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If it is not measured, it cannot be managed!
26 Apr 2011 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customer Alignment, Customers
One of the key things that we tell our clients is that unless their customers measure it…it does not matter. Particularly, when trying to understand and articulate the value of their products and services.
When it comes to being aligned with your customers, it is important to make sure that you are measuring success with the metrics that tell you the real story. Depending upon which stage you are at within your process, combined with the customer alignment goals that you have set out for yourself, there are many different metrics that can be used. The following are just a few samples of metrics that key departments can be monitoring to measure how well you are aligned with your customers:
✔ Marketing – Beyond click rates, website hit rates, etc. measuring customer word of mouth or referral rates can speak volumes. Do you have in place the processes and data points to know how many customers are talking about your solution, and how many times they are promoting it to others within their industry, etc? Although initially it may seem difficult to do this, the reality is that if you take on your next marketing initiative with this type of metric in mind, then it is much easier than you may think.
✔ Sales – Along with the traditional sales metrics like the number of qualified leads, number of customer interactions, conversion rates, etc. an interesting metric is to track how many of your sales deals require significant price negotiations or are closed as a result of giving deep discounts. Although there may be exceptions to the rule, it is pretty safe to say that if most of your sales are closed due to how deeply you are discounting…then it may mean that the customer is not fully understanding and appreciating the value of your product/service.
✔ Support – Support is typically one of the best departments for monitoring metrics. However, some of these metrics may be deceiving. First off, if you think about it, your customers could care less about how many cases they have open, closed, escalated, etc. The customer on the other end of the phone only cares about finding THE permanent solution to their issue. So, a key metric may be to measure how many customer interactions are required to solve one customer issue. Or, measuring the number of times a customer has to call back for the exact same issue within a specific timeframe (ex. Quarter, Year, etc.).
Each department within the company can…and should have a few key metrics that are used to measure how they are doing as it relates to helping the company as a whole to be more aligned with your customers. Again, if it is not measured, chance are good that it will not get the focus that it deserves, and ultimately it will not be managed.
What are some of the metrics that you are using to determine how aligned you are with your customers?
This article was written by: admin