Have you ever lost an account suddenly, unexpectedly? As in, one month they were “happy campers,” and the next they just disappeared?
I hate to admit it, but we haven’t been immune to this syndrome. The root causes were varied; sometimes it was just change in the organization, sometimes it was a change in strategy, but sometimes it was because we weren’t addressing a key need or pain, and the client decided to look elsewhere.
These are the worst types of lost accounts, because the simple fact is, we weren’t doing our jobs.
I bring this question up because at work I have recently been shifted from using a PC to using a Mac (I can hear all of the Mac disciples out there now shouting, “Hallelujah! A new convert about to enter the fold!”).
And sure, the 24″ iMac screen is a dream. It’s dual-core, plenty fast, big hard drive.
Except there’s one small problem: without fail, at least once a day, there’s something about MacOS that irritates me to no end: the file manager.
The simple fact is that relative to its competition—Windows File Manager, Nautilus for GNOME, and Dolphin for KDE—MacOS X’s Finder is the most difficult to use, least functional file manager of the group. The context menus are disorganized and lack features, there’s no tabbed file manager windows, it doesn’t remember list and item orders on digital media drives when you eject them, it frequently requires changing the icon/list/column view just to do simple cut/copy/paste activities . . . the end result is that I’m constantly fighting Finder just to do ground-level, basic file management stuff that frankly I had taken for granted on Windows and Linux for years.
(And by the way, lest anyone think I’m a shameless Microsoft “fanboy,” the best file manager I’ve ever used was Dolphin for KDE, hands down.)
But ultimately what does any of this have to do with sales, marketing, or lead management, or building customer relationships?
It’s pretty simple: For all of MacOS X’s touted features and “elegance,” Apple simply hasn’t made a file manager worthy of the rest of the consumer experience. Yes, my wiz-bang iMac still gets the job done (my content creation and productivity needs are generally met)—but the fact that “it’s mostly functional” hardly means I’m satisfied with the experience.
The moral of the story? Assuming that your clients are “satisfied” with a “mostly functional” product is a dangerous precedent.
A precedent that often leads to customer churn.
At InsideSales.com we’re constantly trying to improve our systems, and we have scheduled system updates monthly. But at least once a quarter we do a customer survey, and ask our clients what the number one, niggling, annoying bug in our system is, and then fix it.
If you’re not doing proactive customer management, rooting out clients’ often hidden “pains,” you’re missing out on a powerful opportunity to increase good will, and long-term customer satisfaction and value.
CATEGORIES: Essays, Uncategorized
TAGS: CRM, Customer Management, Lead Management
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4 Comments
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The finder on Windows is the most troublesome for me to use because it is so clunky. I feel that Apple has done everything possible to make the finder intuitive to me and easy to use. It does everything I ever need it to do and more without making it clunky and complex. Apple knows it customers very well. Maybe you are not meant to have a Mac.
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Well, here’s the thing–
In order for Apple’s customer base to continue to grow, they HAVE to keep adding people from the PC / Windows market.
And when that’s the case, it would be very, very smart to help those people make the transition as smooth as possible.
And let’s be blunt–Finder for Apple LOOKS NOTHING LIKE the windows explorer file manager. The menu system is different, the context-sensitive / right click menus are different, there’s no “cut” option in the right-click menu, the paradigm for renaming a file is completely different……
Look, I’m all for “treading your own path” and all that–but if Apple was really serious about getting new customers to LIKE its products more, they’d think about us poor people transitioning from a PC to a Mac, and MAKE THE FINDER INTERFACE less obtuse, and more like what we’re used to.
There’s zero reasons to take away those options, other than Apple just decided that they like it better. Why not give both? Sure it adds some redundancies to the interface, but the point is to MAKE IT EASIER FOR US to make the transition.
Right?
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Hi Steve, you’re right about the constant improvement of the system, its’ not enough that we have all the tools and then just ignore customer satisfaction. It’s not always the big things that tick them off..it’s also the little things that pile up and eventually becomes a large stack that drives them away. That’s why we really shouldn’t neglect proactive customer management. By the way, I am a PC user, but even after your complaints about the Mac, I think I should get one for myself. http://bit.ly/ayeen
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Ayeen,
“It’s not always the big things that tick them off . . . it’s also the little things that pile up and eventually become large stacks that drive them away.”
That is a PERFECT recap of the post.
And in fact, I venture to say that 9 times out of 10, it IS the small things that drive customers away. And often we don’t know about the small things, because unlike the big things, the small things are often not mentioned by our clients.
They think to themselves, “Oh, well, I can just deal with that.”
Well, after a few months, suddenly they’re “just dealing with” 5, 6, 7 little “problems.” By themselves, each one is insignificant, but taken as a whole, they create a real sense of dissatisfaction.
Great comment!
