Michael Maoz

My brilliant colleague, Ed Thompson, was reviewing a piece of research I am about to publish, and he reminded me of some facts about the nature of the client calls we took in 2008: One in nine calls was a discussion on strategic direction in improving the overall process of interacting effectively with customers. The other eight out of nine calls were about the down and dirty aspects of technologies and product or service selection, and the evaluation of software. What happened to the big transformational issues such as customer experience, single view of the customer, consistent processes, and integrated multi-channel experiences? They are becoming a rarer part of the discussions, as businesses tighten up budgets. Looking back at the data from the bad days of the post-dot.com meltdown, Ed noticed that something similar happened back then, with subsequent erosion in customer satisfaction – and this is across industries and geographies.

This is just a ‘heads-up’ to you as you are asked to get more tactical: management wants quick wins. They are what everyone looks for in a downturn – lower costs, shorter sales cycles, easy upsells, and projects that can begin to show an ROI in 90 days. It is hard to avoid the pressure. But keep your long-term game plan in place to win customer trust and loyalty. We’ve seen the results of taking your eye off of the ball, and it can take years to recover.