Will your business float to the top of its game, or sink like a stone to its doom?
2010 is a war cry or death knell for small companies the world over. It’s entirely attributable to the stratospheric rise in levels of customer power.
It all boils down to one thing: client and voice.
- In 2007 every techie under the sun was mad, ravingly effusive about reviewing everything.
- In 2008 everyone else discovered tripadvisor.com
- In 2009 YouTube overtook everyone as the number one place on the web to go review everything. RateItAll.com was born, still my favourite place to assess products and services.
- In 2010, the thrust to share views on businesses gained untold traction.
The game has changed forever.
Of course there’s good and bad.
Good for the business that has sculped its management and operational systems with finesse and meticulous attention to detail. To the way they are perceived, to the way they respond and the way they develop and enhance relationships, inside and outside the venture.
Bad for the business that has been sitting on its laurels, head deep in sand, for the past year. “I’m exceptional,” they say.
You have to be more than exceptional to stand still. You have to be living on Mars with fortune enough to carry you through past retirement and beyond, because your business will surely not.
2010 is the year you rise to be counted.
You’re in the public eye more than ever before. A few years ago you could take the odd negative comment from a customer. After all, word of mouth only stretched so far.
In 2010, word of mouth went all-out, online. The words used to describe your efforts are the same; it’s just they are amplified to a degree only fathomable by the finest mathematicians.
I’m desperately happy that the balance of power is being restored in favour of entrepreneurs who live customer service. Their hearts beat for the client. Their operations are consistent, products and services effortlessly delivered.
I always return to the story told by a colleague who visited a Four Seasons Hotel for a second time, and found everything – literally, everything he needed – was awaiting his arrival, down to his favourite soft drinks in the mini bar.
Those canny creators of commerce will be signed up to the titans of client feedback evaluation such as GetSatisfaction.com.
They’ll be working instinctively with tools like the free 4q survey system; they’ll be measuring every on- and off-line customer interaction in a way they can qualify, define on the ground and, more importantly, react to with far better business practices now and into the future. They’ll involve the customer in every change to products and services. Customers will even change the businesses themselves.
Quantification is everything. Orchestration is joint first. Because when you work with metrics and apply effective efficiency to everything you do, in every area of your business, that’s when you’re 2010-proof.
I wish you every success for the future. You’re ready for it. Just make sure that your customers are your every wish and whim, your products the best they can be. And then make them even better.
The rewards are beyond your wildest expectations.
