Friday, September 19, 2008

Customer Levels and Leverage

You've probably got some regular clients. These are regular folks, except they don't always appear very enthusiastic about your services or stuff.

They keep the revenue coming but they don't share ideas, they don't attend your dos', they hardly return your calls/emails, they hardly recommend you to their friends and they sure as hell don't upgrade.

You can live with this, but why should you?

Maybe we can think about treating customers they way Accenture treats its consultants i.e. reach a certain 'level' (e.g. Senior Manager) by a given time or you're out.

Dell/Microsoft has a pleasant way of doing this. Go with the latest Windows Vista or i. get a truly cheapskate system or ii. find another vendor. Citibank, too. Upgrade to the Silver or your annual fee waivers will stop (and who'd want to pay $70 a year to go into debt?).

Some churches as well. Develop into a cell-group leader within 2 years or else....

As with the Citibank case, that's the beauty about charging fees you really don't need to collect - they can always be used as leverage. And if you've got good leverage (and, hopefully, services your customers can't afford to do without), why, it helps.

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