FY 2012 is Coming: How to Keep the Customers You Have

George Roberts

December 20, 2011

The last several weeks I have written a couple of blogs about how some of our portfolio companies have adopted some new processes to improve their customer service. These companies have goals of keeping the customers they already have and growing their top line revenues while improving profitability. Here are my previous posts:

In keeping with that theme I wanted to share a blog written by Zack Urlocker, COO of Zendesk, posted at VentureBeat. Urlocker is responsible for all the company’s customer-facing areas, including sales, marketing, business development and services. He has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry and has held executive management positions at MySQL, Active Software, webMethods and Borland. He is a frequent speaker and writer about disruptive technologies and business models.

In Zach’s blog titled “How to keep the customers you have” he lists 10 common sense approaches that CEOs and management teams should consider if they want to deliver great service and keep their customers. Here they are:

  1. Let your customers write the rules of engagement.
  2. Track social media.
  3. Respond at the speed of the Internet.
  4. Apologize appropriately
.
  5. Be transparent.
  6. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
  7. Implement customer satisfaction ratings.
  8. Keep your agents happy.
  9. The casual customer versus the steady customer.
  10. Stop problems before they start.

Once again, you can check out all of Zach thoughts by reading his blog here.

All the best!

G

 

 

 

Venture Partner

<strong>George Roberts</strong> is a Venture Partner at OpenView. He enjoys partnering with companies and helping them achieve their goals through strategy, focus and operational execution. From 1990 to 2003, George spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation, most recently having served as Executive Vice President of North American Sales. While at Oracle, George was responsible for over $1 billion in revenue and more than 2,000 employees, reporting directly to the company’s CEO and Chairman, Larry Ellison.