Broskis.com Niche News

pManagement teams of emerging companies generally make the frequent mistake of spending too much time focusing on customer acquisition and too little time on retention. a href=http://www.openviewpartners.com target=_blankScaling a business/a and getting it off the ground by building customer traction should symbolize one of the major focuses of an early stage company. However, if you do a very poor job of customer engagement, building loyalty and generating repeat business, you run the risk of being on a constant treadmill as it relates to building your revenue, for you will never benefit from positive word of mouth (and ultimately chance failure).br /br /Two weeks ago I experienced firsthand a perfect example of a young company making this serious mistake. I received an email including a pretty persuasive offer to eat at a new local restaurant for a heavily discounted cost from one of the regular group buying sites.nbsp; Looking at the economics of the deal, the restaurant was in all probability barely breaking even or potentially experiencing a slight loss from the deal (it was obvious with their a href=http://www.openviewpartners.com target=_blankmarketing strategy/a they were making a vital investment in customer acquisition). Intrigued by the offernbsp;(and also curious to see if this new place had anything to fulfill my foodie lifestyle) I made the purchase and was prepared to chow down. Kudos to this new restaurant…their a href=http://blog.openviewpartners.com target=_blankgo to market strategy/a was successful in getting a brand new customer and possible repeat diner to help build their following…br /br /Friday night arrives, my belly is ready and lets just say this new business totally fumbled the ball. Not to go into great detail, but I witnessed a staff who was not aware of the special deal except management …so customer service clearly failed. I waited thirty minutes past my scheduled reservation; I experienced very poor wait service and had an overall unpleasurable evening (though the food was half decent). br /br / The restaurant was great at spending much effort and resources on acquiring new customers who in the end would turn out to be a negative word of mouth source based purely on a lack of focus on retention (not a very good move). br /br /What is the lesson behind all of this? Its not all about customer acquisition. Focus on your customers as though they were your very best customers and do everything in your power to retain them and guarantee their happiness. The result will not only become repeat business, but also positive word of mouth and an increase in your net promoter score. If somebody takes the leap of giving you their business, dont fumble the ball!/p
pKobie Fuller is a Senior Associate at OpenView responsible for the identification and qualification of investment opportunities in addition to helping manage the outbound program./p