Better, Lucky or Someone's Habit?

Winning and retaining customers By Ann Latham Why do your customers stay your customers? Perhaps they see your business as better than the alternatives. With superior or breakthrough products and services providing more value for the money, you are exactly what your customers need. Perhaps you've become a habit. Your phone number is on their notepad. Or you once had an edge or a superior offering, the best location, a great brand. Inertia and familiarity may have been your greatest assets. Or you were lucky, or you built it and they came. Whether you hold a position of strength, habit or luck, don't assume it will last. The world is not standing still. Customers move on. Competition moves in. Standout value today is expected value tomorrow. Southwest's Lesson Consider Southwest Airlines. They jumped out front with a simple focus: Fly for Less. But a proliferation of low fare carriers has undermined that position. Fly for Less remains prominently displayed on their website, but look beyond that and you will see they are now courting the corporate world with two new fare options, Business and Business Select. Several former fare options have collapsed into one Wanna Get Away fare. Southwest hopes that beefed up amenities coupled with a great on-time record will appeal to business travelers and once again give the airline a great competitive edge. There are a number of factors that can protect a company's competitive edge and delay its unique value becoming the norm. They include patents, market dominance, installed base, territory locks such as airport gate leases and supermarket shelf space, intellectual capital, branding, high cost of entry, and geography. Cover Your Edge For example, patent protection is the strategic hub of the major drug companies like Pfizer. They rely on the sales of their high-priced, patent-protected drugs to fund research for new drugs. They expect new patents and new products to provide new revenue streams as popular drugs such as Lipitor reach the end of their patent life and open the door for generic drug makers to move into that market space. Territory locks provide another example and can be seen on any retailer's shelves. Consider the Tylenol facings at the local pharmacy. They include products for adults, children, infants, headache, muscle pain, arthritis, cold, cold and flu, cold and cough. Then there are various strengths, daytime, night time, go tabs and gels, for a total of sixty-one options at last count. This is not about your headache. It's about competition and shelf space. Retailers are not about to dump Tylenol PM for a no-name painkiller making similar claims. Similar examples can be found in every aisle of the grocery store. Temporary vs. Long Term But patents, territory locks and the like only provide temporary protection. Patents expire. Grocery stores suddenly find space for Vitamin Water. The only sure way to stay out front is to innovate. The ability to provide new or greater value requires a steadfast focus on customer's needs and desires. This does not mean that you simply ask them. Your customers don't necessarily know what they need or want. If Henry Ford had polled people about their needs, he figured they would have requested a faster horse. The trick is to understand the customers' situation, their problems, the things they value, and then find the opportunities to satisfy the needs and desires that they may not even recognize themselves. It is also smart to look at how their situation is changing. Close scrutiny of trends should uncover new opportunities. Graying boomers, increasing energy costs, water shortages, instant hand-held access to people and information- how do these affect your customers? No business is immune to these changes. And, with change comes opportunity. Picture your customers' lives as these changes progress. Somewhere in that picture is a way to be better, to feel lucky, and to remain someone's habit.