Let’s Start Creating Customer Value NOW!

Customer Value can be found and created with every contact you have with a customer, starting with your marketing before the prospecting stage to the order follow up and beyond stage of the relationship. The primary focus  must  be;  “how can we  improve your business”?  It is important to remember that in many cases what the customer states they want is not necessarily the best solution to what they actually need.

Our analysis leads us to structure the relationship into 3 phases:  Insight, Innovate and Implement.  Without these three sets of activities taken approximately in order, we have found clients fail to comprehend true customer needs and consequently cannot diversify effectively or to find lasting ways to grow their businesses.

Insight consists of those processes that look outward to the general business environment to determine why the customers you have now buy from you and what needs you are not currently addressing. What we are trying to find is the market’s perception of your core capabilities and how those capabilities can be leveraged to provide new and lasting value to the customer.  For some companies the core competence will be delivery in least time, lowest price, best quality or the ability to build strong and lasting relationships with the company’s ownership.

For others the answer will be that they have instilled evolution as a core tenet of the business.  These kinds of businesses are expert at creating a series of evolutionary and, in rare cases, revolutionary products and services that their customers need, want and value.

Most often these new products and services result from a business that asks itself “What can I do TODAY to become more valuable to my customers and…How do I start RIGHT NOW”?

Innovate, the next phase of customer value creation, begins with a detailed analysis of these core characteristics, strengths and abilities that come from inside the enterprise.  This introspection can be painful but must be completed in a brutally honest manner to be of maximum benefit. These characteristics would include any organizational, technological or equipment uniqueness or special methods used to produce your offering in a faster or higher quality manner than your competitors, etc., and then leveraging these capabilities to create new value for your customers. In some cases the capabilities required may need to be developed or acquired for success.

Implement, the final phase is to develop the NEXT valuable product or service in the most time and resource efficient fashion and to produce and deliver this new item to meet or exceed the customers’ expectations.

So, OK, Let’s get started.

Select a small number of stakeholders, who could be owners, general managers, line clerical and plant floor workers who will form your pilot team.  This team should be as diverse as possible for best results but must be led by senior management that is truly committed to the process and open to allow the team to chart its own course.

The mission statement of this team is:

First agree who your top 5 (or 10) customers are and call or (preferably) visit them in person.  During your contact, seek honest discussion as to what your company provides them beyond merely the products or services they pay for by creating an open dialogue around what might be currently happening with their business that your products are used for.

An example might be that that the customer believes we have the best quality or delivery or return policy or other characteristic important to the relationship but your team must determine how the customer values each of these characteristics?.

If “lowest price” or “cheapest” show up in their answers, your company is in imminent danger of extinction because there will ALWAYS be someone that can (or will) provide a like product or service for a lower price.

True lasting customer value is only created by your ongoing ability to anticipate and deliver on the customer’s unstated and unmet needs.

We have a framework for these outside analyses available on request. Please e-mail for one today!

Call us at 248-446-2626 if we can help.

E-Mail:  Dave.Gingrich@valuecreationassociates.com