People quote the 80/20 rule for a lot of things. It seems to be a human condition…. One being that 80% or your revenues will come from 20% of your customers. Your top customer tier. It’s likely true for your best feedback too.
The thing that people don’t talk about is what to do about that other 20/80. You know 80% of your customers that can generate 20% of your revenue.
There is the implication that you want to put more energy into the 20%. But… that doesn’t also imply we throw away the other 80%.
This 80% is often a customer tier that is our bread and butter. The represent consistent value to our business. As well, sometimes a customer in this segment will graduate into the 20% when they are ready.
So what should you do?
Productize. Delegate. Automate.
Create simple lower cost operational systems to service the 80%. Delegate to technology through automation. Find ways to package, contain, standardize and automate these efforts.
As an example….
Let’s say the 20% gold feedback happens when you spend your energy doing one-on-one discovery interviews of your top customers to get qualitative feedback. That doesn’t mean you abandon doing surveys at key touchpoints. You automate that the surveys happen. Both techniques have value.
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