When you first started out on your business venture or role with your company, you probably imagined that nothing but good things would happen as the organization grew. You couldn’t wait for the day when growth became overwhelming, because that meant the company was succeeding and rising to new heights. At the time, you probably didn’t consider the logistical and organizational challenges that would arise because of the growth that the company experienced. And you certainly didn’t feel like you needed a specialized solution, like custom application development yet.
The reality is that scaling from something small to something large and ambitious brings its own set of problems. One of those problems can be unhappy customers — the last thing you want and the first problem you want to solve.
Providing the same level of quality service to 1000 customers as you were able to when you had only 10 is tough if the organization isn’t ready or prepared to make changes to accommodate this growth. Failure to make the necessary changes can leave you with more, but less satisfied, customers.
Disappointed Customers Feel…
You don’t know the status of their account.
When you have only a handful of customers, it’s possible to keep track of everything in your head or even in a simple system like an Excel spreadsheet. You know when they ordered and when you completed work on their order. At some point during the course of your company’s growth though, you lose that ability and need help to remember where every order is. Failure to do so leads to angry customers.
Confused, because you haven’t followed up on something you committed to.
Making a handful of commitments to a small number of customers is manageable. With growth, your ability to keep track of your commitments is only possible with assistance from some type of software.
The price you promised differed from the amount you invoiced.
It’s not uncommon for companies to experiment with pricing as they grow. Particularly if your customers’ orders are complex and varied, and you’ve been aggressive in testing price sensitivity, it’s easy to find yourself inadvertently offering one price at the time of the order but invoicing a different price at a later date, simply as an oversight.
As your business expands, you need specialized tools and support systems to keep up with the growth. If you find yourself with a growing list of customers but a falling level of satisfaction, it might be time to consider custom application development.
How Can Custom Application Development Help My Business and Create Happy Customers?
- Centralized Databases: Custom software uses a centralized database, so nothing gets lost. Never worry about disappointing a customer again because you don’t know the status of their order. Custom application development ensures that the custom platform created for your business will have everything you need to keep your customers happy and returning, time after time.
- Collaborative Workspaces: Accounts, orders, and commitments can be worked on by a team using customized collaboration software instead of relying on individuals keeping every detail straight. The more your organization grows, the more your team does too. More people being added means more chances of things getting lost in the shuffle or being misunderstood along the way. That’s why custom application development is so beneficial – creating a centralized place for an entire team to collaborate.
- Consistent Experiences: Business rules that determine things like prices or delivery expectations are kept in sync across a customer’s experience, so they always know what to expect and have an excellent experience every time.
At Mutually Human, we’ve been helping clients for more than ten years with these kinds of problems. Whether it’s a business that runs into scaling problems by trying to run on Excel alone or a company that lives in its email Inbox, we can help guide you through custom application development to solve your scaling problems and create satisfied customers. Schedule a free consultation anytime.
