Modern enterprise resources are no longer internal resources in the traditional sense, that is, talents, funds, fixed assets and raw materials. Its connotation and extension have been extended as never before. It can be said that all tangible and intangible resources that can be used by enterprises or promote their production and operation can be called enterprise resources, with special emphasis on intangible resources and other external resources, which were rarely valued and tapped by enterprises in the past, and enterprise customer resources are one of the important external resources. In the case that competitors tear and snatch various resources endlessly, customers, as the "God" that affects the survival of enterprises, are obviously the meat in the eyes of many people. As long as the potential target market is found, the enterprise will rush over like a shark smelling blood in the sea.
Customer resources are not limited to customers in the traditional sense. For enterprises, customer resources are often changing and relative. Sometimes competitors can also be customers of enterprises; Enterprise employees can also be regarded as customers of enterprises; On the same production line, one link must be responsible for the next link, otherwise there may be problems in production, so the next link is also the customer of the previous link. In fact, this is a kind of thinking about the survival and development of enterprises from the perspective of customers, which is of great benefit to enterprises. We might as well call it "customer thinking". So how to borrow the power of customers from a broader perspective to seek development for enterprises?
One way to make full use of customer resources: try to be your own customer. Many companies may complain that the results of customer satisfaction surveys are very biased, and some even don't work. In fact, research can't reflect the problem completely and accurately. It can only be used as a reference, not as a cure. The most direct and effective way for enterprises to investigate customer satisfaction is to seriously try to be their own customers, so that you can personally experience whether your products are good or not, whether your service attitude is good or not, and even experience all kinds of torture that customers encounter in your company, which is far more true than what you let customers tell.
A huge supermarket, there must be a lot of problems that bother customers, but no matter how you ask customers, it may not tell you the real feelings, even if you go to the scene to observe, it is useless. At this time, you might as well try to be a customer who goes to the supermarket to buy food. Remember: try to go in different periods, because the problems in different periods are often very different. For example, when you go shopping at 6 pm, the peak of the day, you will find that only one dish has been weighed, and there is a long queue at the weighing place. What makes you even more dissatisfied is that when you want to pay the bill, you will also find that only a dozen of the dozens of payment desks are open, while other waiters are "empty". I believe you will immediately think: Why is there only one weighed vegetable in this rush hour? There are dozens of checkout counters, and only a dozen are open. Through personal experience, I believe you will know how to do it.
The second way to make full use of customer resources: customers who try to become competitors should be invincible in the enterprise competition. It is obviously not enough to know each other, that is, it depends on how your competitors do things. What do you do better than your business? What makes customers dissatisfied? Think about the reasons and summarize the advantages and disadvantages of competitors. In fact, this is the intellectual war of enterprises and an important means of modern enterprise competition, but its premise is based on some market norms, laws and regulations and enterprise ethics. One of the best ways to collect information from competitors is to try to become customers of competitors.
In fact, this path has been widely used. For example, two companies with equal strength constantly learn from each other's practices to optimize and improve themselves. Typical representatives in this regard are McDonald's and KFC, Gome and Suning, China Unicom and China Mobile. Another situation is that relatively weak enterprises enhance their competitiveness by comparing leading enterprises in the industry. But the above two practices are not really to be competitors' customers. They observe and imitate each other more as practitioners, which is the performance of onlookers and imitators, and the experience they get is far less than that of competitors' customers.
The third way to make full use of customer resources: learn to communicate with old customers in the past. Customers are often rational, and they will not choose the products and services they need at will. In general, they choose products and services by comprehensively considering affordability, price, product function, quality, service level, personal preference and other factors. Only when they feel "value for money" will they choose to buy. Then, when a customer suddenly gives up your products and services and turns to your competitors, there must be internal reasons. At this time, some people may just leave them alone except feeling sorry and helpless. In fact, old customers are a reusable resource. For enterprises, know exactly why old customers leave. What opinions and suggestions do they have on the products and services of the enterprise? What kind of products can meet the basic needs of old customers? These are all very important information resources. On the one hand, it helps to develop new customers and avoid the same mistakes from happening again; On the other hand, an old customer leaving you does not mean leaving forever, because the market is a free market and customers have the right to choose independently. As long as you can make old customers feel more attractive, old customers will come back again. This is "repeat customers".
Therefore, enterprises, especially their marketing departments, should pay attention to communicating with old customers in the past and get valuable market information from them.
The way to make full use of customer resources: let customers help you find the crux of the problem. Customers are users and experiencers of your company's products and services, and they have the most say. Enterprises often get twice the result with half the effort with the help of customers when they encounter problems. What kind of problems can customers help enterprises find? For example, does the product performance and function meet the needs of customers with different consumption capabilities? Is the price positioning of products reasonable, and what is the affordability of consumers? Are consumers satisfied with after-sales service? What's more, what do they think of the service attitude of external packaging and employees? The long-standing problems of these enterprises have puzzled many enterprises for a long time. In order to solve the problem, some enterprises constantly invite professional companies to do research, planning and analysis, and on the other hand, constantly do market customer satisfaction surveys, but the effect is very unsatisfactory, and the cost is high and the time is long. Therefore, it is a good idea to ask customers to help you find the problem.
But practice shows that many customers don't buy the account of the enterprise, and even if they are willing to help you, they often don't know how to express the possible problems of products and services and the root causes of the problems. So, how do you get your customers to give you their real thoughts? This requires the efforts of enterprises. For example, some enterprises hold in-depth seminars for consumers on certain issues, and let consumers express their truest thoughts through scientific guidance and interaction.
Five ways to make full use of customer resources: Hire important personnel from customers In the era of fierce competition for talents, enterprises have hunted talents, especially high-end talents in the industry, to an all-pervasive extent, and digging for each other is even more incisive. Unfortunately, many people only know how to recruit talents from competitors, but they don't know how to recruit talents from customers. In fact, some important positions in enterprises need talents who really understand products and services, and these talents can often be obtained from downstream customers, which is an important way for enterprises to obtain key talents.
In fact, Fortune 500 companies have made many attempts and explorations in this respect. For example, IBM hired Guo Shina, a big customer in the past, as the CEO of the company, which saved the company. However, IBM is facing the problem of development. Many people think that only splitting can survive, but Guo Shina doesn't know computer knowledge and has no industry experience. But he used to be a customer of IBM, so he quickly figured out what IBM needed to do, instead of simply solving the problem through splitting. Later, the rapid development of IBM proved that Guo Shina's idea was correct. As you can imagine, if Guo Shina is not a customer, it is difficult for him to solve the problem from the customer's point of view, and it is even more difficult to achieve such good results.
There are also some domestic companies trying to find suitable talents from customers, such as Baidu CTO position. They had planned to invite Qilu, executive vice president of Yahoo, and Wang Xiaochuan, senior vice president in charge of technology of Sohu, but failed to make it for various reasons. But that doesn't mean it's not feasible. On the contrary, this attempt will gradually become the choice of many enterprises, and we can wait and see.