Sometimes I make extensive summary's and sometimes just some "picture screenshots".
Currently I am reading the book "Kloteklanten 3.0" roughly translated as 'Damn those customers 3.0" written by Egbert Jan van Bel, the author also lectures at Beeckestijn Business School and he has inspired me a lot when I attended his classes a few years ago.
Don't be fooled by the title of the book. It is a real inspirational book about customer centricity.
The subtitle of the book is: how to become the most customer friendly business of the Netherlands.
The book is in Dutch, and as I usually write in English at this blog, I will roughly translate some pages since this is a good book for everybody who believes in customer centricity, customer experience and a new way of marketing.
Did you already make a strategic description of your customer?
The customer definiton framework:
Roughly translated:
- Is someone buying regularly with you? If someone just buys one time, it is not a customer but someone just passing by.
- does the customer pay you, and does he/she pays in time? If not it is a bad debt customer and it cannot be an active customer.
- Do you make the desired profit margin per customer? If you want to achieve 10 % margin but a customer that regularly buys with you, only gives you 5%, also then it is not a customer, but a prospect and your effort should be to grow this customer from 5 to 10 %.
- Is a customer recommending you? What are you doing to help your customers to recommend you? And who is doing this actively?
Short term or long term?
Roughly translated:
Most organisations in the Netherlands are market oriented. The most important question at sales meetings is :
How many customer did you get today? These models used, are from the 70's, 80's and 90's at the very best. Communication is mainly "push" focused.
The question should be: how much engagement did you realize today, is never asked.
The long term commercial strategy is under pressure due to the short term focus.
Marketing must do again what it started with back in the old days: creating a difference.
Only this time not at product level, but at the level of satisfaction/need.
Because with that, you create value for a customer.