Jan 19th 2010 Questions for Creating a Differentiated Offering

Is your company reaching “full potential” value for its customers? Answer yes or no to the following six questions:

  1. We make it easy for prospective customers to find us and understand our products and services.
  2. We have the capability to offer expertise, tools, and other assistance to help customers determine their criteria for a good solution and which solutions best fit their situation.
  3. We offer various approaches for customers to acquire our products and services, such as different payment options, leasing, financing, etc.
  4. We can and do help customers with logistics and other issues related to receiving our products and services.
  5. We provide flexible options for support and assistance to customers in installing, implementing and using our products and services.
  6. We have a range of options available to help customers recycle, reuse, reduce waste, upgrade, and dispose of our products at the end of a product’s useful life.

If you answered yes to all six questions, congratulations on meeting the criteria for creating a differentiated offering for your customers. You may, however, want to ask yourself whether all your salespeople are consciously applying a lifecycle strategy and are maximizing the potential for every customer.

Source: Is Your Sales Team Creating Real Differentiation? by Tom Roth | MarketingProfs.com

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Nov 10th 2009 Defining the Future Talent Agenda

  • What leadership competencies/attributes are required to drive our business strategy and lead the evolution of the culture? How robust is our existing leadership pipeline, and where are there risks?
  • What are the pivotal job families/roles most critical to executing our business strategy? How will we differentiate talent strategies/investments accordingly?
  • What are the implications for skill development, given our business strategy?
  • What are our existing/emerging talent requirements in the various markets we serve, and how will we attract/deploy the right talent to these markets?
  • How can we optimize investments in talent and reward programs to achieve the right performance outcomes and evolve the culture?
  • Does the talent function have the right structure, capabilities and people to deliver value to the organization at the right cost?

Source: A Tipping Point for Talent Management? | Towers Perrin

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Nov 1st 2009 What Do You Know About Your Customers

  • How many customers do you have? How many are repeat customers? How many have only bought once?
  • How many customers have you lost in the past year?
  • How many customers have you retained in the last year?
  • Do you calculate the Life Time Value (LTV) for each of your customers? Do you calculate profitability for each of your customers? If so, do you then grade them according to their value in the company, with the intention of moving customers up on the continuum? Do you know who your most profitable customers are? And why they are profitable?
  • How many customers have you upgraded in the past year (cross-sell, upsell or moved into a new category)? Many companies ‘grade’ customers; customers with the highest LTV are ‘A’ customers, ones with the next highest LTV are ‘B’ customers and so on. Ideally the object should be to move Cs to B status, Bs to an A and so on.
  • How much of your customers’ ‘share of wallet’ do you get? Do you get all the possible business you can?
  • How many referrals or testimonials did customers give you last year?
  • When customers leave why do they leave? (Just because they tell you it was about price doesn’t mean that’s really what it was about. Often it’s about value, but when customers don’t have a language to articulate that, it sounds like, "The price was too high.")
  • How much does it cost you to get new customers? (Sales, marketing, advertising)
  • How long does it take for a new customer to become profitable – or to recoup what you’ve spent to acquire them? What happens to your acquisition costs if you lose customers before that period of time? Do you know how many new customers leave before you’ve broken even on the cost of getting them? Obviously losing customers costs companies a whole lotta money – but how much? What is the cost of failure when you don’t consciously build long-term relationships with customers?
  • How much does it cost to replace good customers after they’ve left?
  • What is attrition costing you?
  • How does the number of incoming customers compare with the number of outgoing ones? What percentage of your customer base are you actually losing on an ongoing basis? (If you’re losing 30% and replacing 30% of customers every year, that means only 40% of your customer base is stable – so how reliable and proficient can your research possibly be? Be cautious if you’re making sweeping decisions based on this small percentage of customers.)
  • What are your customers’ top three (current) expectations?
  • How many dollars would drop to your bottom line if you could keep only 5% of the profitable customers you currently lose?

Source: Numbers, Numbers, Numbers by JoAnna Brandi | CEO Refresher, November 2009

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Apr 27th 2009 Evaluating the Past 90 Days: Management Questions

  • In the past 90 days, what were your three most important strategic accomplishments?
  • In the past 90 days, what were the three most important ways you fell short of your potential?
  • In the past 90 days, what are the three most important things you have learned about your strategy.

Source: What Determines Which Businesses Win and Which Lose? by Wayne Strom, PhD, Keith McFarland | Graziadio Business Report, Volume 12, Issue 2

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Apr 19th 2009 Adopting an Appropriate Mind-Set About Customer Complaints

Design

  • What is our mind-set about complaints?
  • What do we want to accomplish with our service recovery approach?
  • What experiences do we want our customers to have when they give us feedback?
  • What guidelines should we follow when handling complaints?

Measure

  • What are our goals and how will we know we are getting close to them?
  • What do we currently do well?
  • What does our staff think and feel about complaints?
  • How robust are our current metrics regarding product or service failures?
  • How widely is our complaint data shared internally?
  • Have we benchmarked ourselves against our competitors?
  • Would it be useful for us to use a robust customer relationship management (CRM) program to track our complaints?

Align

  • Do our written responses to complaints reflect our service recovery approach?
  • Does our reward system compensate for effective complaint handling?
  • Are our return policies, refunds, and guarantees in alignment with our customer philosophy?
  • Are our internal policies, procedures, and systems in alignment with our feedback philosophy?

Respond and Recover

  • Does our staff respond to complaining customers as if they have been given a gift?
  • How empowered is our staff to respond to complaints?
  • How do we handle conflicts between our staff and our customers?
  • Does everyone, in some way, take responsibility for responding and recovering for our customers?

Integrate

  • How do we apply what we learn from our customers to help improve our quality?
  • What is our process enabling staff to learn from each other about effective complaint handling?
  • What is our system for sharing information across departments?
  • How do we ensure that the topic of "feedback" is on everyone’s agenda?
  • How can we use our service recovery approach in our marketing?

Source: Believe It: Complaints Are Gifts by Janelle Barlow, PhD | Graziadio Business Report, Volume 12, Issue 1

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Feb 11th 2009 9 Questions to Ask Before Presenting

  1. How does this individual perceive the problem I intend to solve?
  2. What is the pithy summary of my idea that will appeal to this person?
  3. What roles does this person play in the decision-making process?
  4. What is my goal for this encounter?
  5. What is the basis for my credibility with this person?
  6. Will my idea conflict with any of this person’s beliefs?
  7. How might my idea conflict with this person’s interests?
  8. Can I leave the relationship better than I found it?
  9. What kind of public commitment from this person would best build momentum?

Source: 9 Questions to Ask Before Presenting by Geoffrey James | BNET, February 10, 2009

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Nov 9th 2008 Scenario ‘‘Knowledge-Uncertainty’’ Questions

  • Do we know what forces are shaping our current and emerging business environment?
  • Do we know what new driving forces might emerge?
  • Do we know which forces might not change much over the scenario period?
  • Do we know which of these forces have more uncertainty associated with them?
  • Do we know how these forces might interact to give rise to one future rather than another?

Source: How corporations learn from scenarios | Liam Fahey | Strategy & Leadership, VOL. 31 NO. 2 2003, pp. 5-15

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Oct 23rd 2008 10 Value Creation Questions Every CEO Should Know How to Answer

  1. Do you have an explicit TSR target guiding your strategic plan? Is that target appropriate given the expectations embedded in your stock price and the ability of your business plans to deliver improved performance? Do you understand how each of your businesses will contribute to meeting your TSR goal?
  2. What are the historical sources of TSR for your company? How does your historical profile compare with that of your peers? How has the way you create value evolved over time? Are the company’s future sources of TSR likely to be similar to or different from those underlying your recent performance?
  3. What drives the differences in valuation multiples in your industry? Are investors discounting your multiple? If so, do you understand why and what to do about it? Are you experiencing multiple compression? How will your strategic choices affect your multiple in the future?
  4. What is your financially sustainable growth rate? Is it in balance with the estimated growth rates in the markets you currently serve? If not, what is the best way to deploy your excess cash?
  5. Is M&A a critical part of your corporate strategy? If so, do you know whether the deals you are considering will improve TSR? Have you set the appropriate financial hurdle rates for potential deals?
  6. What is the impact of your financial policies on your valuation multiple and TSR? Do you know their implications for your business strategy choices?
  7. Who are your dominant investors? Do you know their goals and priorities for value creation? Is your corporate strategy in sync with those goals and priorities? If not, do you have a plan for migrating to investors more closely aligned with your strategy?
  8. What are your key value-creation alternatives for the future? Do you have a robust process in place for analyzing these alternatives, debating their pros and cons, and creating alignment around the right path forward?
  9. Are your business strategy, financial strategy, and investor strategy internally consistent? Do they reinforce or contradict one another?
  10. Do you have a detailed corporate-strategy timeline describing how you will execute your strategy? Does it include the necessary internal development programs and external investor communications?

Source: Missing Link: Focusing Corporate Strategy on Value Creation | Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

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Oct 23rd 2008 Segmentation Questions

At the very minimum, a segmentation should answer the following questions in order to be successful:

  • Which consumer segments represent the largest profit pools in our category?
  • What is our share of wallet across segments today?
  • How should we prioritize the various growth opportunities within and across segments?
  • What messages and offerings will command the attention of these consumers?
  • How can we position our brands and sub-brands for growth against competitors and one another?
  • What changes in product offerings, service, and brand perception should we make in order to increase share among targeted segments? How are these changes best achieved?

Source: Consumer Segmentation: A Call to Action | Mary Egan, Jean-Manuel Izaret | Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

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Sep 18th 2008 Fundamental Crisis Management Questions

  • Is there a practice that must be stopped immediately, or a product withdrawn from the market without delay, to protect the public—and the company’s reputation?
  • What is the shape and size of the problem?
  • What is the next phase of the inquiry?
  • Should outside experts be retained?
  • Should the board be informed?
  • Must the matter be disclosed to authorities under law, should it be disclosed voluntarily, or should it not be disclosed because we don’t yet know enough?
  • Do any employees need to be put on leave, pending completion of the inquiry?
  • What types of communications should be made to constituencies inside and outside the company, ranging from employees to investors to the media?

Source: Stress Test | Ben W. Heineman Jr. | The Conference Board Review, September/October 2008

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