In my opinion, there is no greater tribute to an organisation than repeat business. Last year was our best here and Redhound Studios continues to grow strongly and steadily. At a performance meeting last week, we were staggered to learn that we have succeeded in increasing our client retention from 85% in 2016/17 to 100% in 2017/18. It was discovered that all our 2017/18 contracts were repeat customers. It was also noted that a handful of customers had returned to us from the previous financial year, not once or twice but on multiple occasions.

Very quickly the meeting turned to how we achieved this level of success as we could not have dreamed of it in our earlier years. These things don’t happen by accident, so we wanted to know just how we had done it. We were never presumptuous enough to set it as a company goal, but it means a great deal to us now that it has happened.

Beyond the high quality and standards of our work and value for money, the company’s strategy has always been one of common sense, transparency, honesty, hard graft and empathy with customer’s needs and working practices. Treating all customers with the proper respect, listening to their needs, understanding their business, striving to exceed their expectations and following up with them to ensure satisfaction.

As a small boutique company, our customers become very familiar with us once they have enjoyed excellent results on a first engagement. Consequently, after the completion of a first contract, they know that any further projects will be run in the same way with little of their time being tied up  in multiple meetings with us and having a single point of contact with an intimate understanding of their business and projects. We have noticed that return customers approach us in a in a much more relaxed manner than original meetings with them having found confidence in our abilities from previous projects.

Our pricing structure is a winning scenario. Each customer knows the quoted fee will not be exceeded however, savings made through economies in our workflow during the project are passed on to customers in the form of a reduced final settlement. This is greatly appreciated by them who find our commitment to fair pricing somewhat refreshing.

As we specialise in specific sectors like engineering, industrial design and product work, we have become the ‘go to’ supplier for many companies with these sorts of products. Initial contact with our customers bears this out and they instantly feel more confident that we understand their products and industry sector better than other CGI suppliers. This confidence has given us an advantage over competing suppliers and is contributory to repeat custom.

When planning, we really do ‘shake the tree’ vigorously making sure we have all the data, facts and reference from customers which allows us to identify pitfalls and hidden tasks likely to affect either party. This diminishes the potential for mistakes, reworks and cost adjustments. Our customers awareness of this increases their level of confidence in us even before we start production.

Consultation often leads the client to a place they hadn’t hitherto suspected they would arrive at. Once the possibilities are discussed in detail we often end up exceed expectations by adding value to the project beyond the customers initial vision. They have commented in the past that our input has led to the finished project looking better than they imagined possible in the begining.

Empathy is a very important part of our work and we understand the day-to-day pressures on customers whether it’s the CEO of a small company of the Marketing Manager of a large firm.  We know their time is precious which is why we plan carefully. As a result, we don’t take up sizable chunks of their time. We can still ‘report on demand’ or communicate on a regular pre-agreed or ad hoc basis, whatever suits the customer, but the management of the project does not become time consuming business or a general nuisance to our customers.

Empathy ties in with flexibility, agility and the ability to change direction or amend work at short notice without damage to the project or process. We have found that being dogmatic and petty about small issues hampers. Basically this means that if it does not concern our customers it need not concern us. Within reason, transcending through flexibility, understanding and common sense, most of our customers have been appreciative of ability to adapt to change mid-project (and at no significant cost to us).

We follow up with all customers on the success of using CGI whether their campaigns general marketing, print, web, e-learning or for a specific pitch or tradeshow. Our success relies on their success, so it’s vitally important to us that the value of our efforts have worked out well for our customers. Besides this, there is real satisfaction to be found in knowing you have assisted a company in their forward movement and as we genuinely take a pride in what we do, we are keen to see what a difference our work has made. This demonstrates just how customer driven we really are which does not go unnoticed by clients.

I simply don’t believe in luck and as I said earlier, I am not overlooking the high quality of work we produce but although it sounds very corny and old fashioned, the above points must be reasons for this success.

All our customers are intelligent, business savvy and see the value in what we offer. I know that none of them would not pursue a course of action without analysing the benefits as and minimising any risks with their time, budgets or company reputation. These are not people to ‘take a punt’ and always seem to base judgements on the facts.  We don’t take that for granted as they become part of our investment in the long term.

My message to them “Thank you so very much for coming back to us. We really appreciate it and we look forward to the next time.”

To anyone out there having doubts about the value of CGI, the processes, the costs or our ability to deliver, consider our 100% customer retention. Why would customers return to us repeatedly? Contact us for an informal chat about it, you may be glad you did.

John Harris – Director, Redhound Studios