Often the business owners / managers feel that the customer’s primary criteria to stop buying a product or hiring a service are its price. Again and again, the experience and research studies indicate that a customer abandons a product, service or a company not because of the price; it is because their needs are not met and also their needs are dealt with indifferently.
A decade back one McKinsey Quarterly reported the reasons industrial companies (B2B), lose their customers. According to their study the reasons customer s leave in a B2B situation are ….
Indifference to the customer’s need - 68%
Product dissatisfaction – 14%
Price – 9%
Development of new relationships elsewhere – 5%
Relocation – 3%
Death of a Key individual – 1%
Yesterday, my friend reported an experience at a factory outlet of branded shirts / men’s apparels. Many popular and premium brands of shirts and men’s apparel are available here at a discount price. A young man and women, of about same age say around 21 years, came at a time when the show roo is scheduled to be closed. As soon as they came in, one of the floor representative told them it is about to be closed and it is not possible to buy anything today. The boy said he is about to attend an interview next day and need some formals. Now the floor manager stepped in and confirmed that the shop will be closed at exactly at the scheduled time and they do not have time for searching for the product and do the billing formalities. The customer boy humbly requested again to allow them to choose an apparel. Now the shopkeepers got really irritated and waived him to go off. The boy then asked from where else he will get the apparel in the vicinity. They frowned and said bluntly they do not know.
The young pair walked out disappointed from this ornately merchandised, adequately human resources, optimally promoted shop. What is the use of investing so much and not being able to treat a prospective customer with care?
If this happened to you, will you visit such a shop again?
Mostly, this is how customers are lost.
contributed by Sasikanth Prabhu
