166 Articles match "customers","downturn"

• The Best from Informal Learning Flow

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• Pricing Strategies for the Downturn
  
  Pricing power doesn't necessarily decrease in a downturn . For example, there is often a segment of loyal customers who do not expect or need to be persuaded with a discount to purchase. And although there's no end of grumbling, customers can be surprisingly tolerant of across-the-board price hikes that they understand are related directly to increases in raw input costs such as fuel for airlines or milk for ice cream. I used to love the television game show " The Price is Right ." Beyond the insane level of excitement of the show was the oddly compelling quest
  HarvardBusiness.org - Tuesday, March 3, 2009
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• Balancing Customer Service and Satisfaction
  
  Trimming customer service costs while boosting customer satisfaction — and hence loyalty — is challenging in the best of times. During a downturn, performing this balancing act becomes both more difficult and more critical to achieve. When the economy starts recovering, they beef up investments in customer service to win back customers. Many companies don't even try. They respond to straitened economic circumstances by cutting service costs and sacrificing service quality in a quest to hit short-term financial targets.
  HarvardBusiness.org - Tuesday, March 17, 2009
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• The Price of a Poor Experience
  
  He collected data across hundreds of organizations and noticed something surprising about their successes and challenges in this economic downturn. In other words, customers didn't leave simply because an organization raised its prices. But he did find a different correlation: between membership and an organization's net promoter score , which measures how likely a customer is to recommend the organization to a friend. "I'm sorry but that's our policy," the woman at the desk said. "You You can't come into the gym." "But
  HarvardBusiness.org - Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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• How to Align Customer Value With Green Value
  
  In most discussions I have with people about sustainable brands and product or service offerings, someone inevitably asks, "But will customers pay a premium for green products?" With the downturn in the economy, this question has been arising earlier in the conversation and is framed more as a statement: "But customers won't pay a premium for green products, especially now, will they?" In my view, this is the wrong question to ask, and framing the issue this way leads to lost opportunities — for the environment, for customers, and for the business. Focusing
  HarvardBusiness.org - Friday, April 3, 2009
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• What to Say to Customers (When You Don't Know What to Say)
  
  These days, with millions of jobs lost worldwide , and trillions of dollars of personal and business wealth vanished, it is easy to have the same reaction when communicating with customers. We have observed that good marketing conversations --those created through customer "touch points" such as advertising, sales people and call centers--are defined in many instances by the same attributes that make for good conversations in any setting. We've all had the experience. We see someone going through a difficult time and we just don't know what to say.
  HarvardBusiness.org - Thursday, February 19, 2009
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• 6 Lessons Learned in the Downturn
  
  Over some good Italian cuisine and syrah in Boston's North End , we enjoyed a stimulating evening as Eric Hellweg, Managing Editor of HarvardBusiness.org, moderated a discussion centered on the question of key lessons learned in the economic downturn. The customer buys first and foremost on price . key lesson in this Last week we held our Annual Meeting for my firm, Cue Ball, and as part of it we gathered our investor members for a stimulating dinner discussion with HBR editors Eric Hellweg and Katherine Bell, and group publisher Josh Macht. One of the unique aspects of our
  HarvardBusiness.org - Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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• Video: How to Market in a Downturn
  
  So you think you know your customers? Until now, you've probably been segmenting your customers according to demographics or lifestyle -- "over 40" say, or "new parent," or "traditionalist." Jocz, and in the video interview above, John explains that companies need to rethink their customer segmentation, factoring in people's emotional response to the downturn. Maybe you had a handle on them a year ago, but as the economy spirals downward you need to abandon old assumptions. That approach makes sense when consumers are confident and more focused on quality of life than survival.
  HarvardBusiness.org - Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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• Three Opportunities to Seize in the Downturn
  
  One of the most pernicious tendencies companies fall victim to in downturns is to focus on and project out near-term data points. In this downturn, cash may have been promoted from king to God. Customers are more careful in their purchase decisions in these times- tell them why you deserve it. The result? An inaccurate reflection of the future.
  HarvardBusiness.org - Friday, February 20, 2009
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• How Not to Compete, Post-Crash
  
  It meant freedom; you could reduce your costs and increase your revenue without customers knowing how you did it. While it might be a good thing when the details of your business are a secret to your customers, it's a very bad thing when the details of your business are a secret to you . We just might learn this time because this downturn has hit hard, wide, and globally. I recently met someone who used to be a bond trader but took a few years off to raise her children. Now she wants to return to work.
  HarvardBusiness.org - Monday, April 13, 2009
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• Is Web 2.0 a Solution to the Economic Downturn?
  
  to reinvent your business for the economic downturn .” Lower customer service costs by pro-active use of online customer communities. 6. to Reinvent Your Business for the Economic Downturn | Enterprise 2.0 The current business crisis is like a forest fire that is destroying much of what is in its path, but allows renewal of a new ecosystem from the seeds that are still alive after the fire passes. Dion Hinchcliffe of ZDNet advocates “ using Web 2.0
  Workplace Learning Today - Friday, January 30, 2009
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