Especially in uncertain times, questions about how to leverage additional potential for sales and profitability are becoming increasingly important.
Time and again, I see that most of the discussions revolve around the core products.
In the process, a significant lever is neglected that is well known but pushed to the back of the agenda in most companies: Service.
Especially in most small and medium-sized companies, the full exploitation of service potential is a long way off.
By "service," I mean the entire end-to-end customer relationship from the very first contact to the generation of fans - and not just "after-sales service," as is the case with so many companies.
I believe that "after-sales service" accounts for just 10 percent of the potential.
What is the consequence of ignoring the potential? Less revenue, less profitability, less contribution margin and - most importantly - less prospect and customer loyalty.
The opportunity to create sustainably enthusiastic customers is missed.
Mindset.
Almost all companies I see have a "product mindset". That means that almost all thoughts and discussions revolve around optimizing, creating and marketing products.
What is also needed among the workforce is a strong service mindset.
This means that we don't just give away services with customer benefits, but actively sell them. "Bill it or kill it" is a well-known saying: Either we can charge for services (even indirectly) or we should not offer them at all.
But service mindset also means the default thinking of all people in the company on questions like: "Where can we create profitable service offerings with added value that will further strengthen our position in the market and increase customer loyalty?" In my experience, such questions are raised far too rarely.
Consistent customer view.
With the right mindset (point 1), we can consistently take the customer's point of view: At what points can we offer the customer added value that is important from his point of view? How can we differentiate ourselves massively from the competition through our services?
These can sometimes be ideas that are completely detached from the product, because customers often see other contexts that do not even occur to us as a pure product provider.
By the way, a good methodology for this is the Blue Ocean Strategy. 👉 Get in touch with me and I'll give you more input on this.
To do this, of course, you have to keep asking and observing customers and prospects - a practice I see very little of, at least among SMEs.
Training of the team.
Most people in the company have never heard of the service concept comprehensively. And they often don't know the best ways to practice it on a daily basis.
That's why, quite simply, training is needed. Because people need to know not only how to ask the right questions, but also how to set up service offers, how to position service in the market and with customers, how to sell service, and much more. And mindset training is just as important.
So here you have three important fields of action for recognizing the full potential on the market, profiting from it and massively increasing customer loyalty.
👉 Just get in touch with me if you would like to discuss this important aspect. I'll be happy to share my experience.
When you're ready, check out my ➔ coaching programs and set up ➔ a 15min appointment here to get to know each other.
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