Another Secret Revealed
In the last post we talked about the first secret to building a solid customer service plan and how to decide what your vision is.
Today we’ll talk about the second secret in taking your satisfied customers to raving fans. You must know what your customers want. Know who your customers are and you will know better how to serve them. Demographics are really important here. An upper-class woman in her 30’s is going to have completely different expectations than a working class man in his 50’s.
There are four main areas you need to consider and plan when figuring out what your customers want:
- Listen to Your Customers
- Ask Your Customers Sincerely
- Offer More than Just a Product/Service
- Know When to Ignore Them
These are all important when deciding what your customers want out of their shopping experience.
Listen to Your Customers
You need to listen to both what they say and what they don’t say. Customers may say they want one thing and really mean something else. For example, if you customers are begging for lower prices, you may find out their real priority is quick delivery.
Also, listen to your “silent” customers. These are the customers don’t bother to complain because the service is so bad they’ve just given up and don’t feel like their voice matters. They feel unwanted and when a competitor shows up, they’ll be gone.
Lastly, you need to listen to customers who only reply with “fine”. These customers are similar to the “silent” customers in that they are so used to bad customer service they only give a monotone response.
Ask Your Customers Sincerely
If you aren’t sincere when you ask their opinion, they are going to see right through you. You may be thinking, “What about the customers who aren’t saying anything?” You need to ask them sincere questions that get them thinking about their experiences. Make them feel like you really care, and you should!
Offer More than Just a Product/Service
Your customers are looking for much more than a simple product or service, they are looking for an experience that makes them feel good. They gauge every step of the process with a value. When you take this into consideration and treat them like people, they will feel like they belong.
Know When to Ignore Them
You may think this goes beyond providing good customer service, but in reality you can’t give them everything and someone people you will never make happy. You have to set limits and stick to them. If your vision and company don’t meet the needs of the customer, they will be best suited somewhere else.
These are the steps and tricks to figuring out what your customers want and how you can use them to work on your customer service vision and plan.
If you get stuck, try our FREE test drive and let us help you through the process.
Until the next time
Vernon Simpson Nydes Business Coach,
Coaching Business Owners and Executives to their next level of Excellence
Email: JV.Simpson@nydesmanagement.co.uk
www.nydesmanagement.co.uk www.MybusinessDevelopmentAcademy.com
Mobile: 011 (44) 7850729776.
Shhh… I Have a Secret
Customer service is a pretty hot topic and can make or break your business. Consumers have little patience for lousy customer service and easily get tired of waiting in long lines, trying to get a live person on the line, going through an interrogation to return something or trying to communicate through a language barrier.
If you provide them with a simple, efficient, pleasant experience they will revisit your business over and over. More importantly, they will tell everyone they know!
There are three secrets to good customer service, the first one we’re going to conquer is knowing exactly what YOU want.
You are the captain of the ship and the visionary for the future of your business, so you need to have a clearly defined plan for your business and that includes customer service. There are three main goals you need to consider:
- It needs to be easy for your customers to do business with you. You can do this with advertised discounts, kiosks, your website and other technology based programs to help them shop.
- Doing business with you needs to be a warm and pleasant experience. Your staff has to be knowledgeable, approachable, warm and patient. Your customers need to feel like they are getting a good value for their time and money. Perceived value goes beyond the price of the products and extends to their shopping experience.
- Change your mind set and ask yourself “How can I NOT afford to do these things?” This shouldn’t be a question of expenses, but making and keep happy customers.
Which these thoughts in mind you also need to take a few things into consideration when deciding on the actual programs and standards you’ll put into place.
- Share your customer service vision with the rest of your staff.
- Connect your incentive programs and bonuses directly to customer service.
- Monitor the level of customer service your staff is putting out.
- Know when you can ignore what your customers want.
- Continuously focus on your goals.
Now, that you know what you want you can starting thinking about how to meet those wants and create a positive customer service experience.
Until the next time
Vernon Simpson Nydes Business Coach,
Coaching Business Owners and Executives to their next level of Excellence
Email: JV.Simpson@nydesmanagement.co.uk
www.nydesmanagement.co.uk www.MybusinessDevelopmentAcademy.com
Mobile: 011 (44) 7850729776.
Add Some Compost
In the last post we talked about the first three of the 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process. Here are all seven again:
- Primary Aim
- Strategic Objectives
- Organisational Strategy
- Management Strategy
- People Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Systems Strategy
These 7 areas will fine turn your plan for the ultimate level of success. Today we are going to cover the last four.
Think of constructing your business model like planting a tree. At first, it’s so small and weak you wonder if it will even make it through the night. But, you keep watering, fertilizing and nurturing it. Your ideas will grow the trunk and each of these strategies will extend out as the branches of your now strong tree. Finding the perfect support staff, employees, vendors/suppliers and other relationships will make your tree flourish with leaves and flowers.
Management Strategy
The way you structure your management team is not only essential to your growth, but the happiness of your employees and, ultimately, your customers/clients. This strategy is results-oriented and doesn’t depend on the people, but the actual system that’s in place.
A management strategy is, in short, a set of standards that include goals, rules, a mission statement and other concrete things that tell your employees how to act, your management how to grow your business and your customers/clients what to expect.
These should all be in perfect alignment with your business goals.
Employee Appreciation
You need to put together a people strategy that shows your employees how you feel about their job performance and dedication to your business. They also need to understand “why” they are doing specific tasks. This helps them to personally connect to their job which in turn leads to better production and a happier workplace.
There are a number of strategies you can use to keep it interested at “the office”:
- Performance Incentive Programs
- Contests that reward high performance
- Employee of the Month
- Performance/Holiday Bonuses
These are just a few of the ideas you can use. One of the best ways to appreciate your employees is by calling a meeting and asking them how they would like to be rewarded. Think about it for awhile and put the best strategy into play. Keep it fresh and change up the strategy you use from time to time to keep your employees guessing. Once they get used to the prize, it’s time for a whole new approach.
You need to build a community within your company. There needs to be support, appreciation and respect. The more “at home” an employee feels, the better they will perform and the higher their level of loyalty.
Marketing Strategy
Marketing is, of course, essential to the success of any business, but it also must work cohesively with the other strategies you’re using. There are two major pillars of a successful marketing strategy-the demographic and psychographic profiles of your customers.
The psychographic tells you what your customers are the most likely to buy and the demographic tells you who they are, which can help you learn why they buy specific items. Without this information it simply doesn’t matter how good your business prototype is.
Systems Strategy
There are three types of systems in every business:
- Hard Systems
- Soft Systems
- Information Systems
Hard systems refer to inanimate system or systems that have no “life”. Soft systems are those that could be living. Information systems which are, of course, everything else, including customer data, product information, financial…anything with data and numbers.
The most important of all three systems is the soft systems because it includes the sales systems your business uses. In your sales system the two keys to success are: structure and substance. Structure being what you sell and substance being how you sell it.
All three systems are essential to the success of your business and while they all have their own very specific roles, they all must work together to get the job done. This also goes for your entire business development program.
I want to take a moment to recap on the ideas we went over through the business develop lessons.
An entrepreneurial myth, or e-myth, is an assumption that anyone can succeed at business with:
- Desire
- Some capital
- Projected a targeted profit
There are essentially three key roles that need to be filled to set your business up for success:
- The Technician
- The Manager
- The Entrepreneur
The four different stages of a business life cycle are:
- Infancy
- Adolescence
- Growing Pains
- Maturity
There are a few things we are going to talk about:
- Business Format Franchise
- The Franchise Prototype
- Franchise Prototype Standards
There are three main areas of business development:
- Innovation
- Quantification
- Orchestration
7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process. Here are all seven again:
- Primary Aim
- Strategic Objectives
- Organisational Strategy
- Management Strategy
- People Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Systems Strategy
We can help you work through all of these areas and give your business a jumpstart that puts you ahead of your competition right from the start. Use our FREE test drive and work with one of our coaches, plus gain access to a wealth of tools and resources.
Until the next time
Vernon Simpson, Nydes Business Coach,
Coaching Business Owners and Executives to their next level of Excellence
Mortar makes it Happen
Today I’d like to talk about the three keys to business development and how you can put the right bricks in place to build a solid foundation.
There are three main areas of business development:
- Innovation
- Quantification
- Orchestration
If done well, these three areas will help you build a solid foundation for you business. Let’s talk about each one of these for just a minute.
Innovation
Innovation should not be confused with creativity, which is the expression of ideas. Innovation is taking these ideas and putting them into action. This is where a large amount of your focus should be in the beginning and even throughout your business’ entire lifespan.
Quantification
This, of course, refers to the numbers. We are talking about the value of your innovation. The best way to gauge this is by your customer response. Look to positive responses for what you are doing right-and keep doing it. Look to your negative responses to find out what you’re doing wrong-and fix it. This will enable you to keep growing and progressing with the needs of your customers and business climate.
Orchestration
Once you’ve had a chance to find what areas are working, you can narrow down those areas and concentrate on making them the stand out ideas. You shift your focus here to get the most out of your business and to meet the needs of your customers.
In the next few lessons we are going to transition to the 7 specific areas you need to consider in your franchise prototype process:
- Primary Aim
- Strategic Objectives
- Organizational Strategy
- Management Strategy
- People Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- Systems Strategy
These 7 areas will fine tune your plan for the ultimate level of success.
Until the next time.
Vernon Simpson, Nydes Business Coach
Coaching Business Owners and Executives to their next level of Excellence
Are You Aiding & Abetting E-Myths?
We are going to embark upon a journey through the world of e-myths and debunk them to help you avoid falling into the e-myth trap.
First, let’s take a minute to talk about what an e-myth is. An entrepreneurial myth, or e-myth, is an assumption that anyone can succeed at business with:
- Desire
- Some capital
- Projected a targeted profit
This sounds great, but it just not realistic. Think of starting a business as a marathon. Sure, everyone starts out of the gate at record pace, but after a few miles people start slowing and some drop out entirely. Building a successful business takes stamina and agility.
The reality is that there are many different facets to a successful business and none of them can be ignored if you plan to find success.
Let’s take a minute to talk about entrepreneurial seizure. This defines the roller coaster of emotions that comes with starting, nurturing and the potential failure of a business.
The emotions that occur, in order, are:
- Exhilaration
- Exhaustion
- Despair
- Sense of self-loss
This is usually cause by the e-myths and assumptions we talked about. You can get your hopes so high on instant success that even the smallest lag and you are sent into an emotional tailspin. This is also brought on by the stark realisation that you can’t do it all and will need help in the areas where you don’t have the knowledge. Now, faced with limited choices you may feel like you need to back out and hide, but don’t do this.
You can get business coaching to help you avoid feeling overwhelmed and defeated.
Until the next time
Vernon Simpson Nydes Business Coach,
Coaching Business owners and Executives to their next level of Excellence
Make an appointment with me by clicking this link: https://my.timedriver.com/