Delivering Value

Value has a variety of meanings, but the most befitting definition of value in this context is: Everything received beyond expectation. For example, you buy a new car and hit the freeway, then find that it came with a full tank of petrol. Or, you paid to get your hair done and halfway through it, firm but gentle hands show up to give you a foot massage. Or you buy some Indomie noodles and get home to find a complimentary egg in the bag. You get my drift.

Unwarranted treats like all the above are a powerful way to turn ordinary interactions into memorable experiences for your customers. Not only do they hardly get forgotten (especially in the wonderful Nigerian marketplace, where the notion of customer service is crazy talk); but they also contribute immensely to word of mouth maketing. The power of word of mouth as a marketing tool is all too attractive to any business owner. Not only is it free, but it also leverages your business with potential customers who hear about your products and services from friends and family. People they know and trust.

The Nigerian business environment does not really encourage improvement of service standards. But if you're still reading this, chances are that service is important to you. More important than any other reason, is the fact that it can quite likely generate you additional revenue (which is the reason you went into business in the first place, remember?). In addition, it also adds unique character to your business, which is pivotal in building a strong brand.

Most small business owners are overwhelmed with the day to day activities involved in running a business. So the mention of additional tasks will probably be doomed to some to-do-list; which will most likely never get done. But the secret to delivering value consistently lies in one thing - systems. AT & T said it all too well: The System is the Solution

Real Case Example:

Pen & Canvas, is a specialist retailer of canvas prints. After identifying the Value Quartet, we listed expectations from all the varying wings, and thought of simple, cost effective ways we could deliver beyond this expectation. The diagram below shows the outcome of our brainstorm (click to view larger version)

Most interesting about this is how it really didnt require much more from the business, but had profound effects on our customers.

• Services like Sendible, Remember The Milk, Facebook Birthday Notifications, or simple calendar applications like Google Calendar can be setup to automatically remind you of or deliver birthday notifications (for free).

• Once we created the guides for taking care of your canvas, they simply had to sent via email (free-ly once again) and took approximately 10-25 secs per customer. etc etc.

• Affordable/ thoughtful gifts can easily be purchased an given to personnel. A clever trick involves scheduling this gift giving onto random dates, so the effort appears truly random.

These are just a few ideas. Look at this quartet as applies to your business and identify expectations, then work out what how you can deliver value and remain cost effective. Once you have a few ideas, be sure to try and find a way to automate the process.

Any comments or feedback, I’d love to hear it.

KYC

The term KYC is perceived as something very simple if you know what it stands for. If you dont know what it means, and you happen to hear it in a presentation or business meeting (just like me) from a guy dressed in a suit; after trying to decipher this seemingly complex acronym, you’ll most certainly feel a little silly once you find out what it means.

The application of KYC is very analogous to the above paragraph. Indeed so simple and basic to those who truly understand, a lot of businesses are in blissful ignorance. KYC simply stands for Know Your Customer (I know, right!). So the question is how well do you KYC?

Take a particular bar in Abuja, where I live (for differentiation purposes, we’ll call it “Bar A”) Now if success is turning over a healthy profit every week and being popular among a specific demographic, then whoa, Bar A is making an absolute killing! But what happens when a new “cooler” bar opens, in a location just as prime as Bar A’s. For starters, this market’s love for “new” is going to cause an instantaneous drop in Bar A’s traffic. Not to say they would not recover, but how can anyone justify leaving their recovery up to chance?

Now this is where KYC comes in: if Bar A knew their customers i.e. their core market, where they worked, what drinks they liked most etc; then they could do something about the drop in traffic. For instance, they could offer Bankers (their core market) in Wuse II (where they work), 10% discounts on Mojitos (what the Bankers drink most).

But should it really take a dire situation like serious competition opening shop, for a business to hold on to it’s customers? Absolutely not! Bar A should have experimented such strategies when business was good and there was much less risk

Now how does one get to know your customers? By doing 2 things - 1. asking them and 2. quantifying what they do. For demographic and some behavioural information (where they live, how old they are, etc) the most cost effective route to this knowledge is by simply asking. This information capture can be coupled with some promotional campaign or executed by getting some branded, good looking guys and girls to go round the tables and ask the customers while they fill forms. Whatever works for you.

Quantifying what your customers do (i.e how many times a week they visit, how many rounds they buy etc) is a little trickier. Technology, in the form of a semi advanced till system or a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, often takes a lot of the drudgery out of this work and also does cool stuff like plotting graphs and giving you great results at the click of a mouse button.

Getting the data is the first step , but now you must utilise it. A good approach I find is to start at the end i.e. the result you looking to get or ask the really important questions (who are my top 10 highest spending customers?) and the rest follows naturally from there.

Bar A was simply an example to succor the explanation of this idea. However, KYC is applicable to all businesses from FMCG retail (Fast Moving Consumer Goods, I know) to luxury service providers. If you are to build a great business, then you must know your core market, where they live, where they work, how much they earn, their favourite product/ service, how often they visit, how much they spend each they visit, etc, etc.

Treat your customers like something you care about and KYC.