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“Be nicer to your customers than your competitors.”

-Richard Reed, Co-Founder of Innocent Drinks

Today’s favorite is a quote from Richard Reed about customer service. ‘Be nicer to your customers’  I do agree this sounds like a cliche. However, most of the cliches are out there for a reason. They do deliver an ounce of truth.

Majority of the marketing philosophies talk about difficulties of finding new customers. The cost is always high and the probability of success fairly low. One cannot impress the need of retaining existing customers. A churn turns out to be way more expensive to a company, both in terms of goodwill and immediate cash-flow.

This discussion takes through 3 salient aspects to be nicer to your customer than your competitors. I suppose, we tag this along with the background of trying to move customers away from competitors to your product and prevent a churn.

1. Customer Service as a USP

Customer service is not a USP. I have heard quite a few startup pitches which talk about customer service, agility of response as a USP. Although, this may sound like a USP, it is more of a minimum requirement.

As a startup/small company, most B2B businesses are often worried about the capability of customer service. In this instance, I insist that customer service is not a USP because it is a bare necessity for startups to close a deal.

2. Listening for Product Improvements

Another cliche I’d recollect is that opportunities often come in the form of work. In this instance, I would change it slightly to say – most product ideas often come as a complaint. If your startup has a professional services/ customer facing division, it is imperative to have your eyes, ears and nose out there to listen to customer needs.

The number one reason why companies switch service providers is the quality of service available and the trust. Trust is a key factor which pushes people over the tipping point to switch service providers.

2.1 Customer Feedback:

A key requirement for a product manager is to listen to the customer complaints. There is often a huge gold nugget in the form of information or roadmap features that can increase customer satisfaction. Of course, you’d need to balance this with the Intel from marketing and sales. But you do have a huge source of information at disposal through the customer service team.

2.2 Customer Development, Expectation Management:

In a previous discussion about agile processes, we talked about customer development process. In this discussion, we allude our reference to ‘be nicer to your customers’, it does offer a huge significance in customer development process. If you want customers to work with you and be your mascots, they do deserve a special treatment.

3. Switching Cost Vs Tipping Point in customer service

• Most customers don’t switch, data involved which makes customers sticky. This is particularly true with older softwares considering the data trail they leave behind. As a customer, my initial reaction would be of restraint before changing suppliers.
• However, it opens up the debate between tipping point for this change and the cost of switching. As a service provider, you’d need to ensure that the customer is happy and their needs are met. The moment these are unmet, things can change very quickly.
• We went into a detailed discussion about the satisfier dissatisfier theory. In this instance, we need to be very careful about the items which customers are dissatisfied about. Sometimes it can be very expensive if product management focus is switched towards new features or satisfiers.
• It sure is a difficult balance to manage between the two, but part of being nicer to your customers or approachable is understanding what their needs are.

The above discussion is certainly in the context that a startup/small company will have more than one customer. However, in a competitive market, you are in business as long as the customer needs are being met. The moment a customer feels neglected or their needs are not being heard of, it immediately puts the relationship in danger.

On that note, I would like to allude to the quote which inspires us today:

“Be nicer to your customers than your competitors.”

-Richard Reed, Co-Founder of Innocent Drinks