Get Social
Welcome to the premiere issue of LatinBusinessToday.com.
In order to kick off this column, I started asking colleagues in my social media channels to share their top issues for Latin business owners today. Not surprisingly, my findings were obvious: i.e., top business issues mostly transcend ethnicity, gender and even geographical differences in most cases.
Issues ranged from maintaining positive cash flow in a financially strapped economy to what technology services/purchases make the most sense to our business.
After many iterations and back-and-forth updates amongst my interlocutors we all agreed: the number one issue to tackle is customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction.
Basic, isn’t it. If your product/service is faltering to deliver on its promise, if your organization is not maintaining a relationship with the buyer, if you have no customers, where is the revenue going to come from?
In today’s fast changing markets, customer acquisition and, even more importantly, retention, is not a given or an entitlement. And still, when is the last time you reviewed the “state of your customer”?
In order to stay on top of your revenue, you should stay on top of your customer. Periodically ask yourself and your team these or similar questions:
- Have our customer needs changed due to economic or lifecycle change?
- Is there a new cheaper, faster, nicer alternative to your product?
- Is there a new distribution channel that you are not present in?
Other? (I always use the 4P’s as a guide to what type of questions may be relevant for a particular industry or product category).
- It does not matter if you are a small, medium or Fortune 100 business. According to a recent IBM Software (IBM: Bringing Science to the Art of Marketing, February 2011- ibm.com/csuite) survey, 88 percent of CEOs say that getting closer to the customer is a top priority. And yet, only six percent of marketers rate their online and digital marketing capabilities as “excellent.” That’s almost 9 of every 10 “big bosses” surveyed.I purposely chose this survey on digital and online customer relationship engagement from the thousands out there for a reason. As my grandma always said, “Dios aprieta pero no ahorca.”
