article thumbnail

8 Tactics To Make Service Your Competitive Advantage

Startup Professionals Musings

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Young entrepreneurs and startups, in particular, often remain naively unfocused, despite their passion, of what it takes to provide the high-quality service expected. Train and coach continuously.

article thumbnail

6 Keys To Competitive Advantage By Memorable Service

Startup Professionals Musings

Customer service has traditionally been focused on the resolution of complaints , primarily after a transaction. In this context, even “satisfied” is only a “meets-minimum,” and does not put you ahead of your competition. Great customer service now must be proactive, rather than reactive.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

8 Priorities When Offering A New Product Or Service

Startup Professionals Musings

Every one of you business owners I know periodically introduces new products and services to sustain growth, fight off competitors, or take advantage of new technologies. The cost of any new product these days must include education and rollout marketing, perhaps equal or greater than the development costs.

Product 141
article thumbnail

6 Mistakes Often Made Positioning Against Competition

Startup Professionals Musings

Don’t bash the competition. Every investor knows how vulnerable a new startup is to competitors, so investors always ask about your sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. That says you are competitive today, have a real barrier to entry, and the potential to remain ahead of the competition for a long time.

article thumbnail

Ingram Micro Launches Startup Competition

socalTECH

Irvine-based Ingram Micro , a distributor of technology products and provider of cloud and other related services, has launched a new competition aimed at startups, thec ompany said this morning. Ingram Micro said the competition is also being support by Microsoft's Microsoft for Startups group. READ MORE>>.

article thumbnail

Introducing Trust, and the Importance of Product-Founder Fit

Both Sides of the Table

This is accomplished through aggregated, anonymized competitive benchmarking, market-level performance data across the major social and ad platforms, and curated news and conversation from industry leaders. To me, that’s the textbook example of “product-founder fit” and one of the reasons I believe this business will succeed.

Product 424
article thumbnail

Switching costs: A competitive advantage?

Berkonomics

Know the cost to move from your existing platform and estimate the switching costs for moving from a competitor’s product or service to yours. Increase the barriers to your customer’s switching, not just with excellent service, but with some form of personal touch. The post Switching costs: A competitive advantage?