Strategy

Net-A-Porter is one firm that does a great job of looking after its key customers. It has a name for them: ‘extremely important person’ (EIP). Like VIPs, only with an E instead of a V.

These customers account for a disproportionately large chunk of sales and profits, and boy do they get looked after.  

EIP orders are picked, packed and despatched first. EIPs get first dibs at new products (some of which are very limited). EIPs are assigned personal shoppers and invited into the London office for wardrobe planning, and they receive personalised lookbooks (these customers “spend 20 times more than the baseline”). EIPs see exclusive previews and presentations, and they have products bought specifically for them by the buying team.

All in all, it’s good to be perceived as an EIP. The question is whether you know who your EIPs are, and whether you’re treating them any differently, to make them feel like the special people they are? 

So, how many of your customers are ‘extremely important’? If you don’t really know then look through your data (e.g. customer database, web analytics, social media monitoring tools, etc) to find customer segments in the following areas…

Decision-making is about more than appearing decisive. It’s about managing the context so that we achieve the outcomes we desire.

How do you succeed in today’s rapidly changing world?

By making decisions faster than the competition? By identifying opportunities, rapidly zeroing in on the best ones, and then pursuing them relentlessly?

Not so fast. There’s a growing body of evidence that rapid decision-making isn’t the key to success…

We’ve been growing pretty quickly these past few years, and when that happens you often need external support. More often than not we’ve turned to agencyland to find help.

Sometimes we’ve needed to bring in an agency on a tactical level, to help us with a specific – and perhaps one-off – project. On other occasions we’ve taken a longer-term view, with the aim of forging a strong relationship and retaining the agency.

Finding the right partner is just as difficult as hiring the right staff, and just as crucial. It goes without saying that not all of the agencies we’ve seen have been successful in winning our business. Sometimes there is a real sense of disappointment, especially when you like the people and their work, when you talk them up, when you know they have the skills, and when they fail to deliver in the meeting.

So here’s a list of common reasons why agencies don’t get hired. Many of these points also apply to consultants and freelancers too. To win more work, try to avoid some of the following…

IT departments can create a lot of value when they take responsibility for Integration Technology, bringing together the activities of people across the organisation and beyond its increasingly porous boundaries. 

But if they sit behind their firewalls chanting verses from the ITIL, then they deserve to die.