book.chapter Simplify business interactions

The key challenge is to become ETDBW – easy to do business with. To do that, look at your product descriptions, order systems, and billing practices through the eyes of your customers, and do everything possible to save them time, money, and frustration. Supporting Ideas Most companies end up making customers pay for the privilege of doing business with them. They do that by forcing customers to navigate systems that are designed for the convenience of the company rather than the customer. And that, in turn, forces customers to waste time and money figuring out how to transact business with you. There are six specific things you can do to become ETDBW: 1. Present a single face to the customer. Many companies are organized for their own convenience and efficiency. That isn't, however, the customer's top priority. Customers want to deal with a team that is integrated – that deals in all products and across all functions. Develop teams that have the authority to dissolve these internal barriers, and let them interact with the customer. When this is available, customers love it because they get things done. 2. Segment your operations by customer characteristics. Different customer groups need to be handled in different ways. By differentiating customers, you create an environment in which customer satisfaction can be maximized – which translates into more follow-on business. 3. Anticipate what customers will need in the future. Companies that predict what customers will need next can start preparing even before the customer orders. That way, the customer will spend less time and experience less frustration in doing more business with your firm. 4. Provide a seamless customer experience. When long-time customers get put through the same drill as first-timers, they become frustrated. Equally, when customers go through long and detailed instructions to bring a new person up-to-speed with a transaction, ease of doing business is diminished. Thus, smart companies route future calls to the same customer service representative, or have a team of people available, each with access to all the databases required. 5. Harness and exploit the power of customer self-service. It's a paradox that one of the best ways to be easy to do business with is by letting customers do at least some and maybe all of your work for you. Make it as easy as possible for customers to enter and manage their own orders. They will love you for it, and this will free up your time for other tasks that generate more added value. 6. Use performance measures that are customer-centered. Any company which wants to improve how it is viewed by customers must measure and track customer perceptions. Usually, this will require a reorientation away from what's easy to measure, what has historically been measured or measuring what matters to the business. By focusing instead on customer-centered measures, the most important issues will surface, your employees' energy will be directed where it can do the most good and you may be provided with a very worthwhile sales tool. If you succeed in becoming ETDBW, you'll get two benefits: - It will save your customers time and money – making it more likely they will do more business with you in the future. - It will save you money as well – since the customer will work with you to drive costs and inefficiencies out of your operations as you become better at predicting and responding to customer needs. Key Thoughts "'Easy to do business with' means that from the customer's standpoint, interacting with you is as inexpensive and effortless as possible. It means that you accept orders when and by whatever means it is most convenient for the customer to place them; it means the orders are worded in customer terminology rather than your obscure nomenclature. It means you make it painless for a customer to check the status of an order; you eliminate that endless stream of futile phone calls to uninterested and uninformed functionaries who have been trained only to refer the caller to someone else equally uninformed. It means you send a simple bill that is expressed in comprehensible terms, not your own recondite codes and internal references, and that is designed from the outset to be read and used by the customer; in other words, a bill that someone other than a cryptanalyst can decipher." – Michael Hammer "Find out what they want and how they want it, and give it to them just that way." – Fats Waller, jazz player.