Restructuring is a painful process for everybody involved, and for this reason many managers are reluctant to do it.

Interlink Partners has the experience and expertise to help you initiate and execute a repositioning of your organization successfully. As external advisors, we can stay above the politics and provide a fresh perspective. As always, pragmatism and rapid results are our watchword as we strive together with you to create an effective and successful organization that can sustain itself for the long term.

Our approach includes:

• Capability analysis and audit
• Goal setting based on capabilities
• Identification and retention of key personnel
• Cost management and reduction in force decision-making
• Internal communication strategy
• External positioning and communication.

Please contact us for a confidential discussion of your needs.

• Experienced, professional, executive-level consultants
• A collaborative style that puts your needs and concerns at the top of the list
• A track record of pragmatic, positive results
• Deep skills in the domains that matter to your business: operations, marketing, strategy, engineering,
• A committed work process that leverages experience, not a bevy of junior consultants.

Every one of our consultants has held e-staff level, executive roles in major companies. We bring a track record of results and repeat business across a wide range of industries and companies, globally.

When you engage with us, expect the best. Our constant focus is on the creation of solutions that work: practicality and a path to effective implementation are a given.

Nordstrom’s is a great example of a retailer that has achieved differentiation through a unique approach to their customer relationship. Not only do they establish a customer-centric approach to doing business, but they specifically empower their salespeople to go out of their way to give customers a unique level of support and service. There are not many stores where you can return something you didn’t buy there, or where you can ask them to get something they don’t stock. At Nordstrom’s you can do either of these things, and they will try to help. Their personal shopper services are amazing, and lead to a very high level of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

This works because even though one instance of this level of support may be expensive, the cost of acquiring customers is higher, and the value of a loyal customer is higher still.

In this article I want to focus on one  idea that will help you to differentiate in the customer relationship: it’s called the referenceability metric.

The idea is simple. Ask every customer this one question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product / service to your peers?”

Then you score as follows: 1–6 is taken as a no. 7–8 is taken as a maybe, or neutral response, and 9–10 is considered a yes. Ignore the neutral answers, and subtract the no count from the yes count. If your resulting score is positive, you’re in good shape.

This works because a customer who will recommend your offering is a real boost to sales. In fact, it’s been proven that companies with high referenceability grow significantly faster than those with lower referenceability.

Once you have a score, I recommend you ask the people who give you a low score what the key problems or causes of dissatisfaction are. By collecting this information you are in a position to fix the problems and improve satisfaction for the future. This one metric, coupled with a robust and honest approach to continuous improvement will result in innovation in the customer relationship, a higher referenceability score, and a faster growing business.

Tim Barnes