The Downside of Customer Satisfaction

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is all the rage in business today. If your company has implemented a CRM system, it’s quite likely you’ve done so for similar reasons to most other companies. The belief is that CRM is the solution to the long-standing, and vitally important challenge of maintaining customer loyalty in an age where loyalty is far from a given.

The truth is that we are all working within a rapidly changing and unsettled business environment. Your customers are apt to switch to your competition at the drop of a hat if you don’t do everything you can to obtain their long-term loyalty.

The good news is that gaining their loyalty is possible. The bad news is that CRM,_customer_satisfaction_surveys,_and_the_Balanced_Scorecard tools_won’t_get_you_that_loyalty. At best, you’ll have customers who are happy with you only as long as someone else doesn’t entice them away with more value for their money.

A recent survey published in Business Week indicated that 75% of executives are satisfied with their supplier, but almost the same amount - 66% - were thinking about looking for another supplier.

Are You Ready to Create True Customer Loyalty?

The key to long-term customer loyalty is in maintaining a Value Edge over your competition. Understanding the concept of value, and how to measure and plan for value with your products or services is absolutely critical to your long-term survival.

There frankly isn’t any other way. Because the business environment changes so quickly, this Value must be measured at least twice per year, and in more dynamic markets, quarterly. Measuring and creating a value edge over your competition cannot be an expensive or time-consuming proposition, or it will cost you more than it gives you.

The purpose of a good Value Management system should be to provide you with reliable and useful information that ultimately creates wealth for your company, rather than destroy wealth by spending money that doesn’t offer a significant return on investment.

When your company is focused on continuously focused on creating a greater perceived value in the eyes of your customers than your competition, you will no longer compete in terms of price. You will compete in terms of value, leading to a growth in your sales and profits by obtaining market loyalty!

There are only three types of value to monitor

In my experience there are only three types of value that need to be continually monitored by your company:

	The value perceived by your client or market
	The value delivered by your company, which includes price and benefits during the life of the product or service. This value delivered is what is promised at the time of the transaction to create confidence. All companies have to go through this stage before obtaining client loyalty.
	The value of a client for your company, which must be greater than 1 to justify the costs of maintaining and retaining your client.

In an unsettled, highly competitive environment, such as that in which we will live for many years, value_is_dynamic, continually changing according to the level of competition in your market. Thus, while your company may currently benefit from high perceived value in the market, this advantage could be ephemeral with new competition, or if one of your current competitors decides to improve its results. Therefore, to be useful, value must be measured at least twice per year, and preferably quarterly.

How You Can Measure And Create Value

The Dynamic Value Management System™ is aimed at small and medium-sized companies who want an integrated system that allows them to periodically measure value delivered and perceived by the market at a low cost AND determine which important qualities must be included in their new products and services to maintain this value edge.

The Dynamic Value Management System™ is a system I have developed and actively used over the past twenty years. It is radically different, much simpler, less expensive and easier to use than anything previously available. The system has constantly been improved, particularly over the last few years as I have launched new tools and practices with many organizations. All of my systems are designed to be inexpensive, comprehensive, and powerful.

This system is an integral part of our Strategic Value Innovation System™ that was originally offered only to our clients using the Value Innovation System. We have decided to include it as a separate and distinct product because it is a series of repetitive processes integrated into a system that is easily introduced into a company. It allows sufficiently reliable results to be obtained to make better strategic decisions.

The Dynamic Value Management System™ is not a standard product, instead it is adapted to each of our clients, maintaining only the “frame” and its concepts and adapting it to the specific needs of each industry or market. It uses powerful concepts such as Marginal Value, Customer Lifetime Value, The Buyer Utility map and the Unique Selling Proposition for each of your products or services.

Your Next Steps

The Dynamic Value Management System™ is a process I teach you as we implement and integrate the five steps together. I show you how to use this process on your own, so that you may implement it yourselves as often as you feel necessary.

I have created a special article that describes the five steps of the Dynamic Value Management System™, which you can download by clicking here.

Remember that if you are not satisfied with the results of the Dynamic Value Management System™ after we have completed the process, you don’t pay for the system or my time. I believe in the power of this system that much.

Also, keep in mind that this system, as with all of Carlos Dias’ systems, is customized to meet your specific company and market.

Carlos Dias
carlos@carlosdias.com