Corporate Ghettos

When the personality of an organization breaks up, individuals develop their own cult following. A reaction common to many organizations is the establishment of corporate ghettos, where individuals gather together in the absence of proper leadership to form informal but fiercely defensive groups.

These separate ghettos become the mainstay of internal communication and loyalty switches from the organization to the ghetto. All socializing and as much working contact as possible is restricted to other members of the ghetto.

Ghettos can have amazing influence on the lives of all concerned and in time come to dominate the entire culture and effectiveness of an organization.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Core Values

The professional and the institution for which the professional works should compile a relatively brief list of core values. These are values that help determine what the priorities are and how one aspires to act. Ten core ethical values are described:

1. Honesty (truth telling, candid, openness)
2. Integrity (act on convictions, courageous, advocacy, leadership by example)
3. Promise keeping (fulfilling the spirit of commitment)
4. Fidelity (loyalty, confidentiality)
5. Fairness (justice, equal treatment, diversity, independence)
6. Caring (compassion, kindness)
7. Respect (human dignity and uniqueness
8. Citizenship (respect for law, social consciousness)
9. Excellence (quality of work)
10. Accountability (responsibility, independence)

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Keeping Customers for Life

• Select the right customers through market research.
• Know your purpose for being in business.
• Move customers from satisfaction to loyalty by focusing on retention and loyalty schemes.
• Develop reward programs.
• Customize your products and services.
• Train and empower your employees in excellent customer service.
• Respond to customers’ needs with speed and efficiency.
• Measure what’s important to the customer – always add value.
• Know exactly what customers want in their relationship with you.
• Know why customers leave your enterprise by producing customer exit surveys.
• Conduct a failure analysis on your enterprise.
• Know your retention improvement measures – have a strategy in place.
• Use market value pricing concepts.
• Do what works all over again.

Remember:

96 percent of unhappy customers never complain; but if their problem remains unsolved, they usually tell ten other customers!

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Handling Challenging Situations

Challenging situations are critical moments during which customers can be satisfied or lost forever. When you handle dissatisfied customers well, you help retain business and customer goodwill; a successful recovery can even help build customer loyalty. It is important to be focused, personable, and sincere. Keep in mind that a customer’s strong language or angry words are not intended as a personal attack.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Beyond Customer Satisfaction

Satisfying the customer is no longer the ultimate business virtue. Companies need to look for ways to create and increase customer loyalty. The key to this new loyalty-centered approach to customer relationships is creating and managing the customer value package – the combination of factors (price, product quality, innovation, and company image) that creates what the customer perceives as superior value. Five steps are recommended:

1. Clearly define and communicate your objectives. The company needs to make sure that every stakeholder clearly understands the importance of  creating and delivering customer loyalty and knows how to make it possible.
2. Let customers define, in their own words, their criteria for quality, price, image, and value. The company needs to distinguish between basic requirements and loyalty builders. Meeting the basic requirements will get the company on the approved vendor list, but generating loyalty will encourage a customer to stick with the company during difficult times.
3. Conduct a critical need and value assessment. The company must set priorities among important customer requirements and determine the relative importance of these aspects of the customer value package.
4. Develop an action plan and move to implementation. This turns management of customer loyalty into a way of doing business. The company must make sure that the voice of the customer becomes the principle around which the business processes are organized.
5. Monitor the marketplace and organization results. Managing customer value is not a one-time effort, so all the loyalty-building components of customer value have to be monitored regularly with a focus on the relationship between customer value, customer loyalty, and financial performance.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Post-sale Customer Loyalty

Maintaining the loyalty of major current customers can be crucial for improving a business’s profitability as its markets mature. Loyal customers become more profitable over time. The firm not only avoids the high costs associated with acquiring a new customer, but it typically  benefits because loyal customers a) tend to concentrate their purchases, thus leading to larger volumes and lower selling  and distribution costs, b) provide positive word-of-mouth and customer referrals, and c) may be willing to pay premium prices for the value they receive.

Periodic measurement of customer satisfaction is important, then, because a dissatisfied customer is unlikely to remain loyal to a company over time. Unfortunately, however, the corollary is not always true. Customers who describe themselves as satisfied are not necessarily loyal. Indeed, 60 to 80 percent of customer defectors in most businesses are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” before their defection. In the interim, perhaps, competitors improved their offerings, the customers requirements changed, or other environmental factors shifted. Businesses that measure customer satisfaction should be commended, but urged not to stop there. Satisfaction measures need to be supplemented with examinations of customer behavior, such as measures of the annual retention rate, frequency for purchases, and the percentage of a customer’s total purchases captured by the firm.

Defecting customers should be studied in detail to discover why the firm failed to provide sufficient value to retain their loyalty. Such failures often provide more valuable information than satisfaction measures because they stand out as a clear, understandable message  telling the organization exactly where improvements are needed..

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Making Customers Feel Special

Everyone likes to feel appreciated. By taking the time to recognize their value and by communicating effectively, you can bolster customers’ self-esteem. When customers feel good about themselves as a result of something you did or said, they are likely to better appreciate what you and your organization can offer them. For example, as appreciation for long-time service, you may want to recognize customers as follows: “Mr. and Mrs. so and so, we really appreciate your loyalty. Our records indicate you’ve been a member for over 20 years. In recognition, my boss has asked me to present you with a complimentary weekend stay at ______ and two tickets to see the opening night of _____, along with a coupon for up to $50 toward dinner for two at ____. Please accept these with our compliments.” This type of strategy certainly goes a long way in guaranteeing future loyalty by your customers.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

The Personal Touch

• People like to buy from people
• You build a business one customer at a time, one purchase at a time
• Use the customer’s name in all written communication
• Courtesy, manners and politeness are keys to building trust, respect and loyalty
• Use names regularly in conversation
• Accommodate the customers special requests wherever possible (impossible is a subjective statement)
• The first sale you make is yourself
• Rapport is a skill that can be learnt
• No-verbal communication is the most important and quickest route to reaching people
• Get to know your customers—all of them
• One hundred percent attention at all times
• Make every customer feel like your most special customer (not your only customer)

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Designing Strategies

Corporate strategy shows how a complex organization achieves its mission, while the business strategy shows how each business within the corporation contributes to the corporate strategy. These strategies typically include decisions about shared values and beliefs; industries to work in; amount of diversification; businesses to start, acquire, close or sell; type of products to make; organizational structure; relations with customers, suppliers, shareholders and other stakeholders; geographical locations, and targets for long-term profitability, productivity, market share, etc.

Consider three factors while designing strategies:

1. The mission, which gives the overall aims and context for other decisions.
2. The business environment, which includes all factors that affect an organization but which it cannot control, such as:
   1. Customers—their expectations and attitudes;
   2. Market—size, location, and stability;
   3. Competitors—the number, ease of entry to the market, their strengths;
   4. Technology—currently available and likely developments;
   5. Shareholders—their objectives, returns on investment, profit levels;
   6. Other stakeholders—their objectives and amount of support;
   7. Legal restraints—trade restrictions, liability and employment laws;
   8. Political, economic and social conditions—including stability, rate of growth, inflation, etc.

The business environment is similar for all competing organizations, so to be successful you need a distinctive competence.

1. The distinctive competence, which includes the factors that set your organization apart from the competitors. If you can design new products very quickly, innovation is a part of your distinctive competence. A distinctive competence comes from your organization’s assets, which include:
   1. Customers—their demands, loyalty;
   2. Employees—skills, expertise, loyalty;
   3. Finances—capital, debt, cash flow;
   4. Products—quality, reputation, innovations;
   5. Facilities—capacity, age, value;
   6. Technology—currently used, planned;
   7. Suppliers—reliability, service;
   8. Marketing—experience, reputation;
   9. Resources—patents, ownership.

The strategic plans show how the organization can achieve the mission.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Designing Strategies

Corporate strategy shows how a complex organization achieves its mission, while the business strategy shows how each business within the corporation contributes to the corporate strategy. These strategies typically include decisions about shared values and beliefs; industries to work in; amount of diversification; businesses to start, acquire, close or sell; type of products to make; organizational structure; relations with customers, suppliers, shareholders and other stakeholders; geographical locations, and targets for long-term profitability, productivity, market share, etc.

Consider three factors while designing strategies:

1. The mission, which gives the overall aims and context for other decisions.
2. The business environment, which includes all factors that affect an organization but which it cannot control, such as:
   1. Customers—their expectations and attitudes;
   2. Market—size, location, and stability;
   3. Competitors—the number, ease of entry to the market, their strengths;
   4. Technology—currently available and likely developments;
   5. Shareholders—their objectives, returns on investment, profit levels;
   6. Other stakeholders—their objectives and amount of support;
   7. Legal restraints—trade restrictions, liability and employment laws;
   8. Political, economic and social conditions—including stability, rate of growth, inflation, etc.

The business environment is similar for all competing organizations, so to be successful you need a distinctive competence.

1. The distinctive competence, which includes the factors that set your organization apart from the competitors. If you can design new products very quickly, innovation is a part of your distinctive competence. A distinctive competence comes from your organization’s assets, which include:
   1. Customers—their demands, loyalty;
   2. Employees—skills, expertise, loyalty;
   3. Finances—capital, debt, cash flow;
   4. Products—quality, reputation, innovations;
   5. Facilities—capacity, age, value;
   6. Technology—currently used, planned;
   7. Suppliers—reliability, service;
   8. Marketing—experience, reputation;
   9. Resources—patents, ownership.

The strategic plans show how the organization can achieve the mission.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.