What is your Customer Growth Plan post Covid?

In a previous Blog I wrote about how you put your own Covid plan in place to perform and get back on track – you can read it here.

However, an area that I was asked to cover more on was the focus needed on the Customer right now to help the Business meet its goals and get back on track. So, this blog is much more focussed on that external perspective of our customers, which for many businesses may feel a little strange. The key actions you will have taken over the last year will predominantly have focussed very internally as you battened down the hatches for the storm. Now its time to focus on the future and build the Customer Contact strategy that will enable you to meet your Business Goals.

So as a starting point for me there are several questions you need to ask yourself:

Who are my customers now? – With so much disruption and internal focus we need to consider the Business environment we are in and what has happened in the industries we deal with.

Are my products still meeting my customer’s needs? – Great opportunity to find out what you continue doing or is there an opportunity to adapt, develop and innovate.

What will I do to ensure I target the opportunities? – It is so important, in times when resources and finances are stretched, that we understand where to put our time and effort for maximum growth

So first thing you should do is review you existing customer base and categorise as per the Customer Growth Plan model below. There are 4 categories

Growth – the Customers you want to keep and those that are current buyers with great opportunities to grow.
Support – The customers that need some help, those that are in a good place but just recovering and potentially you could add some value to by offering support and sharing plans ideas.
Hold – Those customers who are struggling however there is hope, they just need time and will get slowly back on track
Remove – unfortunately there may well be casualties and this group are those that will either not be around, or will vastly drain your resources, something you cannot allow if you want to get back on track.

Actions you could take

Develop a Communication strategy focussed on the key growth areas
Quickly stop dealing with the customers that you cannot help or are sadly no long existing – wasting our resources here is dead time and zero income.
Ask your customers what would improve your products and their use of it?
Partner, share and/or work together with good customers who need help – this is a great Retention technique to support others
Maximise your resources – it goes without saying that the majority of your resources should be on the growth quadrant with some time earmarked for the Support quadrant whilst you keep an eye on the Hold customers.