Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

1. Continue to deliver superior service. This is the best way to retain customers and as a result, is the best protection against a downturn. Cultivating current clients leads to positive word of mouth and online customer reviews, which, of course, is ideal because the best advertising in a slow economy is free advertising.

2. Energize and invest in your workforce. Now is not the time to start measuring average handle time and scrimping on rewards and training for customer service reps. It is the ideal time, however, to invest in energizing your workforce to maintain a positive attitude and to keep working for the customer.

Yesterday, I spoke to TheLadders.com, an executive job search firm, about how it inspires employees during tight times. The culture there all supports each other. When a sales person makes a sale, he rings a bell and all other employees applaud and high-five each other. There are also karaoke nights, pumpkin carving contests, and black tie affairs in which employees receive allowances to rent tuxedos. As a result, I was told the company hasn’t yet seen the affects of the slowing economy.

3. CEOs get personal. Don’t simply make investments at the agent level, executives need to get involved as well. CEOs should be spending more time talking to employees and customers—not just by answering the occasional email or monitoring an obligatory monthly call in the contact center. Executives should regularly visit the ground floor of their businesses—whether it’s at a retail store or a manufacturing plant—to find out what people actually think about the company.

Take Millard Drexler, for example. The CEO of J. Crew spends part of every day visiting his stores, asking employees and customers questions about the company’s products and services. “This is how you learn what’s on their mind. What can be more important than that?” he said in a recent New York Times article. His theory seems to be paying off. While other retailers are struggling, J.Crew is growing, with an estimated 14 percent increase this year.

4. Ramp up CRM. Use the economic slowdown as an excuse to boost your “CRM-light” efforts. Cleanse your customer files, conduct more focus groups and send surveys to better understand customers’ needs, ramp up email marketing efforts, and mine social media to learn what customers are saying and respond to their comments. These initiatives don’t cost much and will bring long-term gains well after the economy is firing on all cylinders.

Often times, economic recession can elevate the importance of finance over customer strategy initiatives. Prudent companies do not abandon their customer strategies in a recession; they support them and adapt to coming changes.

How bad will this downturn get? No one knows yet. But don’t wait around until it’s too late. Use it as an excuse to reacquaint your company with your most valuable asset—your customers.