Small Business Journey

Small Business Journey- The Route Map To Business Value










		Employees

		Customers

		Benefit from listening to and involving customers

		Suppliers

		Communities



	Benefit from listening to and involving customers

ATG Oxford

Founded in 1979, ATG Oxford launched a new style of sustainable tourism: long journeys on foot through some of the most beautiful parts of Europe. Other innovations followed and over the years ATG has grown by always listening to and acting upon customer feedback.

All clients are incentivised to complete a quality control questionnaire on their holiday experience. Each comment is responded to by a dedicated quality control manager. Fundraising events such as charity walks are held to allow ATG staff to gauge customer opinion face to face. And field staff receive intensive training in how to acknowledge and respond to customer comments - and report back - and this further contributes to a feeling that ATG is a company that listens.

THE RESULTS

ATG has not had to advertise for years: repeat bookings and recommendations now make up 93% of the business. The product is rated as 98% good/excellent. Customer comments also provide the basis for annual business objectives as well as any research and development of new products. Savings on advertising have enabled ATG to invest further in the quality of its holidays and the calibre of its people.

Who else is making a point?

Many companies throughout the UK understand the real business benefits that can be gained from listening to and involving customers. Here are just two:

Innocent drinks is a London-based producer of bottled fruit smoothies. Every bottle sold by the company carries a friendly message inviting customers to get in touch - with complaints, ideas or even if they are just bored. And many do. So Innocent gets lots of feedback about its products, free insights into consumers' needs, and loads of great new recipe suggestions.

The results: By engaging with its customers - 40,000 turned up at the company's new music festival, Fruitstock, in Regent's Park in 2003 - Innocent has grown its market share from 14% to over 30% in one year. In the same period, its number of outlets has grown by 265% and brand awareness is up by 47%, to stand at 50% nationally. Most significantly, 100% of its customers now rate its drinks as 'good quality', while 93% would recommend Innocent to a friend.

Betfair is a UK-based online betting exchange established in 2000. The
exchange is a trading platform which allows customers to bet at prices set by themselves, rather than having to accept those of a traditional bookmaker.

Now they can place bets during a sporting event and even create bets and odds of their own. The company also seeks to build a reputation for integrity - considering the needs of vulnerable consumers.

The results: Betfair has grown from two people to over 300 in three years. It has created a new market that other companies are now following. It is the leading on-line betting exchange and has begun to apply the model in overseas markets. It is the winner of a Queen's Award.

Why is this important?

It is generally accepted that it costs five to 11 times as much to recruit a new customer as to retain existing one.

A satisfied customer tells three or four people while an angry customer passes the bad news on to ten people. Source: The Industrial Society (now the Work Foundation)

Each 'How-To' briefing is available in pdf or word formats. To read the PDF document with a screen reader please link to the Access Adobe website which provides useful tools and resources. Adobe also has a free online conversion tool for PDFs.

PDF file Benefit from listening to and involving customers.pdf
size 160kb

Word file Benefit from listening to and involving customers.pdf
size 35kb





	Find more about Bankside Restaurant