The End Of The Affair
February 13th, 2007
In this extraordinary film set in wartime London, star-crossed lovers are denied the radiant power of their electric romance by forces out of their control. She denies herself his unabiding adoration on a twisted premise that God wants it that way. And he is without the life force that makes him so joyous that even when Nazi bombs fall on London, in her arms he is safe and oblivious to everyone and everything but his lover.
And then when she makes her pledge to God and walks off into a sad twilight zone, they are left to love and miss each other in silence. There is an important analogy in business. Every day customers and clients walk away without saying why, without lodging a protest, without a word. They simply vanish in the night. And hardly anyone pays attention. Managers simply believe it is inevitable. Just the other day, a new client told us they lose 40% of their customers every year. Why? They have all kinds of theories but no one has bothered to ask a single former customer why “former” now stands at the front of their name. Just like the lovers in The End Of The Affair, a lack of communication separates a man and woman who in their hearts want to orbit together around the solar system. That same lack of communication is a business killer.
The only way to grow a great business is to capture, amplify and maintain customer relationships. Focusing on the capture component alone or even primarily always leads to a leaky boat of a business that has lost customers wandering out of your world without knowing why they left. Affairs of the heart exist in a realm of their own. Sometimes nothing can be done to save the relationship but in business, knowledge is power and the determination to do something about it is king.
Mark Stevens
CEO
Tell me about the last customer you lost.
What will you do differently next time?
What is it that caused them to walk away from you?
March 12th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I would like to say that its not my fault, but I suppose that wouldn’t be true. I ran out of a particular product that I was able to get featured in a very targeted magazine. Great marketing ploy, bad execution. We underestimated demand and ran out, then my supplier ran out. I mollified the customers that had to wait by offering apologies and free product. Fast forward 4 weeks, my supplier was wrong about his production time and was delayed yet again. Again most customers were OK but one was shall we say pissed. He was not happy about the “lies” I told about the ship date. I offered more free stuff and a complete refund of the product (so he gets product, and a bunch of other stuff easily worth 2 X the original order at no charge). He was just too upset and said something about we were untrustworthy, etc. I felt bad and indignant at the same time, I tried really hard to make him happy, but the truth of the matter is that I assumed my supplier wouldn’t make a mistake and I started the whole thing off by not properly stocking this product when I knew damn well it was going to be featured in this magazine.
March 12th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Thinking through what you did wrong and how you could do it better is what I call “declaring war” on your own business. Most people are afraid to do it. Hats off to you. It’s the best route to continuous improvement.
Mark Stevens
CEO