06 Dec Acquisition Versus Retention
Over the years, many of us have had goals revolving around losing weight or getting in shape. While achieving these goals may have taken a great deal of discipline and hard work, it is undoubtedly harder and exponentially more difficult to maintain the weight loss or the good shape over a long period of time. The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system always increases over time. This means that any and all organized structures or processes in the universe will face entropy and chaos sooner or later. The same exact principle holds true to the phenomenon of customer acquisition vs customer retention in the business world. It takes far greater effort and attention to maintain a business relationship and achieve repeated business from the same client over an extended period of time than what it took to establish that relationship in the first place.
The competitive and complex terrain of business relationships today requires an enormous level of organization, follow up and time management. In today’s competitive business environment we must not only compete on the level playing fields against our formidable foes but to also account for the negative campaigns and advertisements designed specifically to hinder our progress and hurt our business relationships by some of our less viable competitors. Ultimately showing up to the dance, hard work, staying in the game long enough and striving as hard as we can to deliver exceptional results will separate us from competition. While organization, attention to detail and time management speak to the fundamentals of any successful project management, a strong customer/vendor arrangement attests to the very essence of a successful business relationship.
“The average business loses around 20 percent of its customers annually simply by failing to attend to customer relationships. In some industries this leakage is as high as 80 percent. The cost, in either case, is staggering, but few businesses truly understand the implications.”