After 128 years in business,
a household name in American retailing, Montgomery
Ward, Inc., closed its doors in 1997, and was
liquidated in 2000, but lives again today. Ward fell
victim to competition from service-driven retailers like
Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Circuit City. Ward is a
perfect example of a company that thought it was in
the retail business and missed the fact they were in
the service business.
Following years of rapid growth and stunning sales
with record profits, most organizations have felt little
need to focus on customer retention, customer
satisfaction, customer loyalty,
customer service, customers for life or any of the
current "service" mantras.
In other words, "Good
times can camouflage poor performance".
But just wait, if the U.S. economy moves towards a
slow down, customers are going to be harder to find
and still harder to keep.
So what does this mean to you? First,
focus,
re-focus and continue to
re-focus. What is your company in business to
do?
What role does each person play in the process?
How can each player move performance to the next
level? Keep answering and re-answering these core
questions.
Second, evaluate,
re-evaluate and continue to
re-evaluate. Take a hard look at the service
offered by your company and your
team from the customers' eyes.
Third, innovate,
re-innovate and continue
re-
innovating. Innovation is essential for continued,
long-term growth. Look for innovation opportunities
everywhere and you may be able to resurrect success
from failure.
Montgomery Ward did just this.
The name re-
emerged in 2004 and Montgomery Ward is now an
on-line and catalog retailer with a reputation for good
customer service. The rules of the game keep
changing but one
universal truth is this: the job of every business is to
attract and keep satisfied customers and take it to the
next level.
Vist
www.CEOAdvisor.c
om for more information or call Mark
Hartsell at (949) 759-8676 for a free consultation.
