Tag: Customer Strategy

Get Rid of Lackluster Sales Results Once and For All!

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

Many business owners struggle with sales. Perhaps you’re one of them?

Let’s face it, not all entrepreneurs realized when they started their business venture that selling would be such a critical skill for them to grow their business, agency, or practice. If you’ve recently encountered a sales slowdown, what should you do?  Should you start posting or advertising on the en-vogue social media platform of the month?  It’s safe to say that’s probably not going to be your long-term solution.

That being said, what are your options?

While many will likely steer you down one path or another (usually the social media and/or expensive advertising route) without really attempting to diagnose and understand the root cause of your current sales decline, I’d like to provide you with a time-tested 28 question framework to identify your sales process bottlenecks and substantially enhance your sales close rates.

Many of my small business clients come to me frustrated or stressed out over their sporadic lead flow and unsteady and even declining sales results.  Sometimes these business challenges are connected.  Sometimes they are not.  For instance, some entrepreneurs are tremendous at finding leads, but they struggle to convert them into sales.  Others are relatively great closers, but they lag behind on getting qualified leads into their pipeline.

To assess and elevate your sales performance, walk through the questionnaire below.  I assure you this is not an exercise that will immediately conclude that your only option to succeed is to be an aggressive, in-your-face by the book sales closer.  As you’ll soon see, this is quite the contrary.  Moreover, this framework does not favor more new-school tech-savvy entrepreneurs that can easily create high-converting sales funnels.  Nor was it created for old-school business owners who can sell with the best of ‘em in person, but are very hesitant to jump into the Digital Age.   Rather, this approach is predicated on my internationally proven and proprietary Client Connect!™  formula, which is all about cultivating deeper relationships with your prospects, clients, and strategic partners and mastering and leveraging your financials so you can work less and make more!

Let’s dive in and commence the diagnostic to address your lackluster sales results based on your unique situation:

Lead generation

How many outbound dials/emails/messages/connections do you make every month? – Leads and customers are the lifeblood of your business.  The lack of leads is a huge demoralizer for any business owner, especially the ones that are in their infant stages.  After all, leads don’t just magically appear.  You have to relentlessly take action every day to increase your lead flow and get your top prospects closer to becoming a client. 

How many leads per month do you generate and what is the source? – Don’t merely count your lead flow.  Also, be sure to rate the quality of each lead and track how they were obtained (e.g. website, landing page, social media site, referral, networking, cold call, etc.).  Having these insights will allow you to maximize your time and effort on the outreach activities with the biggest ROI.

How many lead qualification and discovery calls per month do you book? – Unqualified leads are just that, unqualified.  It’s important to know and understand your numbers on how long it typically takes to qualify a lead and convert it into a prospect.                                 

How many demos, presentations, or proposals per month do you provide? – As your leads become interested prospects, how many of them received demos, presentations, and/or official bids, and how many went on to become paying clients? 

How many sales per month do you close on average? – More importantly, based on the preceding questions, what lead generation activity is needed to win a client?  Until you are in tune with this data, you will not have a reliable blueprint to create and forecast predictable, steady cash flow.  Saying you want to make $10k, $20k, or $50k per month is not sufficient.  You need to be aware of how many calls it takes to find a lead, and from there, how many more meetings and steps you need to go through in your sales funnel to eventually close the sale.  Know your numbers!

Lead qualification and nurturing

Have you clearly defined your target market? – A rapid-fire, yet thought-provoking discovery process is a great way to effectively and efficiently qualify your leads.  Remember, many markets are overlooked and underserved.  The deeper and more narrow your niche the better.  As much as you might not want to, particularly right after launching your startup, you have to be so crystal clear on your ideal target client that you are willing to disqualify and even walk away from some deals.  Doing so will separate tire-kickers from serious prospects, reduce “no decisions”, and speed up your sales cycle.

Do you have distinct nurturing automated email drip campaigns in place? – It’s necessary to have separate campaigns consistently dripping on your new prospects, longer-term prospects, and existing clients.

Sales conversions

Do you document and maintain an inventory of the most common sales objections that you receive? – This is one of the best exercises you can ever do as an entrepreneur, particularly when you are just starting out!  Practice really does make perfect in this case.  Put in the reps and simulate the objection handling conversation so you don’t sound robotic (and rehearsed).  If you view objections as buying signals rather than frustrating, insurmountable boulders, you’ll find that you’ll welcome them, and, in turn, have more informed, productive discussions that lead to more sales. After all, that’s what you want, right?

Do you have a consistent sales conversion and follow-up playbook and do you quickly pivot to an efficient client onboarding process? – The best way to get off to a good start with your clientele is to immediately welcome them aboard and promptly explain and execute the next steps for them to receive and benefit from your product or be able to take advantage of your services and see the money they just invested begin paying off for them. Any delay in the onboarding process will result in the emergence of buyer’s remorse and lead to unnecessary client conflict and tension from the outset.  Don’t let this happen to you!  Once you win a deal, express your gratitude, over-communicate, and aggressively service their account so that they will not just be a customer but rather a client for life!

What do you do that very few or no one else is doing to make you stand out during the sales cycle? – For example, do you mail hand-written thank you notes or educational articles with personalized messages to your clients?  Or do you record and send quick Loom or Dubb video messages to help you bond and connect more deeply with your prospects?

Sales opportunity pipeline tracking and analytics

Do you diligently track and analyze your sales opportunity pipeline? – Leveraging a CRM can save you time, streamline and automate your sales processes, and deliver actionable insights on the health of your pipeline, your client/stakeholder relationships, and your business overall.

Do you forecast your sales opportunity revenue amounts and probability to close? – Even if you’re a solopreneur, do this activity at the same time every week and emulate being the Global Sales Director of a Fortune 500 company.  Contrary to what many entrepreneurs think, there are advantages to the corporate world, including many of their rigorous and recurring sales pipeline review meetings.  Stop playing small ball!  Put structure in your days, be on top of your numbers, commit to data analytics, and better position yourself for reliable, recurring revenue streams.

Do you track your month-to-date (MTD), quarter-to-date (QTD), and year-to-date (YTD) sales target to goal results? – Don’t stop there, though.  Go next level and also track month-over-month (MOM), quarter-over-quarter (QOQ), and year-over-year (YOY) trends as well.

What is the duration of your typical sales cycle? – Through your analysis, you may notice that there is a certain segment you serve that usually has a shorter sales cycle compared to others.  If so, and assuming you’re not sacrificing profits to achieve this result, go all-in on that segment!  What are you waiting for?  Do it now!

Who are your most profitable strategic partners? – It’s critical to spend as much time as you should with the referral sources that repeatedly send you leads exactly matching your ideal target customer and that convert into clients that pay, stay, and refer.

Do you know why you win deals? – Over time, as more sales come in, you will discover the one result or outcome that your customers are looking for when they purchase your products, enroll in your program, or invest in your services.  This key finding should be leveraged to drive and refine future marketing messaging and sales efforts to amplify your sales results even more.

Do you know why you lose deals? – Be sure to track which competitors you lose deals to and the reason(s) why so you can be more prepared to compete with them and prevent their erosion of your market share.

Have you ever thought about how your product/service/solution may actually complement your competitors’ offerings? – Very few do this.  Keep in mind you probably are not the only one that lacks bandwidth or is overworked, struggling to come up for air, and operating at capacity.  As odd as it sounds, strategic alliances can be formed in which larger companies pass along deals to smaller competitors in the same space.  Plus, a prospect may express that what you offer is redundant or identical to what they are already using and paying.  In reality, if you probe and dig deeper, you’ll often find that is not the case.

How many of your sales come from online vs. offline? – Industry leaders have a blend of both and are not solely dependent on one over the other. Are you?

What is your top producing sales channel? –  It’s imperative to constantly monitor and analyze the percentage of overall sales that come from each channel or medium.  Again, a diversified revenue stream is the go-to model for best-in-class companies.

Sales renewals and repurchases

How long on average does your client stay with you? – Increasing your average client lifetime value (CLV) should be at the heart of all your customer-driven growth strategies.

How many products/services do your client family members typically own? – Note that the higher the number, the longer they stay with you!

Do you know what the next best product/service is for your client? – Everyone on your staff should know this, not just you as the business owner.

What percentage of your revenue comes from new clients vs. existing clients vs. former clients? – A great way to better serve your client base, deepen those relationships, and ultimately aggressively grow revenues is to implement a formalized cross-sell and upsell program.  Another highly effective, yet underutilized way to revitalize your sales and get some quick wins is via a “former customer reactivation program.”  Provided they left you previously on good terms, any stale or prior customer relationships can be reactivated and even expanded much more easily, quickly, and cost-effectively than trying to find a new client.

Do you segment your opportunities and clients and focus most of your time cultivating relationships and exceeding the expectations of your most profitable ‘tier 1’ accounts and deal pursuits? – Prioritize your to-do’s that bring in new clients or preserve existing clients, particularly the more profitable ones. Follow this guiding principle if you want to scale your business.

Do you proactively forecast and prepare for client renewals? – If you don’t, your competitors are ready to pounce and poach your beloved clients. Don’t let this happen to you!

Sales enablement and simplification

Do you invest in sales training? – It’s vital that your sales team adheres to the same sales methodology.  Your sales operating model and process needs to not only be standardized but also as simple as possible for all parties involved from sales support to inside sales to outside sales to sales management.  Compared to twenty years ago, it’s much easier to coach up and train your sales force.  Always encourage underperformers to read books or watch videos on how to improve their selling skills and sales delivery.

Have you ever had an independent business growth advisor assess your current state marketing, sales, and client service process? – He or she can share leading practices for your industry to standardize and simplify your workflows and improve your business performance.

So how did you do?

Did you identify immediate areas of improvement? If so, which of these breakthroughs will you act on to boost your sales and ignite the launch and expansion of your business?

Contact RevSherpas to help turn around your sales, accelerate your revenue growth, and elevate your small business to the next level TODAY!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Revealed! How and Why to Improve Employee Engagement in Your Workplace!

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

It’s been a full year for a lot of us working from home. In the beginning, it was all new and exciting and unusual, and we weren’t sure what to make of it. But a year later? Many of us are worn out by the dual-duty that we’ve been doing, especially if we have kids or other family members at home with us. And it can be hard to keep working without connecting in person with your co-workers. There were lunches and meetings and other times to look forward to.

Unfortunately, that’s led to a reduction in engagement, and employees who are not as engaged are not as productive or loyal. Even before the pandemic, only about one-third of employees described themselves as engaged. But companies with engaged employees have a better per-share price than their competitors. What can you do about it and why should you care? This graphic from Ten Spot explains it.

What Does Employee Engagement Look Like in the New Normal Workplace?

Stop letting disengaged employees and high turnover impede your company’s progress and performance!

CONTACT US to learn how the management consulting services of RevSherpas can transform your culture and increase employee engagement and staff productivity so you can better serve the demanding needs of your growing client base and execute change and your backlog of strategic initiatives at a much faster rate.

Is Your Target Customer Crystal Clear?

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

The purpose of today’s blog is to expound upon why it’s so important for your business to clearly identify your target customer, and how it will enable you to build the business you’ve always dreamed of having.

Image by QuinceCreative via Pixabay

Your target customer is the customer who shares your passion for your product or service. These are customers who want what you offer… instead of just need what you offer. They don’t just use your product or service, they love it. They don’t just purchase what you sell; they actually feel they couldn’t live without it.

Your target customer will result in fewer returns and complaints. They’re thrilled with you and your business. They buy from you today, and they’ll keep buying from you tomorrow. They’ll demand you create additional products and services for them to buy… since they trust you and know you have their best interests at heart. They’ll tell their friends and family all about you and encourage them to do business with you.

Perhaps best of all, they’ll spend more money with you over their lifetime than your average customer will. Your target customers will provide your business with tons of referrals… and they’ll offer you unsolicited testimonials. They’ll post their praise about you and your business on social networking sites… which garners you free publicity.

When you identify your target customer, you find yourself loving what you do. The end result is you begin to work less and start earning more—a lot more. This exponentially impacts your business long term. It positively impacts all future products or services you develop. It impacts the customer service that your clients receive. Plus, it impacts all of your marketing and sales efforts, especially when you begin to develop your marketing materials and sales scripts.

In closing, knowing and understanding exactly who your target market and target customer are plays a vital role in building a successful business.

For even more proven small business marketing and sale tips and insights, be sure to also connect and stay in touch with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Protect Your Brand and Preserve Your Reputation or Else!

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, small businesses must be quicker, more agile, and far more creative to adapt, respond, and effectively meet customers’ ever-changing preferences and demands. Customers and prospects of the Digital Information Age are more knowledgeable than ever before. Unfortunately, customers are also more fickle, too. 

Did you know that an unsatisfied customer will tell 9 to 15 people about her bad, frustrating experience?  

One can only imagine how that number has increased exponentially as a result of the world’s newfound addiction to the social networking phenomenon…As you’re reading this blog, you better not have any of your social media sites also open! 

On a more serious note, be sure to turn off all your social media notifications if you haven’t already – they can be a huge distraction and time-suck!  You’re better than that and it’s time to focus (by the way, you only have 158 words left to read here)! 

As I was saying, the rampant sharing of a horrendous shopping experience or an unpleasant customer service encounter on social networking sites can instantly tarnish a firm’s reputation. Repeat offenders that constantly receive negative survey results or have angry, colorful diatribes hurled in their direction in chat rooms will certainly lose customers and market share.

By constantly updating and tracking customer interactions in a centralized CRM throughout all of its locations, small businesses should be able to better serve customers and respond more quickly to their questions, concerns, and suggestions. Thus, companies can mitigate the risk and likelihood of a viral smear campaign and maintain and even improve their reputation that they have worked so hard to uphold in the marketplace.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett said it best:

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Will you start to do things differently?

Your Brand’s Extinction May Be Closer Than You Think

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

You may have seen recently that Elon Musk’s Tesla will be joining the S&P 500 by the end of the year.  This announcement reminded me of a pivotal Executive Briefing that I had read entitled Creative Destruction Whips Through Corporate America by Innosight, a leading consulting firm focused on global strategy and innovation. 

This report came to mind because it reveals that the average lifespan of companies in the large-cap S&P 500 Index is significantly shrinking:

As far back as 1964, the average tenure of firms in the S&P was 33 years. Recently in 2016, that number shortened to just 24 years and it is predicted to shrink to just 12 years by 2027. Furthermore, Innosight’s research goes on to assert that 50% of the current companies traded in the S&P will be supplanted by 2027 if this current churn rate and turnover continue to accelerate. 

Evidently, large firms (really, firms of all sizes) need to take action and avoid the corporate hubris trap or they face the risk of severely underperforming, falling behind, and having their brand no longer be relevant.  

𝘎𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴

Where to Aim First if Your Market Share is Declining

No one wants to see their brand lose ground quickly or even get completely swept away by younger, hipper, and hungrier upstart competitors.

To prevent their demise and loss of market share, organizations need to become more in tune with their customers’ needs and more agile to improve the customer experience and enhance service levels.

Investing in a leading-edge CRM platform, that is scalable, flexible, and highly intuitive, is a great place to kick start this transformation and strategic initiative.

How CRM Can Help

Armed with a centralized CRM solution will improve the firm’s knowledge of its clients, prospects, and partners, thereby allowing deeper bonds to be forged. Having such a comprehensive 360-degree understanding of all existing and potential customers plus key strategic stakeholders will empower employees across the enterprise to make quicker, more informed decisions. The result will be a more collaborative environment in which marketing, sales, and service associates communicate more effectively and efficiently. Finding it easier to connect with clients and co-workers, employees will become more united, more engaged, more accountable, and more willing to go the extra mile to provide a unique, differentiated level of service that will lead to more satisfied and loyal customers, which in turn will generate more referrals.

With CRM, the company will spend less time struggling to find info to resolve client issues and complaints and more time segmenting, targeting, and closing higher-margin customers with much higher lifetime values to the firm. Moreover, CRM’s robust pipeline forecasting capabilities will help identify top-selling products/services and trending customer demands/requests. These real-time sales analytics tools will provide the insights and actionable intelligence necessary to not only shorten sales cycles and increase revenue but also enable the firm to make the necessary adjustments to overcome apparent product gaps or upcoming sales downturns.

All in all, CRM will serve as the framework and foundation for your client intelligence. With better organizational coordination and more command of customer info, CRM will become the growth driver of the firm. Plus, it will become much easier to thwart off rising stalwarts, maintain brand relevance, sustain one’s leadership and market share positions, and even avoid extinction.

Are you losing ground to competitors and experiencing a surge in client defections?

Are your sales and service teams handcuffed by lack of client intel, operational bottlenecks, and manual, inefficient processes?

Do you have a brand obscurity problem?

Don’t risk becoming further irrelevant or even extinct…CONTACT US to speak with one of our tenured turnaround specialists or seasoned strategic marketing consultants.

High-Quality Customer Experiences Equals Higher Stock Returns!

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

The CFI Group, an Ann Arbor, MI think tank focused on customer satisfaction and feedback analytics, occasionally releases research findings showing that the level of a publicly-traded company’s customer satisfaction directly correlates to the firm’s stock price. For one of its studies, the CFI Group managed and tracked a portfolio of stocks based on their performance in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and the National Customer Satisfaction Index UK (NCSI-UK). The portfolio results were then compared to the benchmark S&P 500 in the case of U.S. companies and the FTSE 100 for firms in the United Kingdom.   

Overall, their research found that the top companies on the ACSI and NCSI-UK, which represented the ones with the highest customer satisfaction scores, significantly outperformed their competitors and the overall stock market.

Key conclusions from the report are highlighted below:

  • The ACSI portfolio of U.S. companies returned 390% vs. the S&P 500 return of -7% (from April 2000 to April 2012)
  • The NSCI portfolio of UK companies returned 59% vs. the FTSE 100 return of -6% (from April 2007 to June 2011)

As Claes Fornell, the CFI Group and ACSI founder and University of Michigan professor, states:

“Companies with highly satisfied customers generate superior returns because customer satisfaction is critical for repeat business, and that type of business is usually very profitable. That is, loyal customers tend to be highly profitable as long as their loyalty comes from their satisfaction and not because prices are low.”

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

On a related and more recent note, Watermark Consulting, a customer experience consultancy, analyzed the stock market performance of the Top 10 Leaders and Top 10 Laggards in Forrester Research’s Customer Experience Index compared to the broader S&P 500 Index from 2007 to 2017.  

Their significant findings include:

  • The total cumulative return of the Customer Experience Leaders portfolio was nearly three times higher than the Laggards (183.8% vs. 63.1%).
  • The total cumulative return of the Customer Experience Leaders portfolio was 45 points higher than the S&P 500 (183.8% vs. 138.7%).
  • The total cumulative return of the Customer Experience Laggards portfolio was almost 76 points lower than the S&P 500 (63.1% vs. 138.7%).

It’s indisputable that companies investing in improving their overall customer experience are being rewarded by not just their customers, but also their shareholders.

Not to be outdone, another study over an even longer time frame came to the same conclusion.  In this case, Fortune with the help of FTSE Russell, a global money manager and institutional consultant, discovered that companies named to the Fortune annual “Best Companies to Work For” list, typically “demonstrate stronger financial performance, reduced turnover, and better customer and patient satisfaction than their peers.”  

In fact, the outperformance is quite substantial when comparing the annual returns from 1998 to 2016:  

  • An equal weighted index of the top 100 companies to work for on the Fortune list returned 11.66% annually which was almost 5% higher than two other key benchmarks over the same stretch:
    • The Russell 3000 Index, a U.S. all cap benchmark, returned just 6.72%.  
    • The Russell 1000 Index, a U.S. large cap benchmark, returned only 6.68%.

It’s clear that companies with more satisfied customers tend to outperform the stock market, while companies with disloyal and frustrated customers typically underperform the broader stock market.

The first step to enhancing customer experience quality in order to boost customer satisfaction is to better understand the needs of one’s customers. 

It is safe to assume that the companies with high customer experience scores currently leverage a leading flexible and scalable CRM platform to track customer preferences, patterns, and purchasing history in order to:

  • Deliver more targeted messaging
  • Respond quicker to customer requests
  • Streamline customer interaction touchpoints
  • Improve client satisfaction levels
  • Consistently provide a better and unique customer experience

Customer experience leaders and pioneers have happier, trusting clients that are less sensitive to price and far easier to service. Their greater loyalty leads to more referrals, higher retention rates, and expansion of client wallet share. All of these benefits result in higher revenues, lower acquisition costs, increased earnings, and ultimately a boost in company stock prices.

To sum up, having a clear, effective customer experience strategy driven by highly engaged employees and a robust, centralized CRM system can transform your firm from a product-centric to a client-centric culture in route to elevating your customer service and outperforming not only your competition, but also the stock market overall.

Ready to innovate your employee and customer experience and improve your financial performance?   

CONTACT US today to speak with one of our customer experience strategists and profit acceleration advisors about how we can take your business or practice to the next level.

Only 30% of Your Workers are Engaged – Really!?!

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

Every couple of years, Gallup releases its State of the American Workplace annual report on trends in the U.S. working population.  The report places a particular emphasis on employee engagement and it highlights that in order to have engaged customers, companies first must engage their employees. According to Gallup, this is proving to be extremely challenging in businesses of all sizes across America…On that note, we’d love to see a more recent version of this report that accounts for the fact that so many employees now work from the comfort of their home due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Key findings from Gallup reveal:

  • Employee disengagement costs American businesses between $483 to $605 billion per year.
  • Nearly 70% of the American workforce is considered to be disengaged (in other words, only 3 out of your 10 employees are fully engaged at their jobs – YIKES!)
  • Disconnected, underperforming firms in the bottom quartile of employee engagement severely lag their more actively engaged top quartile peers as they experience:
    • 22% lower profitability
    • 21% lower productivity
    • 10% lower customer satisfaction
    • 41% higher defects
    • 25% higher employee turnover

Say it ain’t so!  Such apathetic employees negatively influence co-workers and damage client relationships to destroy company performance.

Whatever happened to the days of maximum collaboration, frequent communication, and tight camaraderie at the company foosball or ping-pong table?  If you’ve ever grinded at a start-up, you know what I’m talking about!

Photo by Proxyclick Visitor Management System on Unsplash

So the question becomes, how can you as a business owner or executive overcome employee disengagement and improve financial and business results?

Well, the business growth advisory and customer experience strategy consulting practice and research team of RevSherpas finds that industry leaders are choosing to equip their staff with superior Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology and simplify, standardize, and streamline their core business development, sales conversion, client onboarding, ongoing marketing communication outreach, customer service, and client retention processes.

Serving as the centralized data hub, knowledge repository, and business intelligence tool of the organization, CRM provides a clear, comprehensive picture of client, prospect, and partner relationships for all employees, regardless of their role in the front, middle, or back office.

Compared to the 1990s and even 2010s, you’ll be amazed at how many high-quality, low-cost, and easy to implement CRM solutions there now are that are exclusively built for small to mid-sized businesses.

Furthermore, CRM empowers all employees to harness the necessary insights to foster more efficient information sharing and more effective decision making in order to exceed client expectations and deliver optimal levels of service. With CRM, administrative search time and costs are reduced, as employees know where to go to get answers. Plus, no one wants to be known as the individual whose missing key client interaction notation resulted in the sales team being unprepared in route to botching a huge deal. Therefore, employees develop a greater sense of ownership, pride, and accountability in updating CRM and leveraging it as a productivity and performance enhancer.

As employees become more engaged with CRM, customers will certainly begin to notice the elevation in client service levels. In particular, customers will notice how the employees they interact with are much more focused, committed, and responsive compared to the competition. In a nutshell, a more engaged workforce at all customer touchpoints leads to a more engaged, loyal client base that is more likely to make repeat purchases, promote the firm’s brand in the marketplace, and actively send referrals to significantly grow revenues.

“RevSherpas…Client Focused. Elevated Results.” 

Yes, that’s our motto, but the secret to customer-driven growth and delivering a world-class, differentiated customer experience that many firms repeatedly ignore is that your employees need to be locked in, fully engaged, and fired up to go to work and serve your client base every day.  The reality is that without efficient business processes in place, your employee engagement will stagnate, and thus your deals won and customer service will suffer as well.

After all, happy, motivated employees = happy customers!

If you’re a small business owner struggling with increases in employee disengagement or staff turnover, let’s talk and devise a gameplan before your client service levels and market share erode even further!

*** Let’s commit to one another ASAP that our respective firms will not be one of the companies going forward where only 30% of our staff is focused and engaged at work!  That is absolutely unacceptable and not what our increasingly demanding clients, partners, and investors deserve! ***

Please leave a comment below if you concur.

 

Provide 5-Star Service and Optimize Customer Delight with RevSherpas

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

What if I told you that consumers will tell 16 people about subpar service encounters?… Conversely, they will inform only nine others about positive, memorable customer service experiences.

Did you know that consumers value quality customer service so much that they will pay more to receive it?… In fact, 70% indicated they would spend 13% more on average with businesses that deliver stellar service.  As you can see, higher customer satisfaction levels lead to more spending!

Are you aware that 78% have canceled a transaction or taken their business elsewhere upon encountering negative, frustrating customer service?… If it wasn’t obvious already, consumers will indeed rebel with their wallets and then proceed to influence and persuade many others to avoid those lackluster establishments as well.

These findings and more originated from the American Express® Global Customer Service Barometer reports on consumer sentiment concerning the state of customer service in America… Pretty interesting survey findings, right?

It’s clear that customer experience can profoundly impact client acquisition, engagement, and retention.  Although this research study is typically targeted towards individuals, it is safe to say that the same attitudes and preferences on customer service hold true in the B2B world as well.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Companies that differentiate themselves from the competition by providing superior customer service will earn repeat business from clients and begin to receive more referrals. On the other hand, customers that do not consistently deliver positive and meaningful customer experiences will suffer instant client churn and defections and lose drastic revenue.

Based on our ten plus years of experience in working on high-priority, high-profile customer experience management strategic initiatives for rapidly growing small businesses and global financial institutions, our client results match up with the findings of American Express.  By continually measuring, monitoring, and improving the customer experience, firms can be more in tune with evolving service preferences and provide better service to their high-value clients and outperform their competition.

If you are looking to considerably improve your customer retention rates, response times to customer inquiries, customer lifetime values (LTV), and customer satisfaction rates year in and year out, RevSherpas can help.

The RevSherpas Customer Experience Strategy Consulting Services Suite:

  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Readiness Assessments
  • CRM RFP Vendor Selection, ROI, and Business Case Formulation
  • Digital Customer Experience (CX) Transformation Strategic Roadmaps
  • Sales and Marketing Current State Audits
  • Customer Journey Mapping and Future State Process Improvement
  • Market Dominating Brand Positioning and Lead Generation Maximization
  • Account Segmentation and Pricing Optimization
  • Client Retention/Reactivation Strategies
  • Voice-of-the-Customer (VoC) Feedback Surveys and Analysis
  • Memorable “Wow” Customer Experience Design
  • Employee Engagement Assessments and Organizational Change Management

Due to our extensive CRM and revenue growth acceleration consulting background, we’ve developed a solid understanding of the complex challenges facing inundated business owners in today’s extremely volatile economy and highly competitive landscape. We’ve seen firsthand how the prevalent use of flawed, ineffective marketing tactics, cumbersome sales pipeline opportunity tracking tools, and the overreliance on decentralized client data stifles the operational efficiency, decision-making velocity, and growth of many businesses across a multitude of industries.

Luckily for small to mid-sized businesses, the recent onslaught of technological innovations and improvements in mobile, cloud computing, P2P payment systems, artificial intelligence, and robotics has made streamlining and automating core marketing, sales, customer engagement, and service activities easier and more affordable than ever before!

In fact, many sophisticated prospecting, lead tracking, sales pipeline management, and marketing autoresponder solutions that were previously only available at the larger enterprise level for Fortune 500 corporations and leading global brands are now accessible to everyone, including both established and aspiring, hungry business owners, such as yourself.

Let us show you how to set up systems in as little as sixty days that increase your client retention, repeat purchases, renewals, referrals, and revenue without having to spend a dime on marketing or hiring a team of 20 high-priced management consultants!

Please call (800)569-1374 or email Sales@RevSherpas.com if you would like to further vet, evaluate, and candidly discuss how we can quickly elevate your service levels to stand out from their competition.

We are committed to empower and enable local, mission-driven businesses to exponentially outperform in any economy and avoid brand extinction.

Will yours be next?

Stellar Service Is Vital To Your Success (“Same As It Ever Was”)

Posted on by Kevin Wessels

Recently, we came across an excellent inventory of Customer Service Quotes from legendary business leaders, past and present.  Thank you to Salesforce for capturing and compiling these quotes.  It’s rare to find so many solid quotes consolidated together on a business strategy so near and dear to our hearts.

As CRM strategists and customer experience improvement and innovation experts, the RevSherpas consulting practice is passionate about delivering optimal service to our clients.  Moreover, during our client engagements, we always underscore the importance of providing unrivaled customer service to reduce churn, increase satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately grow revenues.

While other consultants and coaches typically try to convince you to utilize the latest social media shiny object tactic of the day, we’re far more into cultivating deeper relationships with your prospects, clients, and referral sources. 

It’s much more effective and just makes more business sense.  After all, our motto in our logo does say, “Client Focused.  Elevated Results.”

What’s interesting is that many of the quotes and points of view that were established in the 1800s are still valid today.  In fact, they are so legit that they serve as the fundamentals of how to effectively grow and scale a business even now.

To begin, let’s take a look at some of our favorite quotes from the pioneers of Retail.

“THE OLD SCHOOL”

Marshal Field, founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores:

“The customer is always right.”

“Assume that the customer is right until it is plain beyond all question he is not.”

“Give the lady what she wants.”

“Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge, American-British retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges:

“Honesty always pays.”

“People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.”

“Get the confidence of the public and you will have no difficulty in getting their patronage.”

“Treat [the customer] as guests when they come and when they go, whether or not they buy.”

John Wanamaker, founder of department stores, including Philadelphia-based Wanamaker’s; Also, invented the price tag and was the first merchant to utilize advertising agencies:

“When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king.”

“Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.”

“Courtesies cannot be borrowed like snow shovels; you must have some of your own.”

Again, many of the above quotes were declared by individuals born in the 1830s and 1850s!  Yet, their philosophies still hold up and are applicable in the present environment…they’re really the “SAME AS IT EVER WAS!”

https://www.amazon.com/Same-Ever-Was-Talking-Heads/dp/B0028G1OU4

To balance out the “old school” perspectives, we also wanted to share some fascinating quotes on the importance of customer service from current CEOs and business leaders representing the “new school” as seen below.

“THE NEW SCHOOL”

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and philanthropist:

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Dr. Gary P. Hamel, founder of Strategos, a management consulting firm:

“Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It’s the only insurance against irrelevance. It’s the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty…It doesn’t matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is—what matters is its relative ‘share of customer value’ in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value.”

Elon Musk, founder/CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company, among many other companies (does he ever sleep?):

“I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.”

Jeff Bezos, founder/CEO of Amazon:

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos; Previously was co-founder of LinkExchange:

“We take most of the money that we could have spent on paid advertising and instead put it back into the customer experience. Then we let the customers be our marketing.”

Joseph Jaffe, consultant and thought leader on growth, marketing, and innovation:

“Customer Service is everything and anything that touches a customer – directly or indirectly. Customer service means servicing customers, and it’s so much more than just solving problems or addressing complaints. Customer service is part of a holistic customer experience that is capable of providing a critical competitive advantage in today’s increasingly cluttered and commoditized marketplace.”

Larry Page, co-founder of Google:

“We have a mantra: don’t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone.”

Marc Benioff, founder/Chairman/CEO of Salesforce:

“The future of communicating with customers rests in engaging with them through every possible channel: phone, e-mail, chat, Web, and social networks. Customers are discussing a company’s products and brand in real time. Companies need to join the conversation.”

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group:

“Setting customer expectations at a level that is aligned with consistently deliverable levels of customer service requires that your whole staff, from product development to marketing, works in harmony with your brand image.”

Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club:

“There is only one boss – the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

Seymour Fine, marketing expert:

“When a customer complains, he is doing you a special favor; he is giving you another chance to serve him to his satisfaction. You will appreciate the importance of this opportunity when you consider that the customer’s alternative option was to desert you for a competitor.”

Shep Hyken, customer service expert:

“True loyalty doesn’t come because of an app. It doesn’t come because you have a punch card where after ten punches you get a free sandwich. It is about the relationship. Take away those “perks” and would the customer still be loyal?”

Steve Jobs, co-founder/Chairman/CEO of Apple:

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”

Walt Disney, founder of The Disney Company, animation pioneer, and film producer:

“Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.”

Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker and sales trainer:

“Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.”

These customer service philosophies are truly time-tested and they should be at the cornerstone of your digital customer experience transformation strategic initiatives. Any company in the midst of becoming more client-focused and shifting from a product-centric to a client-centric mindset to better serve its customer base can likely utilize many of these famous quotes as the guiding principles for the changing of their company culture.

As for your company, are you in need of assistance in designing and revamping your customer experience and CRM strategy?

Have your service levels been declining and running into frequent bottlenecks and backlogs lately?

Have you been experiencing high customer turnover of late?

If so, it’s probably time to simplify, standardize, and improve your client service operations!  Please email Hello@RevSherpas.com to request an initial discovery and strategy consultation.

Lastly, we encourage you to leave a comment below to let us know what your most-liked quote in this article is or if you have another favorite customer service, CRM, or customer experience management quote not listed here. 

Thanks!