 Every plausible definition of good marketing places customers at its heart. Whichever way you look at it, whether you love them or hate them, satisfying them is the surest route to improved sales and bigger profits. Customers feed you, clothe you, and pay your bills.
It is generally accepted that it is five to six times less expensive to keep a customer rather than to go out and get a new one. Ask anyone with sales experience and they will tell you how much better the atmosphere is and how the sale is made more easily where the two sides have already done business together. They already know you. You already have a relationship. And few, if any are giving you all of their business.
Yet according to research from the Henley Centre, 80% of customers believe they are not valued. Not surprising when you consider that the approach still adopted by many companies is to only make contact when something needs to be sold.
Add to this research by APA indicating that 67% of lost opportunity is simply through indifference brought on by lack of contact and you can see why, in today's increasingly competitive marketplace that developing an ongoing dialogue with customers is vital if companies are to succeed. Customers should not be viewed as on-off switches - approached in the right way they are volume dials!
Any company can benefit from developing better dialogue with their customers, and suppliers for that matter. Ongoing dialogue is important, it is the very basis of how, we as human beings communicate. And remember, communication for both supplier and customer is a two-way thing. It's about listening as well as talking.
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