Curtis On...Are You Truly Serving Your Customers?
Curtis Bingham, Founder and Executive Director of the Chief Customer Officer Council, discusses how understanding what your customers truly value and serving them appropriately can have an impact on your bottom line.
Transcript for Curtis on...Are You Truly Serving Your Customers?
I'm Curtis Bingham and I'm the founder and the executive director of the Chief Customer Officer Council.
A couple of years ago, I was working with a financial services company to create a customer strategy. In doing a detailed analysis of a lot of their customers, I found that their highest-valued customers were being directed to all the self-service channels—the web access, the IVR systems, and other systems like this—whereas the lowest-valued customers were very meticulously served by a very expensive direct sales force.
It was clearly upside-down. It was high touch for those who didn't care about service and low touch for those who wanted it the very most.
We talk a lot of customer service, but are we really serving our customers?
If you go into a fast food restaurant, you don't expect to be seated by the maitre d’. Conversely, you don't expect a pimply gum-chewing kid to serve your fillet mignon in the most upscale restaurants.
Do we really know who our best customers are and what they value the most?
Research has proven that some of the most loyal customers can generate in between 5 and 35 percent greater revenue than other customers who are not as loyal. The key to loyalty is trust, and trust is generated when I feel like you know what I want, what I like, and what I need.
How can you really serve your customers and, thereby, generate greater revenue and profit?