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Stop chasing “sexy” customers
I just stumbled on a YouTube video of Susan Boyle, the overweight, dowdy singer that shocked the judges of Britain’s You’ve Got Talent TV show with her spectacular voice. The judges were openly derisive before she performed, and gave her a standing ovation afterward. The video is touching–watch it, even if you aren’t into music…
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How Vulnerable are Your Customers? (part 6)
In my previous blog post I described the current situation: Now more than ever, your customers are being bombarded by competitive offers and even some of your most loyal customers are actually listening to your competitors. Your customers are vulnerable. What can you do about it? The last thing you need to do is consider…
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How Vulnerable are Your Customers? (part 5)
In my previous blog post I described the current situation: Now more than ever, your customers are being bombarded by competitive offers and even some of your most loyal customers are actually listening to your competitors. Your customers are vulnerable. What can you do about it? The third thing you need to do is find…
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How Vulnerable are Your Customers? (part 4)
In my previous blog post I described the current situation: Now more than ever, your customers are being bombarded by competitive offers and even some of your most loyal customers are actually listening to your competitors. Your customers are vulnerable. What can you do about it? The third thing you need to do is Leverage…
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How Vulnerable Are Your Customers (part 2)
In my previous blog post I described the current situation: Now more than ever, your customers are being bombarded by competitive offers and even some of your most loyal customers are actually listening to your competitors. Your customers are vulnerable. What can you do about it? First, you have to understand, “Who are your best…
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Consumers are Trading Downwards
As I’ve mentioned before, there are a number of indicators that during this recession customers are trading downwards. What can you do to align yourself with this trend? If you look closely, you’ll see how you can take advantage of it so that you do two things: keep your low-end customers from trading down to…
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If you scare customers away, will they ever return?
I was reading some research conducted by Harris in 2007 and published by RightNow that said that, “ 80% of respondents said they would never return to an organization after a poor customer experience.” Clearly those surveyed were consumers with a plethora of options available to them such that they could afford to be so…
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Be careful what you say–the whole world is listening!
I was browsing some Google Alerts for one of my clients and found a very long thread on a trade publication’s forum. Apparently someone had asked an innocent question, “Has anyone ever used <insert client’s name here>?” to which a number of people replied, “I called them and the sales person was arrogant! He wouldn’t…
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“Going Green”-Do Customers Really Care?
Do customers really care about about vendors that go green? Up until today, I’ve never seen anything beyond hype–vendors touting how green they really are in hopes of one-upping their competitors. Everyone has been jumping on a bandwagon, hoping to out-green their competitors. However, I’ve not seen any form of customer research that proves that…
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Why don’t you understand your customers?
The Fortune 20 company I was working with couldn’t understand why a segment of their customers were defecting in droves, and those that stayed were hammering them on price, causing their margins to spiral downwards faster and faster with each quarter’s results. The company had focused their marketing around three primary themes: Inventory control Cost…