Comments on: You’re fired! (or not) http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2010/01/21/youre-fired/ Building customer retention and loyalty Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:36:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mark Price http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2010/01/21/youre-fired/comment-page-1/#comment-406 Mark Price Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:57:13 +0000 http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/?p=422#comment-406 Bill -- Thank you for your comment! The low margin customers may be a bad fit at the moment, but can also play some role in a company -- e.g. clearing out excess inventory, for example. Yet they are tricky customers to deal with. One of the keys seems to be to figure out which of the low margin customers have true "upside potential" based on surveys, appended data, etc., and then for the truly low-value folk, reduce your marketing significantly and strive to move some of them to higher margin channels, such as the web. Giving up on low margin customers as a group seems like shooting a shotgun, when a rifle may be more in order! :) Bill — Thank you for your comment!

The low margin customers may be a bad fit at the moment, but can also play some role in a company — e.g. clearing out excess inventory, for example. Yet they are tricky customers to deal with.

One of the keys seems to be to figure out which of the low margin customers have true “upside potential” based on surveys, appended data, etc., and then for the truly low-value folk, reduce your marketing significantly and strive to move some of them to higher margin channels, such as the web.

Giving up on low margin customers as a group seems like shooting a shotgun, when a rifle may be more in order! :)

]]> By: Bill Self http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2010/01/21/youre-fired/comment-page-1/#comment-405 Bill Self Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:43:39 +0000 http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/?p=422#comment-405 Mark, Thanks for another excellent post. Customer-centric organizations should have dramatically fewer customers to fire, because they have designed a product or service that target customers value at a level of profitability for their organization. Low-margin customer segments usually come into play when the seller has failed to differentiate itself in the perception of the customer by some means--easier to use, cooler than the competition, delivering higher performance than the rest of the market. These low-margin candidates are indeed a bad fit, because they are not going to be loyal in the long-term, anyway. -Bill Mark,
Thanks for another excellent post. Customer-centric organizations should have dramatically fewer customers to fire, because they have designed a product or service that target customers value at a level of profitability for their organization. Low-margin customer segments usually come into play when the seller has failed to differentiate itself in the perception of the customer by some means–easier to use, cooler than the competition, delivering higher performance than the rest of the market. These low-margin candidates are indeed a bad fit, because they are not going to be loyal in the long-term, anyway.
-Bill

]]> By: Your page is now on StumbleUpon! http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/2010/01/21/youre-fired/comment-page-1/#comment-400 Your page is now on StumbleUpon! Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:59:53 +0000 http://www.cultivatingyourcustomers.com/?p=422#comment-400 <!--%kramer-ref-pre%-->[...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]<!--%kramer-ref-post%--> Kramer auto Pingback[...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]

]]>