23:10
Faizan
My very talented colleague Michael Pearce (FocusOnRevenue.com) says, "The sale is not won until it is referenceable." In other words, it's not enough to close a sale and deliver the goods: Did the overall experience meet the customer's expectations, or did it fall short? A "diving catch" or a "recovered fumble" is a heroic rescue that saves a project headed for disaster. The save often wins you a customer for life, so it can be easy to miss the residual damage. The damage comes later when prospects check a vendor's references, often with long-term customers. Ideally, diving catches and recovered fumbles are rare occurrences, but it was one vendor's norm. Their customer satisfaction program was to (passively) track customer retention. They didn't know that prospects' calls to loyal customers often included cheerfully recounted tales of the vendor's averted disasters. Without meaning to, loyal customers were scaring away new accounts. The vendor's customer-acquisition percentage grew faster once they began actively tracking and monitoring referenceability.
This is one in a series of case studies highlighting "Key Questions and Course-correcting Quotes" taken from 20 years of B2B customer insight projects. All names are fictitious, but the situations are real. Case studies paint a picture of how important it is to learn what your B2B customers think--but aren't saying. These are real-world examples of how soliciting and acting on customer feedback has helped companies hold onto customers longer, grow relationships bigger and pick up new business faster.
Case Study: Good-Humored War Stories Rack Up New Casualties
Key Question (asked of a product manager--the vendor's chief contact in a 6-figure relationship):
"Is your account manager pro-active enough to meet your needs?"
Course-Correcting Quote:
Product Manager: "I want everyone there to be more open and collaborative. With this vendor, there's nothing wrong until it's a disaster. My attitude is, the more you tell me you don't get it, the more I learn what I have to do so that you will get it, and the more comfortable I am with the fact that you aren't charging off down some blind alley. Any time vendors decide there's something wrong and they decide to fix it, they always make the wrong choice. There's an obsession with not upsetting the customer, or not making me think they're stupid, or not making me think they think I'm stupid. There's a lot of primordial human emotional stuff that goes on there that has nothing to do with getting the job done right!"
[This is my all-time favorite customer quote. He went on to say, "These guys take a punch well," so he wasn't as disenchanted as his rant implies.]
My Client's Quandary:
This vendor was always in disaster-recovery mode. Their customers loved that eventually everything turned out well, but the process exhausted everyone--customers and employees alike. The vendor used a third party to reach out to customers to see if their ineffective processes and communication were straining customer loyalty.
Conclusion:
Chaos wasn't yet costing the vendor customer loyalty, but it was damaging referenceability. When a vendor "recovers a fumble," the near-loss experience can create a customer for life. However, when customers wistfully recount vendor heroics to outsiders such as prospects calling to check the vendor's references, those stories create doubt and become a negative reference. It's smarter to find and fix internal processes and practices. An unqualified reference beats a dramatic story every time.
This is one in a series of case studies highlighting "Key Questions and Course-correcting Quotes" taken from 20 years of B2B customer insight projects. All names are fictitious, but the situations are real. Case studies paint a picture of how important it is to learn what your B2B customers think--but aren't saying. These are real-world examples of how soliciting and acting on customer feedback has helped companies hold onto customers longer, grow relationships bigger and pick up new business faster.
Case Study: Good-Humored War Stories Rack Up New Casualties
Key Question (asked of a product manager--the vendor's chief contact in a 6-figure relationship):
"Is your account manager pro-active enough to meet your needs?"
Course-Correcting Quote:
Product Manager: "I want everyone there to be more open and collaborative. With this vendor, there's nothing wrong until it's a disaster. My attitude is, the more you tell me you don't get it, the more I learn what I have to do so that you will get it, and the more comfortable I am with the fact that you aren't charging off down some blind alley. Any time vendors decide there's something wrong and they decide to fix it, they always make the wrong choice. There's an obsession with not upsetting the customer, or not making me think they're stupid, or not making me think they think I'm stupid. There's a lot of primordial human emotional stuff that goes on there that has nothing to do with getting the job done right!"
[This is my all-time favorite customer quote. He went on to say, "These guys take a punch well," so he wasn't as disenchanted as his rant implies.]
My Client's Quandary:
This vendor was always in disaster-recovery mode. Their customers loved that eventually everything turned out well, but the process exhausted everyone--customers and employees alike. The vendor used a third party to reach out to customers to see if their ineffective processes and communication were straining customer loyalty.
Conclusion:
Chaos wasn't yet costing the vendor customer loyalty, but it was damaging referenceability. When a vendor "recovers a fumble," the near-loss experience can create a customer for life. However, when customers wistfully recount vendor heroics to outsiders such as prospects calling to check the vendor's references, those stories create doubt and become a negative reference. It's smarter to find and fix internal processes and practices. An unqualified reference beats a dramatic story every time.
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