From: http://www.bizjournals.com/

You can self-diagnose the “symptoms” your business may exhibit when struggling to jumpstart growth — similar to using WebMD when you’re feeling under the weather.

Let’s use the same thinking as WebMD to diagnose your organization’s growth challenges with what we’re calling StrategicGrowthMD.

Let’s look at two critical growth drivers — customer experience and innovation — and the characteristics of companies that may benefit from investigating treatment options.

Customer experience: Turn your customers into raving fans

Common symptoms:

• “I thought I knew my customers, but my customer satisfaction metrics are telling me otherwise.
• ”“I keep hearing about how customer experience is important, but I have no clue where to begin to improve it, much less understand its current state.
• ”“I don’t know what customer experience investments will actually drive a return on investment.”

When to seek assistance:

• You are effective at gaining new customers, but experience persistent retention issues.
• You’re losing to competitors with inferior products and services–even at or above your price point.

Treatment options:

Journey mapping — Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and conduct an in-depth set of cross-functional journey mapping sessions (i.e. the process your customers go through when interacting with your organization).

These sessions will help identify pain points and revenue-generating opportunities, some of which you may not have known existed. You will be amazed at the number of “aha” moments and the seemingly magical cross-functional alignment that happens when you view the world through the eyes of your customers.

Innovate and test…repeat — Driving revenue growth through customer experience initiatives requires an approach that is rooted in both art and science: Innovation and testing.

Challenge your team to come up with ideas that improve the customer experience at critical interaction points. Not only does this create raving fans out of your customers, but it also creates new revenue opportunities.

Once you have innovated new solutions, test them in the market to make sure your customers share your excitement before making huge investments.

Product and service innovation – Do or make something new to find growth where others aren’t looking yet

Common symptoms:

• “I feel like I am always playing catch-up when my competitors launch new products or services.”
• “I’m worried I’m in a dying industry and my company just doesn’t have an innovative culture.”
• “We have great ideas, but struggle with turning them into reality.”

When to seek assistance:

• Sales are declining in your entire segment, meaning it may be time to focus on other opportunities.
• Because you have been repeatedly beaten by your competitors, your organization is playing “copycat” and rolling out products and services that mimic those of your competitors.

Treatment options:

Improv and innovation games — This may sound (and certainly will feel) silly to some, but theater improv exercises and principles do have a place in corporate America when it comes to innovation and driving change. Try games and approaches like “who-what-where” and “scamper” to get your team thinking differently about a problem or opportunity.

Focus on the launch — Organizations spend a significant amount of time and money on research and development, yet time and time again, promising products fail to launch. The key is to ensure that marketing and sales are included in the product development lifecycle and the launch to market is data-driven and brought to life by your front-line sales team.