Look At Moiye, Look At Moiye, Look At Moiye Please...By Director Wayne Hall

July 2, 2010


It is so easy to fall into the trap of feeling that what you do – your business service – becomes more and more understood and appreciated by your clients over time. I mean, after all, if people are paying you their hard-earned money year in and year out, surely they are making the most of what they are paying for...aren’t they? 

Maybe...maybe not...

Over the past few months I’ve made a point of checking in on a variety of businesses – cafes, retail stores, service providers, pubs, clubs & offices…many of whom were not SBA clients – to enquire about their music systems and how they used them.

(hey boss, there’s a creepy bald guy hanging around the store, should I call security...?)

Of course this is only soft research, but what struck me was how little knowledge most people had of their music system. To some extent this is a good thing, because one of the objectives of a good business music application is that it runs along in the background without the need to be managed by staff. But I found that even key people – managers and owners – were often not aware of the most basic features that they had at their disposal (and were paying for) within the application – such as the capacity to build a play-list, manage in-store messages or schedule certain genres of music to play at set times of the day.

There are a lot of key people in retail stores, for example, who don’t even know where their music system is located – again, not necessarily a bad thing. But definitely more frightening was the number of people who actually complained that the service wasn’t much good...they just hadn’t got around to doing something about it.

Critically, in terms of the businesses I spoke with, in the main there was a correlation between the length of service and the knowledge of the service, ie. the longer it had been in place the less it was understood.

When all is said and done, one of the main goals of providing business music services is winning each and every client for life...actually, forever. So, while a year can go by very quickly after five years of a supply relationship, that one year can feel like a very long time for a client who isn’t kept abreast of your service features and who you are. Furthermore, with the average person changing roles every 12 to 18 months (both within the customer and your business) it’s possible – if you are not careful – to find yourself servicing a client with whom you have no constructive relationship. Dangerous stuff, that.

(Moreover, as we go to online services, particularly for audio only environments, the physical and tactile reminder of the service – the update disc – disappears, removing another reminder of who you are)

Maintaining a healthy balance and investment between sales and account management resources is very challenging – because on the one hand we are all striving for growth and the thrill it brings, while on the other we don’t like the pain that comes with losing a client. In our game we call the difference between gaining and losing clients “churn”, and the thing I don’t like about the term “churn” is that it exists at all – it almost seems to suggest that losing clients is an acceptable part of the business music model. I blame the Americans for that one.

“Churn”, though – or a large part of it – is a reminder of just how important staying in touch with your clients is. As much as we are faced with the obstacles of getting our message through to clients who’s condition consists of constantly changing personnel, information overload, and busier work lives, my little call-around exercise has convinced me more than ever that we need to work on clever ways to educate our clients about who we are, what we do...and what more we can do. Because it’s apparent that differentiating our business and services is only going to get tougher.

++++

Speaking of which, and it is a good case in point, it is very apparent that APRA (the public performance association that represents the publisher/composer) has for a while been running a campaign aimed at differentiating itself from the PPCA (the public performance association that represents the record companies...and which hiked their restaurant tariffs last year and recently had a big Copyright Tribunal “win” against the Fitness Industry).

APRA is an organisation that turns over around $200 million annually, is well organised, has great resources and a decent communications network. I am yet to speak to anyone at the grass roots, music-user level that can tell me the difference between the two associations.

Our clients seem to have a lot more important things on their minds, and understandably so...


Wayne Hall 
Director

Back to Top

 For more SBA Business News Articles, click here.