Customer service: the great rotation

The customer service "great rotation" is inspired from the investment community's current hot topic whereby worldwide money managers may reallocate part of their assets towards more risky investments, for example switching from fixed income instruments to equities. This is done in order to benefit from higher equity yields especially given that interest rates will have to stay low for a while to fuel the economic recovery. This is compounded by the perception that interest rates can not really go lower and, as and when they start to increase, the fixed income instruments will suddenly lose a lot of value.

We could write ten blog posts about this topic alone but the interesting analogy is that we believe that a completely opposite movement could be emerging in customer service, whereby companies engage in a great rotation, reducing spend in marketing (risky) to invest more in customer service (safe). The economic benefits of such an approach could be very tangible, with a strong focus on customer retention rather than customer acquisition. If conducted effectively, the benefits of recommendations from satisfied customers would be enough to generate growth and attract new customers. So why not review the relative risk reward benefits of marketing and customer service and use the results to develop the case for the great rotation.

Picture credit: http://www.davidharber.co.uk/ with our thanks