Part 17 in a series of articles from Sales through Service: How to make customers want to buy again and again and again (because you’re so ‘great’!) by Guy Arnold
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Issue Number 15 – The Huge Pace of Technological Change and Advancement
The huge pace of technological change and advancement frightens a lot of people, and makes people question whether they are keeping up to date or not. People panic and take courses on social media marketing and web optimisation, in the belief that this will keep them up to date and keep their businesses busy and successful.
But we all know this isn’t true. How sensible would it be to think that taking a course in how to use a telephone would make your business successful?
What is actually happening?
Technological advancements are just simpler, quicker, different, ways to communicate and get things done: and we all know how bad use of technology actually makes things worse.
- e-mail meltdown
- answer machine madness
- twits tweeting on twitter tirelessly
- face-book addiction…
- The list can go on, and on, and on.
Remember you are not alone: everyone is facing this problem and everyone is feeling daunted and frustrated and worried about it. The pace of change is only ever going to get quicker and quicker!
So: how do you address this?
Again, counter intuitive: do not think that technology is going to solve your problems, or make you better or more competitive: unless you are a technology driven business that makes its living by developing the latest technology (which 99% of businesses aren’t), technology should only ever be used as an accelerator of what you already do.
It is rarely the first movers on technology that win: it is almost always the people who wait and get it right, and focus on the key things that matter to the customer, because they have a clear Customer Focused Mission.
They filter all of their technological needs around whether they will add value to the customer’s real needs, they adopt technology inch by inch using the Go the Extra Inch® process, and they measure the effectiveness of their technology systematically and brilliantly to know what’s working and what isn’t, so they can do more of what does, and less of what doesn’t, rather than rushing at the whole thing like a bull in a china shop with the resulting mess and problems that causes!
For some great examples of businesses that do badly and well, it’s worth reading ‘Good to Great’, by Jim Collins: he gives a great example of drugstore.com and how it was an early mover on website sales, but didn’t get the key things that matter to the customer right, whereas Walgreens stopped and waited, focused on what was really important to the customer, then developed their on-line sales strategy at a later date when they knew they could get it right and make sure they didn’t let people down.
Another example: rather than reacting to the explosion of the market in netbooks by launching a ‘me too’ offer, Apple looked at the real customer demand behind the surge and developed the iPad.
So: don’t worry about technology: stick to your principles, and look at everything through the customer filter (according to what their real needs are) and then work at it, inch by inch, with clear consistent measures, and you will be fine.
