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We are often asked how to develop and implement strategies for delivering
customer value. The most common tactics used are the basics of cross and upsell,
which are fine but they tend to be over used resulting in companies negatively
impacting their customer relationships.
In fact there are a wide a variety of strategies that can be used,
many ways to implement them and little need to just focus on cross
and up-sell. For instance a company can also deliver customer value
through down-sell and usage stimulation. Consider a Bank that instead
of sending more and more product sales offers, sends credit cards
customers increases in their there credit limit to stimulate usage.
The approach is even more effective if used in conjunction with strategies
that deliver customer value through a customer relationship building approach.
These customer retention strategies include;
- customer education of products purchased
- saving customers who indicate that they no longer want the product/service
- rewarding and recognizing customers for their ongoing business
- optimizing customer needs by helping them to change to the appropriate
products/services as the customer's needs change.
So which strategies do you select and which implementation is the most appropriate
for your organization? The secrets to developing strategies for delivering customer
value is in selecting combinations that give you synergistic impact on customer value.
For example, combining cross sell, upsell and customer education in one campaign.
This creates programmes that support and enhance the customer perception of your
organization and increase customer loyalty.
Key elements that form the foundation for developing and implementing a
combination of strategies that deliver customer value are:
Practical Strategies
Select practical strategies that can be implemented by your company and
take into account your company's systems abilities. For example, do not select
strategies that require significant investment in systems changes with the
associated high costs or long implementation cycle. Rather select strategies
that can be easily and quickly translated into initiatives that can be implemented.
Appropriate timing
Determining the appropriate time to contact customer and selecting the communications
channel that is the most appropriate. Do not base the timing on what is appropriate
for the company, but look at what the customer would want.
Current Spend/Future spend
Ensure that you consider customers value according to their current spend with your
organization and also their potential spend, as a low value customer may be low value
to your organization, but extremely profitable to your competitor, because the majority
of their spend is not with you.
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