The Sure-Fire Way to Create Your Competitive Advantage October 5, 2006
Posted by admin in : Competitive Advantage , trackbackIn the article “The Sure-Fire Way to Create Your Competitive Advantage” Paul Levesque describes, that when it comes to outperforming the competition, successful business share two aspects; extremely energized employees and a crowd of happy and loyal customers.
But as everyone knows, the reason so few businesses enjoy a clear competitive advantage in the marketplace is precisely because these two elements are so difficult to achieve.
He discovered four essential elements which are differently implemented in superior and inferior businesses. Mr Levesque recommends to “play with” these elements.
And it has to do with what most people consider the basic difference between “work” and “play.” The first step to creating a powerful competitive advantage is to understand the specific elements that make play so much more satisfying than work.
- Play Element #1: Challenge
Your Task: Challenge everyone in your business to think of “outperforming the competition through superior customer care” as the primary objective that overrides all other tasks at all times.
- Play Element #2: Rules
Your Task: Ensure that your employees understand how the game is to be played–for instance, how you’ll be giving them opportunities to come up with their own ideas for enhancing the customer experience. Be sure to clarify what constitutes a “foul” or a violation of the rules.
- Play Element #3: Scoring
Your Task: Harvest immediate positive customer feedback by every means at your disposal–especially informal face-to-face conversation–and direct as much of this feedback as possible back to your workers.
- Play Element #4: Satisfaction
Your Task: Create a culture of celebration that maximizes your employees’ sense of accomplishment with every rave review from delighted customers. This is the motivational fuel that quickly gains the most powerful competitive edge in any business–and helps sustain it over the long term.
You can read the full article “The Sure-Fire Way to Create Your Competitive Advantage“ on entrepreneur.com.
Paul Levesque is CEO and President of Customer Focus Breakthroughs Inc.
Comments»
How does this appoach of happy employees and happy customers extend out to the untapped marketplace? I’m not taking anything away from customer retention, but how does this competitive advantage manifest itself in the prospecting, lead generation and sales environment?
No doubt the ideas above have some positive merit, though.