There’s an old saying – “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer”. With recession just around the corner, maybe we should be saying “Keep your existing customers very close to you”!
In times of hardship customers naturally cut back on expenditures and/or, shop around for a cheaper deal but unless you are prepared for and able to drop your prices, what should you do? Simply put, make sure you:
Inside every organisation there’s a huge amount of data detailing your every transaction and possibly even your every conversation with your customers. Its in your Systems of Record. But…few if any organisations are using this data to pre-anticipate their customers’ needs.
Traditional banks are notoriously lax in this regard, mostly acting in a reactive manner triggered by a transaction (money deposited) or event (end of the month or account going overdrawn). But with all the data banks hold on customers, why aren’t they warning existing customers, for example, about the likelihood of them going overdrawn and the steps they can take, with the banks help, to prevent this from happening if at all possible? At least one wise bank, First Direct are taking steps to do just that.
The other thing we should all be doing is making it as easy as possible for our customers to get answers to key questions and do business with you, almost on a 24×7 basis. Remember how bad things got during covid when we couldn’t hold of anyone because all of the call centres were closed down and branches etc were closed? With AI driven conversational chat bots you can help virtually all of your customers self-serve, saving them time and you money!
If you would like to learn more about how to keep hold of your customers, email innovation@clustre.net .