Imagine that you would be on a sailing ship in a storm. Or underwater and a diver has a serious problem. Alternatively: Your department or even the whole company threatens to fall into economic slump. And now ask yourself: What is more important – employee loyalty or customer loyalty? Customer loyalty or new customer acquisition?
Crisis situations are moments of scarcity. It’s about everything, about survival. In most cases, the situation is confusing and the time to act, remains limited. Also, there is often a lack of resources. It is important to make clear decisions. During the crisis, this requires the ability to recognize what really matters. Focusing at sales, you can see very quickly that we are dependent in particular on a stable customer base.
Do you really want to explain to your financing partners that you lost the customer base during a crisis?
You can certainly imagine the raised eyebrows of the shareholders, the financial investor or the bank, if you try to explain to them that you lost your customers. Customers and the topline they generate are the pumping heart of the company. If the heart stops beating, the company dies.
Crisis situations are moments of concerns and anxiety. When it comes down to the business and the bones, we feel stressed and fears can overpower us. Many of us will never or rarely have experienced such a situation, we lack the experience of having survived the situation. Therefore, the as well typical question whether the employee or the customer retention is more important is not coming with surprise.
When it comes to this point, I have a crystal-clear opinion. There can be only one primary goal in the crisis. The Archimedean principle is therefore reshaped here:
Where there is one goal, there can be no other.
During the crisis, dilemmas are to be avoided and the decision as to whether employees or customers are more important is a clear double bind. Double binds are highly counterproductive, because crisis forces us to tackle bravely. Furthermore, it should be remembered that customers often look around for new providers really, while your employees still dare to hope and persist.
The third point: customer loyalty or new customer acquisition – what is more important in the crisis? Now let’s face it: how will most of your peers answers this question? The likely answer: both as well. And this answer is wrong, completely wrong. In the crisis, resources are even scarcer than in normal mode. So, it must be weighed, which is more important at this moment of crisis – customer loyalty or new customer acquisition. My answer is obvious.
I look forward to your answers and the discussion with you.
