The simple business philosophy which both Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk follow but most large or small businesses don’t
I am a marketer ,a tech entrepreneur and also someone who teaches marketing; as a result directly or indirectly I have been exposed to businesses of different sizes (probably 1000+) in different geographies from a water brand in Indonesia to a b2b saas company in Europe and a small restaurant in India.
And irrespective of the size of the brand the conversation is always the same — what kind of marketing or business strategies we can implement to grow our business. And while I to do my job and suggest relevant ideas 💡, I am always shocked on how businesses fail at the most basic idea which will get them the highest ROI & for which they don’t need me or any other consultant
Take care of your customer. She or he is critical. And if you are really limited in your budget — fire your strategy team, fire your growth hacking team, fire your marketing team..and pour all your budget into better serving your customer.
Just make sure you give them tools and ways so that if they are happy they can spread the word about you.
And by the way this is nothing new — the guru of business..Jeff Bezos has time and again repeated it time and again..
And he is not the only one, know the other genius, super rich guy..this is how communicative he is with customers despite running multiple startups , all in highly innovative industries.
While every company will say customers are critical ,for most taking care of their existing customers comes after reaching out to potential one’s . Or after sales tactics to get more walkins. And that’s simply because someone watching your ad or liking your Facebook page or claiming your coupon or a walkin is more tangible but a dissatisfied or a satisfied customer is not tangible..unless they leave a review. And how many customers do that?
Let me share a live example of how must businesses feel they are customer centric but aren’t really
I am taking the smallest size business I can think of and the larger, the business you just multiply the impact.
I am sitting in this really pretty cafe in Vietnam . The coffee is good too.
However I asked for a glass of plain drinking water and they said that will be billable. Now billing for water is a very cultural thing. In Vietnam I haven’t ever faced that. Big restaurants to small cafes. So this was unprecedented.
And in a market where they are dozens of cafes they just lost a customer. But what the lost was far more :
The ROI:
Cost of giving me a plain glass of water with ice: Negligible
Loss of Revenue :
Definite : I come every alternate day and so in a month that’s 15 coffees ( and in a financial quarter 45)
I often order more than one coffee so 60 coffees would be a safe number.
High probability : There is a higher chance of my friend coming here if I recommend it vs they see an ad or an offer. I had actually just messaged a friend to join me here and then changed the location.
Even if I suggest to 2 friends and each just has 1/3rd of the amount of beverages I have. That’s 40 coffees more.
A total of 100 coffees in a quarter vs the price of a glass of drinking water ( not bottled).
And by the way the cycle doesn’t end here…my friends could have suggested to others or one of us could have shared on social media which continues the cycle.
The problem:
In their mind they are doing everything right — spent money on great product — equipment , nice ambience etc, perhaps they could even give me an offer- a sales tactic or run an ad on Facebook to entice me . But end of the day their ROI would have been far greater if they had just focussed on one thing — customer satisfaction or as Jeff Bezos the most successful business man in the world put it — customer obsession.
Unfortunately this isn’t a thing which most consultants will talk about or your marketer or strategist will suggest because how will they show their competence / intellect in something so basic??
But that’s what’s going to work the most.
And this is as true for service as product or digital business.
In fact if you are running a digital or a product business its far more critical because the customers experience with the business is far less tangible than in a service business. Which means lesser number of opportunities to impress them.
So next time just forget all the margins, and the tools and hacks, not because they don’t work, they do but far lesser than ‘customer obsession.
