Customer lifetime value (CLV) is an important business metric. It provides management with a view of how much repeat business they can expect from customers. In turn, the revenue projection arising from that calculation can provide an overview of how much they need to spend on retaining customers. Typically, CLV is computed as follows:(Average Value of Purchase) x (Number of Repeat Transactions) x (Average Retention Time in Months or Years for the Average Customer) So, for example, a magazine subscription would be calculated as $50 every year for a 3-year subscription. The equation would then read: $50 year x 3 years [...]

Most people know that their behavior on a computer screen can be monitored. The sites they visit, how long they look at a particular page, and long-term patterns can all be explored, measured, and quantified. Online retail sites, for example, can determine customer preference and make recommendations based on browsing patterns as part of a business strategy - and they often do.Computers and Brick-and-Mortar: More and More AlikeThe ability of bricks-and-mortar stores to track the mobility of their customers may not be as well known.However, brick-and-mortar locations use tracking methods much as computers do. Part of the reason is that [...]

Many customer service surveys are focused on pinpointing areas of friction or areas needing improvement. A recent Harvard Business Review article, however, noted that asking customers what went right can raise perceptions of the service provided. Instead of simply asking customers to rate a product or service and reasons for the rating, then, a good business strategy is to ask "What went well during your visit?" and to ask it first. Asking the question, and asking it first, was correlated with increases in customer satisfaction and repeat business. Customers approached in this way also spent more on the products and services [...]

Employee retention and strategies for optimizing it are a constant consideration for organizations. It might be particularly important for those having specialized, customer-facing employees. For those firms, an employee transitioning to a new firm brings along an additional issue. Will clients follow the employee rather than being loyal to the firm?This is particularly an issue for law firms, financial firms, and consulting groups, but all companies face it to some degree. It's an aspect of client retention that can cost firms, as it is an estimated seven times more expensive to acquire new clients than to service existing ones.A recent article in [...]

Design thinking is immensely important to business. It's important to client and customer growth and retention. Its application can foster innovation and smooth innovation's acceptance. It can be a key part of business strategy. Many people, though, are unsure about how "design thinking" as a term used in business differs from product design - the creation of logos, the deployment of industrial design, and so on. It's quite different. Simply put, design thinking uses the creativity, re-envisioning, and re-tweaking that are part of product design throughout the departments of a company, to think through creation, improvement, and use of [...]