The longest economic expansion in U.S. history is over or at least on hold. Hudson Valley business organizations are relearning that most new ideas do not succeed, many companies fail, resources are always scarce, and, above all, that business is not a game for amateurs.

Executives of the most powerful companies in the world now tremble before their independent and demanding customers. They know that they are doing business in a “customer economy” in which their customers have the power.

When customers have more choices than ever before, don’t give them reasons to leave. While many companies try to improve sales by increasing the quality of their products and services, they often overlook a major weakness. How hard it is for customers to do business with you?

From the customer’s standpoint, being “easy to do business with” means that interacting with you is effortless. Rethinking your company, its mission, and its operations in customer terms is necessary to make it easy for your customer to order, receive, and pay.

In the “customer economy”, the notion of handling different customers in different ways needs to be extended beyond the sales cycle and into the rest of the company’s operations.

For instance, mass merchants, such as Wal-Mart, value delivery at predetermined times to help simplify their complex operations. A company that fails to recognize this simple but important need is jeopardizing their business.

We have all had the experience of interacting with a company for years only to find that we are still being treated as a complete stranger. A number of Hudson Valley organizations, by using Caller ID, route the call to the same service representative whom the customer spoke to last time.

One of the best ways to become easy to do business with is by letting customers do some of your work for you. Providing access to your computer system so they can enter their own orders may make their lives much easier. A well-designed computer interface makes entering an order painless and can prevent errors. The computer will not misquote a price or misstate product performance data.

Focus on measuring what matters to customers. GE Aircraft Engines no longer measures only how long it takes to repair an engine. The measure that counts to the customers is how long it takes from the time the engine comes off the airplane until it goes back on. That is how long the airplane is grounded. GE is working to help its airline customers reduce this time and, in so doing, is winning their loyalty.

Becoming an organization “easy to do business with”, works to your advantage in two ways: It saves your customers money and boosts their satisfaction, thereby making them loyal to you. It also saves you money because virtually all of the refinements lower costs in your operations.

Everyone sharing one database with all customer information available eliminates bottlenecks in sales and service. The new mandate for Hudson Valley companies is to simplify, and redesign their inter-business processes making it effortless for your customer to order, receive and pay for your products or services.

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