Expert insights. Personalized for you.
As the economy reopens companies are finding that customers may have disappeared or that their spending behavior has changed. While there’s agreement that companies need to adapt to changing markets, rapidly find new markets, new customers and new revenue models, the question is how ? This is the first step before you zoom in and design the business model, engage in focused customer development or test your minimal viable products. Customer Development MORE
Rimini Street has provided third party maintenance to Oracle and SAP customers for 15. As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series. MORE
Customer experience is one of the most crucial factors determining the success of an organization. No matter how good the quality of your product is, it will be in vain if you offer poor customer experience. Understand Your Customers. Connect With Customers Offline. MORE
Most business owners are aware that no matter what industry you’re in it’s your clients/customers that ultimately determine your success. More than giving great products and services, brands must do more to let their customers know they really appreciate their business. The more appreciated a customer feels, the more inclined they are to continue working with your brand – and sending others your way. It gives your customers a chance to put a face to the brand name. MORE
In the early stages, it isn’t uncommon for businesses to bank their earnings on a handful of customers (or sometimes, just one). This is especially true for startups, which operate on the basis of customer traction to solidify expectations with investors or lending institutions. In this case, “marquee” or “flagship” customers may have been key incentives to locking in new investors and attracting new customers. Losing a major customer will inevitably impact cash flow. MORE
To grow your current customer base, you have to make efforts to connect with prospects. Remember, the world today is fast-paced, and the opportunities to link with potential clients and existing customers are quite many. Others customer engagement customer management managing customer MORE
Is your marketing focus product-centric or customer-centric ? With a wealth of products now available, customers look for the most memorable experience , not just the best product. Amazon is very customer-centric, but it can make all the difference in retail as well as online. One of the keys to a successful customer-centric strategy is understanding and measuring your customers lifetime value (CLV), since customers are definitely not all the same. MORE
If you’re looking for a strategy to get ahead when it comes to customer acquisition, machine learning can be your secret weapon. While machine learning does fall under the larger category of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s a bit more specific and can be extremely effective technology to pair with your customer and prospect database. Machine learning is the AI focal point for your customer relationship management (CRM) tool and can be the key to boosting your customer acquisition. MORE
One of my favorite sayings is “Real change doesn’t happen until the pain level gets high enough.” There aren’t many of us who love change, just for the opportunity to learn something new, and even we won’t pay much for it. MORE
Let me say at the outset, my hype antenna goes up whenever a vendor talks about machine learning. It comes from years of frustration with machines which have supposedly been trained to transcribe voices. Even the hyperscalers only deliver 85. MORE
The world keeps changing, and visible business strategies that worked well in the past, including being the premium brand or low price producer, simply don’t get the customer loyalty they once did. Today, customers are looking for real relationships, a memorable shopping experience, and satisfaction of a higher purpose. What you say in your mission statement means nothing unless customers see you and your team living it every day. Highly focused customer segment targeting. MORE
You want to think about “what your customers want to buy” and then adjust your pitch accordingly. The post What Do Your Customers Want to Buy? MORE
They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Every business owner needs to plan to reinvent their business regularly, or their competitors and their customers will make them obsolete. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends. business customer growth entrepreneur reinvent MORE
by Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of “ The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave “ Subscription-based businesses seem to be the most resilient during this time of crisis. To hang onto customers during a crisis, you need to build a forever transaction with the people you serve. But when the dust settles, they will have lost the trust that makes customer loyalty possible. MORE
Attracting the right customers is the key to success in business, whether you have a new startup or a mature enterprise. In my role as an advisor to entrepreneurs, I often see struggling businesses trying to be too many things for too many people, resulting in customer confusion, initiatives executed poorly, and high costs, few customers, and slow growth all around. Lowest-cost solution with minimal customization. Public utility required by all customer segments. MORE
Every company strives to sustain and improve their customer satisfaction levels. Ensuring that customer satisfaction levels are high wins over a customer’s loyalty for a longer period. The key to ensuring that customers are satisfied with the product or service a company offers is to measure it. Customer satisfaction is the level of contentment customers get by doing business with a company. Customer Satisfaction Surveys. MORE
Entrepreneurs and business executives seem to be even more focused on their technology than the rest of us, and less inclined to listen to the voice of the customer, even if they remember to ask. Real two-way conversations with real customers, including the all-important body language, are unheard-of these days. I doubt if any of these are really listening to their customers. It’s easy to focus first on selling, and to treat all customer input as objections to be overcome. MORE
Much has been written recently about the requirement to focus today on the total customer experience, as a competitive edge or even for survival. Traditionally, you just worried about the quality of the sales transaction (price, speed, service), but the “customer experience” now includes ease of pre-sale shopping, post-sale support, with a connected relationship throughout. Delight customers with personally tailored options. MORE
They both have a history of focusing on the lifetime value of a customer rather than chasing short-term profits. If you want to be a leader in customer loyalty and grow your business for the long term, Customer Value Optimization is key. So how do you calculate customer value? MORE
With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect. Everyone today is looking for a knock-your-socks-off customer experience, and they know the best companies out there are already doing it. Company finds customers based on interests. MORE
Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. Display ads on mobile devices, including video and audio, also offer a new opportunity to reach target customers. MORE
Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. Customers don’t even see this as advertising. Customers relate to other humans and relationships. MORE
We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. The class has talked to ~2,200 customers to date. Next, they then did the same for the Customer Segment portion of the canvas. the Customer Life Time (CLT)). MORE
For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate. MORE
Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. This can be an advantage to startups who don’t have the resources and brand awareness of mature businesses, if they understand and position themselves to win in the decisive moments of the new customer buying process. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” MORE
Prioritizing something “fuzzy” like customer love is often viewed as a nice-to-have because ROI is too vague. Customer Service Grow customer experience customer love customer success customer success softwareWe beg to differ. MORE
Whatever your size, here are 5 tips to ensure you deliver exceptional customer service during these unsettling times: Use your data to make informed decisions. Respond to customers promptly. The post Customer Service Excellence In A Pandemic Era appeared first on Young Upstarts. MORE
Matthew and Chris from Custom Plugs set up their business from scratch in 2011, selling plugs for ears, ear gauges , body jewelry , accessories, and alternative clothing. A lack of customer service consistency can hinder you. Life in business is never just plain sailing. MORE
When running a business, there’s one element that is more important than any other: the customer. If you don’t have customers purchasing your products or services, your company will quickly cease to exist. Due to the importance of customers, your communication with them should be a primary concern. Not only can this help to convince potential consumers into buying your wares, but it’s also a significant factor in ensuring current customers keep coming back for more. MORE
Customer experience (CX) is defined by a person’s feelings and emotions, experienced at any stage with a brand. Great CX means happy, loyal customers who not only trust your brand, but are active advocates of it. . Essentially, CX encompasses all the touchpoints in your customers’ journey: from your website and email-marketing, to talking with a customer service representative, chatbots, and in-person communication. Collect customer service data. MORE
Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. The result, according to an often-quoted Gallup survey , is 70 percent of workers not fully engaged, and poor customer experiences. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers. An unhappy team member can’t create an engaged customer. MORE
When looking for product/market fit, we start with the customer. Everything starts and ends with the customer. Customer Development Lean Startups Product/Market Fit customer segmentation product/market fit That''s the "market" part of product/market fit. MORE
The custom inflatable industry has been growing at an exponential rate in recent years. They’re also a perfect example of opportunistic marketing : many companies are now reaching out to viable businesses to create custom inflatables to promote their brands. MORE
Too many business owners still think of “ customer support ” as an after-sale process to rectify customer problems with completed transactions. With the advent of instant communication and social media, customer service starts at the first hint of interest by you, and never ends for repeat customers. One bad customer experience will kill not only one customer, but many future ones, who hear the message via social media and friends. MORE
Learning how questions actually work can give you fresh insight into the customer discovery process. The post How Asking Works: A Crash Course in Customer Discovery Questions appeared first on GrasshopperHerder.com. Customer Development Lean Startup Generative Market Research Interview lean startupInterviewing strangers is a science as much as an art. MORE
Is the customer discovery process one of your pain points? The post How Do I Know When I’m Done with Customer Discovery? Customer Development Lean Startup User Experience & Research Customer Segmentation & Personas Generative Market Research Hypothesis Driven Development lean startupFind out how many interviews you should do, how often, and how to process the information quickly so you can move on to your build in no time. MORE
Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get you remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story. MORE
Small business owners know establishing personal connections with customers is critical for growth. Not only that, but because they have fewer resources, 53% of small business owners feel they’re at a competitive disadvantage versus larger enterprises when it comes to meeting customer expectations. One of the best ways for a small business to differentiate itself from the competition is to build a strong customer-first culture. Cultivating customer-centricity. MORE
If you own a small business, conducting a customer satisfaction survey is an important part of running the business. It measures the degree of your customer’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your products and services. It also identifies crucial needs that need to be met as per the view of your customer and builds effective communication and personal relationships with your them. So, how can you get started on a customer satisfaction survey if you own a small business? MORE
The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. So how do our students get out of the building to talk to customers to do Customer Discovery when they can’t get out of the building? Reminder: What’s the Point of Talking to Customers ? Talking to customers seems like a simple idea, but most founders find it’s one of the hardest things they have to do. Customer behavior changes? MORE
For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate. Even businesses with highly specialized market segments will find it more effective and simpler to focus on who customers are as people, rather than the “what” of their demographic attributes. MORE
Customer Related Topics Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 16, 2020
For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate.
Startup Professionals Musings
AUGUST 22, 2020
Entrepreneurs have always believed that their product or service must show real value to customers, but today the smart ones are even able to make their marketing valuable. Customers don’t even see this as advertising. Customers relate to other humans and relationships.
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YoungUpstarts
SEPTEMBER 24, 2020
Whatever your size, here are 5 tips to ensure you deliver exceptional customer service during these unsettling times: Use your data to make informed decisions. Respond to customers promptly. The post Customer Service Excellence In A Pandemic Era appeared first on Young Upstarts.
deal architect
DECEMBER 7, 2014
Most authors hate to use a word repeatedly in a sentence, or a page. Few editors allow it. But till Sadagopan pointed it out in his Amazon review of the book, SAP Nation, I did not realize the editors and. Industry Commentary
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 25, 2020
The world keeps changing, and visible business strategies that worked well in the past, including being the premium brand or low price producer, simply don’t get the customer loyalty they once did. Today, customers are looking for real relationships, a memorable shopping experience, and satisfaction of a higher purpose. What you say in your mission statement means nothing unless customers see you and your team living it every day. Highly focused customer segment targeting.
YFS Magazine
JANUARY 15, 2020
Examine your systems and processes to ensure they are focused on providing what matters most to your customers. Customer Service Grow customer experience customer satisfaction
Steve Blank
APRIL 7, 2020
The classes are built on the Lean Startup methodology: Customer Discovery, Agile Engineering and the Business/Mission Model Canvas. So how do our students get out of the building to talk to customers to do Customer Discovery when they can’t get out of the building? Reminder: What’s the Point of Talking to Customers ? Talking to customers seems like a simple idea, but most founders find it’s one of the hardest things they have to do. Customer behavior changes?
Startup Professionals Musings
OCTOBER 17, 2020
One of my favorite sayings is “Real change doesn’t happen until the pain level gets high enough.” There aren’t many of us who love change, just for the opportunity to learn something new, and even we won’t pay much for it.
Startup Professionals Musings
NOVEMBER 17, 2018
For decades, efforts to satisfy customers have been built around demographics – capitalizing on race, ethnicity, gender, income, and other attributes. Customer personalities define customer experience, and sets what they love, and what they hate. Even businesses with highly specialized market segments will find it more effective and simpler to focus on who customers are as people, rather than the “what” of their demographic attributes.
deal architect
OCTOBER 14, 2020
Rimini Street has provided third party maintenance to Oracle and SAP customers for 15. As we have moved to virtual vendor briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short segments (with permission from vendors), as part of my Analyst Cam series.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 29, 2020
Entrepreneurs and business executives seem to be even more focused on their technology than the rest of us, and less inclined to listen to the voice of the customer, even if they remember to ask. Real two-way conversations with real customers, including the all-important body language, are unheard-of these days. I doubt if any of these are really listening to their customers. It’s easy to focus first on selling, and to treat all customer input as objections to be overcome.
View from Seed
SEPTEMBER 23, 2020
You want to think about “what your customers want to buy” and then adjust your pitch accordingly. The post What Do Your Customers Want to Buy?
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 18, 2020
Every company strives to sustain and improve their customer satisfaction levels. Ensuring that customer satisfaction levels are high wins over a customer’s loyalty for a longer period. The key to ensuring that customers are satisfied with the product or service a company offers is to measure it. Customer satisfaction is the level of contentment customers get by doing business with a company. Customer Satisfaction Surveys.
YoungUpstarts
JANUARY 10, 2020
In the early stages, it isn’t uncommon for businesses to bank their earnings on a handful of customers (or sometimes, just one). This is especially true for startups, which operate on the basis of customer traction to solidify expectations with investors or lending institutions. In this case, “marquee” or “flagship” customers may have been key incentives to locking in new investors and attracting new customers. Losing a major customer will inevitably impact cash flow.
Steve Blank
JUNE 23, 2020
As the economy reopens companies are finding that customers may have disappeared or that their spending behavior has changed. While there’s agreement that companies need to adapt to changing markets, rapidly find new markets, new customers and new revenue models, the question is how ? This is the first step before you zoom in and design the business model, engage in focused customer development or test your minimal viable products. Customer Development
Startup Professionals Musings
MARCH 4, 2019
Is your marketing focus product-centric or customer-centric ? With a wealth of products now available, customers look for the most memorable experience , not just the best product. Amazon is very customer-centric, but it can make all the difference in retail as well as online. One of the keys to a successful customer-centric strategy is understanding and measuring your customers lifetime value (CLV), since customers are definitely not all the same.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 5, 2019
Too many business owners still think of “ customer support ” as an after-sale process to rectify customer problems with completed transactions. With the advent of instant communication and social media, customer service starts at the first hint of interest by you, and never ends for repeat customers. One bad customer experience will kill not only one customer, but many future ones, who hear the message via social media and friends.
YoungUpstarts
JUNE 26, 2020
When running a business, there’s one element that is more important than any other: the customer. If you don’t have customers purchasing your products or services, your company will quickly cease to exist. Due to the importance of customers, your communication with them should be a primary concern. Not only can this help to convince potential consumers into buying your wares, but it’s also a significant factor in ensuring current customers keep coming back for more.
YoungUpstarts
AUGUST 18, 2020
Customer experience is one of the most crucial factors determining the success of an organization. No matter how good the quality of your product is, it will be in vain if you offer poor customer experience. Understand Your Customers. Connect With Customers Offline.
Startup Professionals Musings
JANUARY 11, 2020
They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Every business owner needs to plan to reinvent their business regularly, or their competitors and their customers will make them obsolete. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends. business customer growth entrepreneur reinvent
Startup Professionals Musings
FEBRUARY 3, 2020
Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. This can be an advantage to startups who don’t have the resources and brand awareness of mature businesses, if they understand and position themselves to win in the decisive moments of the new customer buying process. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.”
YoungUpstarts
MARCH 19, 2020
If you’re looking for a strategy to get ahead when it comes to customer acquisition, machine learning can be your secret weapon. While machine learning does fall under the larger category of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s a bit more specific and can be extremely effective technology to pair with your customer and prospect database. Machine learning is the AI focal point for your customer relationship management (CRM) tool and can be the key to boosting your customer acquisition.
Startup Professionals Musings
JULY 20, 2020
Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. Display ads on mobile devices, including video and audio, also offer a new opportunity to reach target customers.
ConversionXL
SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
They both have a history of focusing on the lifetime value of a customer rather than chasing short-term profits. If you want to be a leader in customer loyalty and grow your business for the long term, Customer Value Optimization is key. So how do you calculate customer value?
Startup Professionals Musings
SEPTEMBER 19, 2020
Traditional marketing says you have to “push” your message out to customers, over and over again, to get you remembered. A more effective approach in today’s Internet and interactive culture is to use “pull” technology to bring customers and clients to your story.
Steve Blank
DECEMBER 2, 2013
We talk a lot about Customer Development, but there’s nothing like seeing it in action to understand its power. But the big payoff came when their discussions with medical device customers revealed an entirely new way to think about pricing —potentially tripling their revenue. The class has talked to ~2,200 customers to date. Next, they then did the same for the Customer Segment portion of the canvas. the Customer Life Time (CLT)).
YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 8, 2020
The custom inflatable industry has been growing at an exponential rate in recent years. They’re also a perfect example of opportunistic marketing : many companies are now reaching out to viable businesses to create custom inflatables to promote their brands.
YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 3, 2017
If you own a small business, conducting a customer satisfaction survey is an important part of running the business. It measures the degree of your customer’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with your products and services. It also identifies crucial needs that need to be met as per the view of your customer and builds effective communication and personal relationships with your them. So, how can you get started on a customer satisfaction survey if you own a small business?
Grasshopper Herder
APRIL 29, 2014
When looking for product/market fit, we start with the customer. Everything starts and ends with the customer. Customer Development Lean Startups Product/Market Fit customer segmentation product/market fit That''s the "market" part of product/market fit.
Startup Professionals Musings
APRIL 1, 2020
Attracting the right customers is the key to success in business, whether you have a new startup or a mature enterprise. In my role as an advisor to entrepreneurs, I often see struggling businesses trying to be too many things for too many people, resulting in customer confusion, initiatives executed poorly, and high costs, few customers, and slow growth all around. Lowest-cost solution with minimal customization. Public utility required by all customer segments.
Startup Professionals Musings
AUGUST 16, 2019
Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. The result, according to an often-quoted Gallup survey , is 70 percent of workers not fully engaged, and poor customer experiences. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers. An unhappy team member can’t create an engaged customer.
YoungUpstarts
APRIL 15, 2020
by Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of “ The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave “ Subscription-based businesses seem to be the most resilient during this time of crisis. To hang onto customers during a crisis, you need to build a forever transaction with the people you serve. But when the dust settles, they will have lost the trust that makes customer loyalty possible.
YFS Magazine
JUNE 28, 2017
Prioritizing something “fuzzy” like customer love is often viewed as a nice-to-have because ROI is too vague. Customer Service Grow customer experience customer love customer success customer success softwareWe beg to differ.
Grasshopper Herder
MAY 21, 2019
Learning how questions actually work can give you fresh insight into the customer discovery process. The post How Asking Works: A Crash Course in Customer Discovery Questions appeared first on GrasshopperHerder.com. Customer Development Lean Startup Generative Market Research Interview lean startupInterviewing strangers is a science as much as an art.
YoungUpstarts
APRIL 14, 2020
Customer experience (CX) is defined by a person’s feelings and emotions, experienced at any stage with a brand. Great CX means happy, loyal customers who not only trust your brand, but are active advocates of it. . Essentially, CX encompasses all the touchpoints in your customers’ journey: from your website and email-marketing, to talking with a customer service representative, chatbots, and in-person communication. Collect customer service data.
YFS Magazine
APRIL 9, 2020
If you want to gather actionable customer feedback, make sure you are asking the right questions and implement it in the most meaningful way. Customer Service Grow customer feedback customer reviews customer surveys online reviews
YoungUpstarts
JANUARY 30, 2019
Most business owners are aware that no matter what industry you’re in it’s your clients/customers that ultimately determine your success. More than giving great products and services, brands must do more to let their customers know they really appreciate their business. The more appreciated a customer feels, the more inclined they are to continue working with your brand – and sending others your way. It gives your customers a chance to put a face to the brand name.
Startup Professionals Musings
JUNE 12, 2019
Much has been written recently about the requirement to focus today on the total customer experience, as a competitive edge or even for survival. Traditionally, you just worried about the quality of the sales transaction (price, speed, service), but the “customer experience” now includes ease of pre-sale shopping, post-sale support, with a connected relationship throughout. Delight customers with personally tailored options.
YoungUpstarts
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
Small business owners know establishing personal connections with customers is critical for growth. Not only that, but because they have fewer resources, 53% of small business owners feel they’re at a competitive disadvantage versus larger enterprises when it comes to meeting customer expectations. One of the best ways for a small business to differentiate itself from the competition is to build a strong customer-first culture. Cultivating customer-centricity.
YoungUpstarts
OCTOBER 21, 2020
Matthew and Chris from Custom Plugs set up their business from scratch in 2011, selling plugs for ears, ear gauges , body jewelry , accessories, and alternative clothing. A lack of customer service consistency can hinder you. Life in business is never just plain sailing.
deal architect
SEPTEMBER 9, 2020
Let me say at the outset, my hype antenna goes up whenever a vendor talks about machine learning. It comes from years of frustration with machines which have supposedly been trained to transcribe voices. Even the hyperscalers only deliver 85.
Startup Professionals Musings
MAY 28, 2017
With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect. Everyone today is looking for a knock-your-socks-off customer experience, and they know the best companies out there are already doing it. Company finds customers based on interests.
Grasshopper Herder
MARCH 13, 2019
Is the customer discovery process one of your pain points? The post How Do I Know When I’m Done with Customer Discovery? Customer Development Lean Startup User Experience & Research Customer Segmentation & Personas Generative Market Research Hypothesis Driven Development lean startupFind out how many interviews you should do, how often, and how to process the information quickly so you can move on to your build in no time.
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