Archive for category: Business Services

www.rjslee.com

May 14, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services/by learningwithoutscars

Hello everyone. Well it is there. We have had our website updated to now incorporate the activity here on the blog. The home page has changed. Have a look I think you will like it. There are still some tweaks and updates yet to do but it looks great and a BIG thank you to Ryan Miller for his work to make us look good. Thank you Ryan.

You might also like to review our Reading List. We have recently updated it and as you will have ntoed we have started a “book of the week” blog to initiate thought on specific books.

I would like to thank all of you who so loyally check into the blog and read it and hope we are providing thought provoking material. The time is now.

Data Mining – the last time we spoke

May 10, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services, Marketing, Parts, Product Support Selling, Service/by learningwithoutscars

One of the advantages you have is your data and your information. It is a shame not to use it. With a good VoIP and good data one of the first things I would show on the screen, as the phone rings, is the purchase history of the customer. What is the business volume this year, this year to date, last year, last year to date, transaction size this year, transaction size last year, number of contacts by you to the customer, number of contacts from the customer to you. Date of last sales transaction by category and date of last contact with you. Do you think you could do something if you had that type of information each and every time that either the customer called you or you called the customer? The time is now…

Data Mining – Statistics Revisited

May 9, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services, Customer Service, Product Support Selling/by learningwithoutscars

One of the useful attributes of a VoIP system is the ability to choose the important elements of information about a client that you want to appear on the screen as the phone is ringing. Of significance might be the date of last contact, date of sale, type of sale, and value of sale. From the probability discussion yesterday this will help you determine when the next sales transaction should take place. It might help how you approach the discussion. The time is now..

Data Mining – Statistics

May 8, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services, Marketing/by learningwithoutscars

With all the data available to us and the lack for many of us of acquiring information, we should look at the branch of Mathematics called Statistics. With statistics you are able, amongst other things, to predict events or activities. It is all based on probability theory. I won’t bore you with the details of probability theory other than to say that the closer together the last two similar transaction or similar activities are the higher the probability that there will be a repeat transaction or activity in the future. And also the further apart the last two similar transactions or similar activities are the lower the probability that there will be a repeat transaction or activity in the future. This is the foundation of most inventory management system theory.

What I look forward to is the ability to do probabilistic planning for sales transactions. For instance, it is a truth that the larger the dollar value of the last transaction the higher the probability for a future sale and the lower the dollar value the lower the probability. This should help us in any number of ways. Sales call management and scheduling for instance. There are starting to be tools available to us that allows this type of data mining to determine the probabilities and start us on the path of “planning” activities in the business. This is very exciting to me as it opens a series of doors that will allow us to control our businesses better. In the end that means better customer service which means higher sales and profits. The time is now…

Data – The Next Skirmish

May 8, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services/by learningwithoutscars

With the advent of the cloud and other forms of computing such as ASP’s we have perhaps lost sight of a huge transformation that is taking place right in front of our face.

In the year 2000 about 25% of all data was digitized and in fact 2002 was the first year that there was more digital storage than paper storage. let that sink in for a minute. That is a monumental statement.

By 2007 all digital forms, DVD’s and CD’s, memory cards and other digital devices accounted for 94% of the data storage capacity around the globe (these facts from Forbes) The total amount of data storage in 2012 will come to – are you ready for it – 2.7 zettabytes. That is 2.7 followed by 21 zeros. Isn’t that ridiculous?

For years I used to struggle with people talking about reports coming out of the old fashioned batch type computers. I argued that it was data coming out not information in the voluminous reports. I still take the same position on most information that is reported to people. It isn’t information it is data.

With the HUGE amount of digital data on the planet it is time we started to provide information. The people that need information on which to make decisions are weighed down by masses of data. This is a new skirmish that systems providers will have to start dealing with as we go forward. The time is now…

To Follow Up on Time Management

May 3, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services, Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

In his blog Growth Without Pain – Jay Roszell makes many great points.

I used to have a standard three questions I would ask regularly but at least twice a year of my co-workers.

What am I doing that you like that I do and want me to coninue doing?
What am I doing that you don’t like that I do and want me to stop?
What am I doing that doesn’t really matter to you?

From the answers I could make solid decisions on how I was impacting others and what I did that should have been done by someone else.

Try it yourself and see how you like the approach. Please let us know how it worked out for you. The time is now.

The Parts Business

May 3, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services, Parts/by learningwithoutscars

In doing background work for my monthly CED column I noticed some interesting facts about Genuine Parts.

Genuine Parts is the parent of NAPA the parts specialist in the automotive replacement business. From my perspective they also mirror the construction equipment marketplace. Over the past four years Genuine Parts has seen through 2008 and 2009 declines in profit of 2% and 14% respectively. In the years 2010 and 2011 they returned to profit growth of 20% and 19% respectively. Analysts are predicting another year of double digit growth for 2012.

How do individual dealers in North America compare? I think we have some work to do to regain our footing. The time is now.

Last Weekend of April

April 28, 2012/in Business Services/by learningwithoutscars

I hope everyone enjoys some down time and refreshes.

Next week begins May. The stock market adage is sell in May and go away. We don’t have that choice do we? We have to continue to attempt to excel at what we do. Good luck to all of you and have a great weekend. The time is now….

Updates

April 23, 2012/in Business Services, Consulting Services/by learningwithoutscars

We will be updating the web site in the next few days to better coordinate updates on the site, on the blog, and on twitter. We appreciate and thank you for your interest in all of the media that we use and hope that we can continue to pique your interest and your thinking and invite the continued diverse comments you send to us. The time is now.

A Thought

April 20, 2012/in Business Services/by learningwithoutscars

I would appreciate some help and direction please.

I am thinking about initiating a blog specifically on the Parts Business Group, another one on the Service Business Group, and finally one on the Product Support Sales & Marketing Group.

I would like to have any comments on thoughts on this approach.

I will monetize each blog with a modest fee per writing or an annual subscription. Each writing would be in the range of 1000 words and would cover in more depth the key operational and management aspects of each of the three subject areas.

Thanks in advance for your help and I look forward ro hearing from you.

Ron

TESTIMONIALS

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

Japanese Proverb

From caring comes courage.

Lao Tzu

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

Henry David Thoreau

Seven Behaviors That Really Successful People Have Mastered

Positive Thinking

Having Clear End Goals

Taking Calculated Risks

Learning From Other Successful People

Building Real Relationships

Managing Time Efficiently

Never Stop Learning

The time is now…

September 27, 2014

Your Customer Retention Rate Is Your Future Growth

Guest writer Debbie Frakes tackles the all-important topic of customer retention in her blog post this week, "Your Customer Retention Rate Is Your Future Growth." We are often encouraged to attract new customers and can overlook the value of keeping customers for life. At Learning Without Scars, we can't emphasize this enough. It's so important to us, we have an entire class on the subject!

Finding new customers is great for business—they help you boost your sales and generate more revenue. However, retaining existing customers is even more important. Machinery dealers know that it is far more expensive to locate new customers than it is to keep the ones they already have. Although we all understand the concept, not all dealers actually use programs designed specifically to keep and develop their customers.

In this post we’re going to cover the six key retention drivers for growing your business:

Retain Customers with a Satisfaction Program for continuous improvement

Customer Internal Referrals more than double transactions each year

Lead Flow with the right customers in the markets and industries you support

Convert prospects predictably by selling what they purchase most often and saying “Yes”

Engage your customers with consistent contact

Measure and Forecast results

What is a customer retention rate?

Customer retention refers to the rate at which customers stay with your company for a specific period. The average customer retention of an equipment dealer business is 95.5% per month. Although that may sound very high, what that number actually means is that you are losing 4.5% of your customers each month. Over the entire year, you lose 54% of your customers!

On average, equipment dealers lose 51% of their customers each year. Only 29% of customers are retained for 3 or more years. Even though it looks like you are retaining most of your customers each month, you're actually losing more than half of them throughout the entire year. And that pattern just makes business more difficult long term.

On the other hand, an improvement in your customer retention rate of just 1% each month represents a 12% increase in annual growth. The question is, how can you make that improvement?

How to boost your customer retention rate: a customer satisfaction survey

One of the best ways to improve your customer retention rate is to conduct customer satisfaction surveys. When they are conducted by a third party, these surveys allow you to learn about your customers and determine any issues before they turn into big problems. It's important to have them completed by a third party, because customers tend to be more honest about a company if they're not talking to someone from the company.

A customer satisfaction survey will help you understand your customers’ perspectives, why unhappy ones are unhappy, and how to serve them better. Plus, you’ll impress them by showing how proactive you are.

Using Winsby’s customer satisfaction survey program, our clients have seen 20% higher retention, 49% more customers, and 123% greater revenue growth over 5 years compared to those who are not using the program.

Customer internal referrals

Focusing on customer referrals means making sure your customers are buying everything from you—parts, service, rentals and equipment. Equipment dealers have multiple departments that are almost like different businesses. The good part about that, though, is that a customer can come in for a part, and then they become a potential customer for the service or equipment. The more they purchase from you, the better your customer retention rate will be.

How can you increase internal referrals?

Understand customers’ expectations— turnaround time for parts and equipment deliveries and service protocols.

Then, you can meet expectations, or manage them if meeting them isn’t possible.

Always call the customer with updates before they contact you.

Ensure you have a consistent lead flow

Another critical piece of improving your customer retention rate is properly managing your lead flow. Your sales reps need to identify customers at risk consistently, then contact and engage them. At risk customers are current customers that you're in danger of losing. These are people who start purchasing less and less from you, and eventually they could go to one of your competitors. Customers that are at risk typically haven’t purchased from you in over eight weeks. By reaching out to them, you can encourage them to come back to you to fulfill their needs.

Engage your customers and convert prospects

You should also be regularly sending out emails to your customers and prospects. In our experience, customers on an email list buy two to three times more often than those who are not receiving marketing emails. By putting your brand, products, and services in front of customers, you’ll stay top of mind and your retention rate will increase.

First, call customers and prospects to confirm decision makers’ emails to expand your list and keep it current. Then, send emails at least twice a month and show all your capabilities: parts, service, rentals, new and used equipment. It’s also important to identify your website visitors. Distribute leads who engage with your emails or website to your sales reps automatically to reach out to and determine what they need.

Plus, when you engage with customers, always answer your phone and always say “YES!”.

Measure and forecast

It’s important to look at your past to predict your future. When it comes to improving your customer retention rate and achieving consistent growth, you have to have an idea of where you’re at and where you’re headed. At Winsby, we forecast the growth of Active Accounts for the next 12 months, based on patterns during the past 36+ months, by branch and by department. You’ll learn:

Expected losses and gains of Customers

Expected number of transactions

Expected revenue

You can then use the forecast to develop a plan of the action to take to improve your customer retention rate.

Conclusion

Retaining your existing customers is just as important (if not more important) than gaining new ones. Use all the tools at your disposal: customer satisfaction surveys, internal referrals, email marketing, consistent lead follow up, and always trying to say “yes” to your customers.

If you want to increase your customer retention rate and take advantage of all your possible tools, then contact Winsby today! We’ll help you implement a plan quickly. Contact Winsby Today.

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June 15, 2022