginal accounts those that cannot be effectively managed by the sales force
o Outsource is one way to go
4. Raise awareness of new products and services
5. Under promise – over deliver
