4S – Customer Strategy Building Blocks
The following blog article will succinctly and effectively answer the following questions as related to developing and deploying an effective customer strategy:
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What are the basic building blocks of an effective customer strategy ecosystem?
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What is the function of each process in this customer delivery ecosystem?
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What are the critical questions that must be answered by each function in this ecosystem?
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How can you develop an effective customer strategy that delivers maximized customer satisfaction simultaneous to maximized profitability?
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What is the checklist to ensuring your customer strategy and delivery is effective?
The Building Blocks of the Customer Strategy Life Cycle
Above are the basic building blocks to delivering an effective customer experience. Each process is designed to work in an ongoing continuous ecosystem (loop) in order to deliver a personalized customer experience that matches the customer’s current and future needs, preferences, etc.
Let’s examine each process and how it supports the overall infrastructure model.
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Segment – the analogy for the segment process is that the more and differentiated customer knowledge you have, the better you will be able separate customers into unique needs groups in order to deliver a unique experience that they truly value.
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Separate – Once you have effectively segmented your customers and prospects into unique needs groups, you can then start to separate them in order to deliver differentiated and 1-on-1 treatments that are uniquely valuable to each of those customer segment groups.
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Satisfy – The next step in the process is to deliver content and programs that deliver value, not only to the needs of the overall segment group, but also delivers value to every customer sub-segment within the overall segment group via program sub-segment delivery structures. This is accomplished by delivering customized 1-to-1 customer programs that effectively leverage the unique customer insights gathered (history, needs, preferences, likes, dislikes, previous pain points, etc.).
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Stratify – The last step in this foundational process is to develop program that migrate customers from low value segments to ever increasing higher value segments. The goal of this process to increase customer’s overall spend, overall share of wallet with the company and overall loyalty and brand ‘stickiness’ such that migrating to a competitor and defecting becomes increasingly difficult. In addition, the migration of customer to higher value segments should also increase the customer’s brand advocacy ranking such that there is a correlation between higher value customer segments and their likelihood to be more likely brand super-advocates {see blog on this topic titled “Achieving Market Leadership by Effectively Managing Customer Loyalty and Advocacy ” : Achieving Market Leadership by Effectively Managing Customer Loyalty and Advocacy }
The 4S Customer Capabilities
Critical Questions Answered by Each Process in the Above Customer Delivery Ecosystem:
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Segment – What specific data elements and insights can we leverage or collect to increase our ability to develop unique customer treatment groups.
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Separate – Which customer groups does it make sense to develop and deliver differentiated treatment strategies based on profitability models?
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Satisfy – What are the optimal customer treatment strategies that can simultaneously optimize customer profitability, loyalty, brand advocacy and customer growth objectives?
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Stratify – How do we deliver a progressive and tiered customer program to differentiate ourselves vs. our competitors and grow our market share?
Summary: You might read many complex articles on what a good customer strategy should be based on, but the above basic foundational building blocks are a simple way to start thinking about your customer ecosystem and what corporate capabilities need to be put in place to deliver effective customer and market success.
Filed under CRM, Customer Profitability, customer strategy, Marketing
Tagged with best customer service, brand equity, company competitors, competitive playbook, competitor share of market, CRM Blog, CRM strategy, customer 1-to-1, customer 1-to-1 marketing, customer advocates, customer attribute scoring, customer attributes, customer behavior, customer data elements, customer data warehouse, Customer Deciles, customer defection, customer defection risk analysis, customer ecosystem, Customer Experience, customer groups, customer growth models, customer growth segments, customer growth strategies, customer history, customer insights, customer insights management, customer knowledge, customer likes, customer long-term loyalty, customer longitudinal history, customer loyalty levels, customer loyalty programs, customer management, customer management basics, customer management best practices, customer management capabilities, customer management process, Customer Migration Strategies, customer needs analysis, customer needs cultivation, customer pain points, customer preference portal, customer preferences, Customer Profitability, customer profitability models, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction levels, customer scoring, Customer Segmentation, Customer Segments, customer service, customer service resources, customer share of wallet, customer spend, customer spend analysis, customer stickiness, customer strategy basics, Customer Strategy Blog, customer strategy building blocks, customer strategy capabilities, customer stratification, customer touch points, customer treatment groups, customer value segments, customer word of mouth, customers for life, differentiated customer service, differentiated service offerings, differentiated treatment strategies, Effective customer strategy, growing market share, high net worth customers, high value customers, higher value customer segments, loyal customers, market growth best practices, maximize customer share, metrics, micro marketing, missed customer opportunities, most profitable customers, optimal customer experience, optimal customer treatment, personalized customer experience, personalized customer marketing, premium service levels, progressive customer programs, progressive customer service, score customer database, segmentation strategy, share of market, share of wallet, Steven Jeffes, Steven Jeffes Blog, top customers, unique customer needs
Turn Customer Insights & Complaints into Market Leadership, Dominance, Max Profitability
Research has shown that customers are willing to donate their time (approx. 5-10 hours per week) to become a company and brand partner to help your company grow and become more successful
Key Customer Questions to Grow Your Market Share, Profitability
If you don’t ask your customers for insights, they will share them with someone else in the form of negative feedback, complaining, etc. which will erode your perception in the marketplace
Golden Questions to Win New Customer, Expand Your Business with New Products & Services
Customers are your best source for insights to help grow and improve your business – if you don’t ask, then you are ignoring valuable feedback that your competitors potentially could exploit to your detriment
Customer Complaints Can Be Turned Into Gold with the Right Approach
Treat Customer Complaints not as annoyances but rather as gifts to the company and brand(s)
Transform Customer Complaints into Company Expansion Plans and Customers into Brand Advocates
A carefully constructed customer-partner system will simultaneously cultivate great customer business expansion ideas as well as customer advocates and partners (Research has shown that, by enabling customers to provide continuous feedback and insights, customer longer-term loyalty has correspondingly increased)
Filed under CRM, Customer Profitability, customer service
Tagged with brand perception, continuous customer improvement, continuous improvement, CRM Blog, Customer Advisory Groups, customer advocate, customer ambassador, customer analytics, customer approach, customer benchmarking, customer benefit, customer brainstorming, customer brand partner, customer brand partners, customer brand perception, customer commitment, Customer Complaints, customer continuous feedback, customer crowd sourcing, customer detriment, customer disdain, customer feedback, Customer focus groups, customer generated ideas, customer goals, customer golden insights, customer golden opportunities, customer golden questions, customer ideas, customer improvement opportunities, customer improvement programs, customer information, customer innovative, customer innovators, customer insights, customer insights sharing groups, customer loyalty groups, customer loyalty increase, customer market share, customer needs, customer negative feedback, customer partner program, customer partner system, customer partners, customer perception, customer pet peeves, customer pilots, customer point of view, customer points of light, customer preferences, customer product previews, Customer Profitability, customer questionnaire, customer remediation, customer service pilots, customer SLAs, Customer Strategy Blog, customer surveys, customer transformation, Customers first, frequent customers, ignoring customer feedback, ignoring customer trends, long-term loyalty, loyal customers, Market Dominance, market erosion, Market Leadership, market trends, Maximized Profitability, Most Valuable Customers, mystery shoppers, new customer products, new customer services, trend spotter, voice of customer
