The ‘cost of sale’ per customer varies widely dependant on your business type. In some sectors, for example your local café where a lot of new business is from people walking by dropping in to try it, there is a low cost of sale per customer. Other businesses have a high cost of sale, with new customers only being won following protracted bid processes which require extensive sales teams to negotiate through to contract signature. Examples would be multi-year outsourcing contracts; like rubbish collection, IT and payroll services. These types of business have the benefit of having ‘committed customers’, i.e. they are in for the long (well, at least medium!) haul. So both parties have to build a working relationship and manage through rocky times with each other.
However, that local café does not benefit from any kind of customer commitment. In these market types, the investment by the customer in the ‘relationship’ is minimal so if the experience is not great – they don’t come back. The café has one opportunity to serve well. If they fail, not only are they losing that customer’s future business but also that customer’s friends. Have you ever heard of a restaurant critic visiting a place multiple times before writing a scathing review? Perhaps not all publicity is good publicity?
Many businesses in similar ‘easy come, easy go’ markets are quite small enterprises and these cannot risk alienating potential customers. This is even more important where the customer base is local and the impact of word-of-mouth is higher. If you owned such a business, would your time be better spent training your serving staff? Working on improving your product? Refreshing your menu? Checking out competition to gain ideas? Or doing your admin? Making updates to your website content? Doing your books?
Delegate what you can, focus on the important not urgent tasks! Check out our virtual PA business support services which allow you to do just that giving access to multiple skillsets on an ‘as required’ basis; no recruitment hassle, no payroll commitments. Don’t think you can’t afford it, count your hours in lost opportunities.
