After a customer purchases a product, there are four possibilities for the development of his relationship with the enterprise: 1. Maintain business with the enterprise, 2. Reduce business with the enterprise, 3. Increase business with the enterprise, and 4. Leave the enterprise.
We always talk about the importance of customer service (CS). We think that service can help enterprises retain old customers. It seems that retaining old customers means success. If they can't retain old customers, enterprises have to start looking for new customers from scratch. The cost is higher, and the sustainable development of enterprises faces great challenges. However, the relationship between customers and enterprises not only has two possibilities of retention and loss, but also has two possibilities of increasing business and reducing business. This involves a very important concept: customer success (CS).
Under what circumstances will customers increase their business? When they make money and need to expand their business, right? Especially in the construction machinery industry, the equipment purchased by customers are all means of production. If you can't make money using these equipment, what can customers do to expand the business scale? It is more likely that customers will reduce or even terminate their business. Obviously, the success of an enterprise is closely related to the success of its customers. Only relying on the timeliness of services can not guarantee the success of customers.
Customer success is a long-term, scientifically designed and professionally guided business strategy to maximize the sustainable profitability of customers and enterprises. The connotation of customer success goes far beyond customer service itself. In the past, enterprises and customers were transactional, and in the future, enterprises and customers were relational. The two are inseparable. In the past, customer service was reactive, and future customer success was proactive. In the past, a business transaction meant the completion of the order. In the future, a transaction means the beginning of a close relationship with the customer.
In the future, the customer service formula will evolve into:
Customer service + customer success = customer experience, where n represents that customers not only experience products and services, but also experience benefits and success, experience convenience and emotion, that is, obtain a full range of pleasant experiences in the whole customer journey.
In recent years, the subscription economy has been in full swing. In the past, software companies sold software to users, but now users pay for the software every year. The enterprise must ensure that users benefit from the software, or the users will not renew the software in the next year. Subscription economy is a more reasonable economic model, which closely links the success of customers with the development of enterprises. Enterprises must ensure that customers obtain value, actively provide them with training, update software in a timely manner, and strive to give customers the best experience. Otherwise, they will not renew the subscription.
Whether the customer experience is good or bad has not only become the problem of customers, but also the most concerned topic of enterprises. At the same time, enterprises will also pay attention to whether customers can make money and will not recommend unsuitable products to them. In the past, enterprises did everything from their own interests, pursuing sales volume, market share and profits. Some enterprises' accessories were so expensive that customers could not afford them, leading to a large number of customer losses.
Excavator enterprises have sold more than 2.5 million excavators in the Chinese market, which needs about 1 million sets of equipment, resulting in a drop in customer revenue. But who cares about customer revenue? Who cares about customer success? Now, enterprises begin to pay for their quick success and quick profits. In the era of user sovereignty, customers have more and more power to speak. If you do not care about the success of customers, customers will not care about the success of enterprises, and they will only leave you.
Netflix, Amazon Prime, apple music, salesforce and spotify are all examples of subscription models. From 1.0 DVD to 2.0 streaming media, and then to 3.0 high-quality original content, Netflix has attracted 220 million Internet subscribers worldwide. These subscribers pay monthly fees, creating a high-frequency and high viscosity subscription mode, which also encourages Netflix to create better works, otherwise users will not renew their subscription. According to the user's big data analysis, Netflix accurately calculated the audience's favorite themes, directors, actors and other key elements, and then planned and filmed the film and television drama, "house of cards" was shot in this way.
In 2021, Netflix's revenue was US $24.9 billion, with 220 million subscribers worldwide, and its market value was once as high as US $300 billion! For a well-run enterprise, at least 70% of its old users will renew their subscription in the new year. The subscription economic model enables them to lock in 70% of their income at the beginning of the year. Of course, enterprises must continue to innovate and improve customer experience CX in order to retain old customers and ensure sustainable growth of performance.
Is it possible for the construction machinery industry to adopt the subscription mode? Customer support agreement (CSA) is a service subscription mode that can ensure high-frequency business between customers and enterprises. Customer relationship is no longer the sales of products and after-sales maintenance in the past. If you only talk about the first CS (customer service) today, only focus on the timeliness of service and one-time repair rate, and ignore the second CS (customer success) and CX (customer experience), you are afraid to fall behind! Only by putting customers at the center of business and paying attention to their feelings, convenience and success can enterprises achieve sustainable growth of performance.
