A Question for Small Business Owners: Are Your Customers Cheating on You?

If you haven’t been to HP’s 367 Addison Avenue Blog, it’s a great resource for small-to-medium business owners with helpful tips, tricks and advice to help bring your business to the next level.  Melissa Zieger, the editor at 367 Addison, has been kind enough to share some of her content with us; it will be cross-posted here from time to time.  – Tina

Here’s a sentiment I didn’t believe I’d ever see in a major national business publication: Wouldn’t Dr. Ruth make a great chief innovation officer?

If that statement doesn’t grab your attention, I’m not sure what will. Grabbing – and keeping – your customers’ attention is the theme of a piece I ran across recently in Bloom

berg Businessweek, the title of which asks us all a seemingly simple question: Are Your Customers Cheating on You? Given the staggering number of options out there, the answer is probably somewhere between “Yes” and “Definitely.”

While listening to a grandmotherly sex therapist explain in graphic detail what can be done to save a romantic relationship can be a tad traumatic, Dr. Ruth’s wisdom really does make a lot of sense for business. I can think of no company that does not live or die based on the relationships it has with its customers. Given that, it’s important to look at your customers’ needs. If you’ve been in business for more than a few years, how have those needs changed? If enough time has passed for your customers’ needs to grow up, have the products and services you offer grown up with them? If not, can you blame them for looking elsewhere? Put more bluntly, can you blame them for cheating on you?

From the tough love department, here’s the most sobering part of the piece: your brand might be losing appeal. But it’s not necessarily anything personal. It’s because your cus

tomers – like you and your employees – are human. Because your quality has diminished or their needs have changed (or both) a certain percentage of your customers will become dissatisfied and shop elsewhere. Some of them are going to die. And some of them are simply bored.

Do not despair, though. If your customers are cheating on you, you need to spice up the relationship. And to do that you need to innovate against decline. While that’s no simple achievement, the approach recommended in the article is: you can improve and enhance the experiences your customers already have with your business. Or, you can offer them new ones.

Dr. Ruth impersonations, of course, are optional.

Thanks for reading,

Melissa Zieger

Melissa Zieger (@HP_SmallBiz) is the editor-in-chief of HP's SMB blog, 367 Addison Avenue and a worldwide public relations manager for HP's Personal Systems Group.