Some of this recession’s success stories – John Lewis, Poundland and Innocent Drinks – prove once again that companies who treat their customers as more than mere consumers outperform their peers in a downturn and stand to reap substantial rewards when good times return.


As you position your own company to take advantage of the recovery, you may not be able to invest heavily in advertising, marketing or even staff training. But effective client communication needn’t be costly, onerous or especially time-consuming.

Over-communicate with existing clients

When John Lewis resisted pressure to reduce headcount as the recession deepened last year, it proved a shrewd business move. Maintaining high numbers of well-trained and knowledgeable sales staff increased customer satisfaction and enabled the high street stalwart to hold onto its loyal customers.

People who have already paid money for your goods and services are your most important source of future revenue. So pay existing customers a disproportionate amount of attention and show them you aren’t taking them for granted.
Happily, clients no longer expect lengthy, expensive lunches or client entertainment junkets. Increase the number of short, coffee-length visits and share the information you glean. Reassure team members that the goal is a higher number of insightful client conversations rather than an immediate uptick in sales.

Use positive language

Two years of negativity is seeping into the language of leaders, even those who believe better times are around the corner. This is seen most clearly in the business pages as CEOs deny a barrage of negative questions with statements such as: “We don’t face insurmountable problems,” and “Our results aren’t the result of a one-off gamble”.

The problem with replies like this is that our brains are hardwired to give disproportionate attention to emotive words like “gamble,” “problem” and “rip-off” than the insignificant qualifiers that precede them. The answer? Plan and practice the way you’d like to describe your company and its products and memorise them as complete sentences.

All senior team members should be able to describe your company and its services crisply and concisely. Poundland spokespeople tend to refer to themselves as “Europe’s largest single-priced retailer,” for example.

Seek high-quality feedback

Organic smoothie maker Innocent Drinks famously set up shop by offering free drinks to festival-goers and asking them to dump the empty bottles into one bin if they thought the makers should start up in business and into another if they thought they were wasting their time.

It takes courage to sincerely seek out feedback, but there’s no quicker way to identify product winners or stop investing in vanity projects. The most useful feedback combines qualitative with quantitative, formal with informal and makes it easy for clients to provide negative feedback and suggest changes.

It also means asking your most important customers, regularly and in person: “On a scale of one to ten how are we are performing?” Followed by “And what can we do to get closer to 10?”

Like all great relationships, customer loyalty boils down to good communication. And because good communication is two-way, is based on trust and should be initiated even when there is nothing pressing to talk about, now is the perfect time to really engage with your clients.

(hlucas@ecdinsight.com)