Every entrepreneur, at the beginning of his career, shares the same ambition: to obtain as many customers as possible. That’s understandable, because customers provide money and without sufficient income entrepreneurship becomes difficult. But is that a strategy that ensures healthy business in longer term? Younify changes the course and puts all effort to significantly decrease customer base. Dangerous or genius?
Introducing ourselves…
Before we start discussing Younify’s motifs to have less customers, it might be good to get acquainted with the company first. Younify develops Magento webshops and extensions, delivering customized work with high-grade technical knowledge. Younify’s customer base is very diverse and includes names such as Amnesty International, Besselink Licht and Toolnation.
How it went until now
Plenty of work at Younify. Because of in-house specialist knowledge and years of experience, our company became a godsend for everyone who wants to start a webshop or to optimize an existing situation. We always had a brimful agenda on our desk, which often resulted in refusing new customers. Current customers were naturally served well, though it was often a challenge to fit them into the ongoing planning.
The paradox of a full portfolio
There are two reasons why companies like to have a full customer base:
1. Long term financial security
2. The quality appearance, surely you are in demand
Logical arguments, but how realistic are these? A full portfolio means little space for new customers, existing customers who sometimes want things sooner than you can provide, urgent jobs, overtime and a high stress level. How sustainable is it on a long term and doesn’t it affect the quality you’ve always stood for?
Back to Basics
When Younify started, an increasing number of customers was a very important goal, though not the only one. Excelling in this field by including only high-quality services was at least important. The latter became more and more difficult because of the workload. Quality was of course included, but was also associated with less freedom and breathing space. Not exactly the way you like to work, right? Therefore, Younify decided to take a different approach.
The benefits of having less customers
Younify has decided to considerably reduce the customer base and create more space in order to be more dedicated to customers and hence achieve better results. This was partly done by hiring additional staff. In addition, marketing activities focused on new customers were significantly reduced. For example, in 1.5 years the average handling time of a ticket was reduced from nearly 60 to just five days. And this has led to many advantages in several areas:
Financial:
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You have more time to think along with customers, making them spend more on development and increase the margin
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You do not have to give away freebies anymore, for example because you do not meet a deadline
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Your customers will be more satisfied, causing easier and prompt payment
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Overhead reduction
Quality:
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You have more possibilities for training and development of employees
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You have more time for proper documentation, beneficial for long term processes
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Your employees have regular working hours and less stress
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This leads to less absenteeism, less staff turnover and more pleasure at work