European Headlines: Help Me to Help You

“What’s in your portfolio for me?” asked the customer before moving on to the next dealership.

The educated customer is on the rise, and their expectations are higher than ever. The magic word to meet these expectations seems to be “diversification,” followed by “acquisition,” “merger,” “outsourcing,” and “networking.” But how do you know what your customers want, need, and expect? Another magic term here is “customer journey.” “Customer journey planning,” “customer journey mapping,” you pick, but basically, you should know your customers inside out and track anything and everything that helps you help them.

Industry analysts churn out prediction after prediction. In many cases, their forecasts are spot-on; in many more, they are, let’s call it, slightly off as, of course, not all dealerships are created equal. But at the end of the day, your customers are your customers, and you are the one who’s holding their hands to make sure their businesses run smoothly and successfully.

A few things, though, will have to be part of any dealer’s portfolio, small or large:

  • Printing (yes, still, and according to some European dealerships/OEM leadership teams, it won’t go away for a long time; on the contrary, in their humble opinion, the work-from-home movement only confirmed their observations and everyone’s obsession with paper)
  • Digital document and hard copy communication strategies (and anything that comes with it, from software to hardware, office to production, hard copy to virtual)
  • Security (physical and cyber)
  • Bespoke billing models (from MPS to anything as a service)

The next list, including everything a customer might want/need, would be significantly longer and too long for this column. Instead, let’s focus on what every dealer should adopt to secure their future.

Customer Journey

The smaller you are, the more likely you know your customers inside out. However, small businesses still underestimate the importance of documenting what’s happening with their customers. Mikey knows his customers, but what if Mikey moves on or retires? Or if you think about selling your business? Not being able to pull up the details at a mouse-click could backfire heavily.

Analytics

Based on what you know about your customers, including data from their managed print services plan, how they respond to surveys, and how they react to marketing programs, you may want to adjust your offerings, improve your services, and more. Don’t just collect data because that’s the thing to do. Collect and analyze data to understand what can secure your and your customers’ future and success.

Omnichannel vs. Optichannel

Communication with your customers is at the heart of understanding what they need, what they like about you (or not), and how to get information and services to them. For the past decade or so, many companies went for an omnichannel approach to communicate broadly, neglecting customer preferences, never mind considering what works best and how a customer can communicate with them. An optichannel approach, both for how you communicate with your customers and how they can communicate with you, significantly changes how seriously both parties take each other.

Customer Services and Satisfaction

Still on top of the list is the happy customer. No matter what type of software or hardware you’re offering, it’s still services and support that hold it all together. From presales across to sales, integration to support, knowledgeable teams have been, are, and will be the key to success. The bar raises daily; workforce migration certainly creates more challenges than everyone is prepared for. However, it also creates new opportunities. Just like dealerships, customers are dealing with a changing workforce, too. And that opens up gaps for services providers to fill.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

We all know that we can’t know it all, and to fill the gaps, we constantly must learn and form new strategic alliances. Not everyone’s up for sale, not everyone can buy, so why not partner up and use networking opportunities to explore synergies? By scanning the recent European channel press releases, more dealerships are forming partnerships with industry interest groups parallel to the big boys swallowing up more and more specialized small, oftentimes industry-outsider businesses.

These newly formed strong alliances will help them face and conquer the challenges of 2022 and beyond, moving on from the survival of a fittest team to the survival of the fittest team strategy.

Please visit The Cannata Report for more on the printing and office imaging industry.