The Customer’s Way is a Necessity for Growth in 2011
Posted by Margaret Dawson on February 18, 2011
Devotion to your customers and helping them conduct business their way may sound old school, but believe it or not, the customer way is the right way. And this brings me to my fourth prediction for 2011: doing business the “customer’s way” becomes a necessity for growth.
With today’s volatile climate, it is crucial for companies to protect their existing customer base while simultaneously adding new customers, and this is true whether your company is targeting consumers or other businesses. But somehow the theme of “the customer is always right” seems to get lost in the B2B world. The famous Nordstrom customer service model is not only a great example for retail but for all businesses.
Now more than ever, businesses should make sure they are doing everything possible to strengthen and maintain relationships with their clients. One key way of doing this is to focus on your customers’ needs, adapting to their resources, and providing value that will impact customer bottom lines without forcing them to change the way they currently do business.
Using technology to automate customer-facing processes can help, especially leveraging cloud computing to minimize the impact on your customer’s infrastructure and optimize time to market. Take cloud-based B2B integration, which allows your customers to seamlessly exchange electronic documents and real-time messaging with you, increasing the level of collaboration and automating business processes for both companies. Cloud-based B2B integration allows the customer to leverage existing infrastructure and business rules, allowing them to send and receive messages from their current ERP systems and within existing business process workflows.
The reality is integration is sticky. By targeting business process integration, such as online catalogs or eStore purchasing, purchase order exchange, invoicing, and product availability, and making it easier for your customers to work with you, they are more likely to stay with you rather than moving to the competition. Companies who use customer integration have reported amazing results, such as 100% customer retention, 25% increase in revenues and 99% order accuracy.
By helping customers leverage their existing infrastructure with minimal added investment, you will not only build customer loyalty but you help your customers better position themselves for the eventual economic recovery. And in the meantime, you will reap the benefit of improved customer retention and revenues.
Tags: B2B Integration, Cloud Computing, customer integration, customer service, The Nordstrom Way
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