Pushy

The fact is that pushy sales people and organisations are missing the point and losing reputation and business in equal measure as a result. Their focus is wrong. It shouldn’t be about selling it should be about buying.

Valued

People buy things and services and, on the whole, people buy from people. If you can make your customers and potential customers feel valued and important, they will be far more interested in what you have to offer and, if they want it, they will buy from you and not one of your competitors. You will not have to try to sell to them – and that’s a lot easier.

Selling or Buying? It’s your choice and may mean the difference between the success and failure of your business.

More likely to return

Recent studies show that customers who are “highly satisfied” with you are SIX TIMES more likely to return and recommend you than customers who are simply “satisfied” with you.

If that alone is not sufficient incentive to improve, the same research has shown that those customers are also far less sensitive to price changes as they already like you and will return to you even if you are slightly more expensive than your less caring competitors.

Put into context

When you put that in the context of your current marketing effort doesn’t it make financial sense to have your customers marketing your business for you? The results speak for themselves and serve to reinforce what we already knew deep down.

The really good news is that taking the effort to make your customers feel valued and important, and arranging how you do business around their convenience rather than yours doesn’t have to cost you much but can make a massive difference to your profitability.

Complain

Firstly, the most dissatisfied or vociferous will complain to you. That is great because

(a) it tells you that you have a problem somewhere in one of your business processes and

(b) gives you a chance to rectify things.

Moaning

Secondly, and most dangerously, they won’t complain to you. Instead they will take great pleasure in moaning about your company to anyone who will listen thus undermining your hard-earned reputation. Worse still you will probably lose them and their contacts to your competitors without knowing the reason or being given the opportunity to make amends.

It’s better if dissatisfied customers complain to you and, contrary to intuition, very sound business practice if you make it easy for them to do so.

Still a market

Not all young people get their favourite music via downloads. Neither do the majority of older people. There is clearly still a market for over the counter music sales. So why haven’t HMV captured this market? Anyone who has walked even close to one of their stores will know the answer to that.

Alienated

They constantly play loud music and in so doing have not only alienated and lost the business of the very people who have the cash to spend in these hard times (the over 60’s) but also some of their perceived target market, the young, who go elsewhere simply because they don’t like the style of music! 

Increased business

Had HMV possessed the foresight to observe what was happening outside their stores over the past two to three years they would have seen that by simply lowering the volume they could have increased their business by over 20%, but they couldn’t see the obvious and are now paying the price.

There is a lesson for businesses in HMV’s troubles. If you want to not only survive these hard times but actually increase and expand your business, you must constantly think about it from your customer’s point of view. It need not cost you a lot but can certainly make a massive difference to your profitability and long-term chances of survival.

Frustrated

Do you get frustrated when you have to repeat information to a company? So do your customers. According to a recent UK survey 69% of respondents said they were frustrated or annoyed when asked to repeat information after being transferred to another person.

Silos

Blame company silos as the culprit for this aggravation. Because businesses, especially those with call centres, often neglect to integrate all of their systems, a complete customer view is not available to whoever is handling that call.
Your customers couldn’t care less about your business infrastructure. They want fast and efficient service. In fact, over 75% of people surveyed said that it only takes one unpleasant contact experience for them to take their business elsewhere.

Are you losing business by making your customers repeat themselves?

(a) The young?
(b) Up and coming professionals?
(c) Middle aged?
(d) Over 60’s?

Unless your product or service is designed specifically for one of the first three, you’re probably missing a trick and losing business because the answer is (d).

So how friendly towards those customers is your business? If they have the spending power, why aren’t you attracting them? Why are you letting them go to your competitors?

Simple measures

Simple measures can make a huge difference to attracting a far broader range of customers and consequently increasing sales.

For example, one well known retail brand plays continuous loud music in its High Street stores. Research has shown that by doing so it not only loses the business of the very people who have the cash to spend (the over 60′s) but also some of its perceived target market, the young, who go elsewhere because they don’t like the style of music!  Simply lowering the volume could increase their business by over 20%.

So if you want to increase and expand your business, think about it from a customer’s point of view. It need not cost you a lot but can certainly earn you a lot.

Do you have a business where your customers can be in a queue to get their phone call answered? If so, are you aware of just how much damage that is doing to your reputation and your profitability?
You get annoyed when you are held in a call queue, right? So do your customers, especially if the call is costing them money or, worse still, earning you revenue!

Angry customers

Social media channels are swarming with angry customers venting their displeasure. Customers have nothing to fear and are very vocal about sharing and tagging the company they’re on hold with and the length of time they’ve been waiting. This information will NEVER be deleted. It forever lives on in cyberspace. I think it’s safe to assume that this could have a negative impact on a company’s reputation and profitability.

Fast and efficient service

Your customers couldn’t care less about your business infrastructure or staffing levels. They want fast and efficient service. Over 75% of people recently surveyed said that it only takes one unpleasant contact experience for them to take their business elsewhere.

Are you losing business by making your customers wait?

Choosing the right staff for the job, equipping them to do it, helping them to contribute to the success of the business, motivating them to do their best and developing them as individuals and teams is a vital business operation. Yet how many managers have the skills to do this?

Lack of an effective policy

Invariably this is not the individual managers’ fault, rather lack of an effective policy.
Often businesses reward someone who has proved to be good at their job by promoting them to a management role with little or no training, help, guidance, mentoring or support. Many have the potential and would benefit from investing in them but are not given the necessary support to develop. Is it any wonder they struggle?

Underperforming

The result is that they too become underperforming employees which impacts hugely on your business and on staff engagement and morale. And whose fault is that?

There is no such thing as a bad employee, just poor management.

Diamonds are not always bright and sparkling. They can appear dull and ordinary and can be very hard to handle. But once you recognise a diamond it has the potential to be hugely valuable.

Poor performers

Employees can be like that too. They can appear to be poor performers but there may be valid reasons for that. Maybe they have problems you don’t know about. Perhaps the reason is poor management. If you don’t look closely, you’ll never know.

Polish it to perfection

You may have a diamond amongst your staff. Just imagine how much more profitable your business would be if you could spot that diamond, rub off the rough edges and polish it to perfection.
It can be done. The trick is in recognising the potential.

Assume that you’ve carefully selected and trained your staff and they are now ready to face your customers.  All that time, effort and cost will be wasted if your business processes are unsuitable and don’t enable your people to give excellent customer service.

Deeply unhappy

We recently did some work for a large company who had well-trained staff with a robust written process for a particular procedure and were assiduously following their process. Despite this their customers involved with that process were deeply unhappy with their experience and were complaining both by telephone and in writing. Clearly something was wrong.

Excellent customer service

We reviewed the process from the customer’s viewpoint, discovering several areas where the process failed the customer and suggested changes to procedures. These changes were adopted by the company and the staff were then able to deliver the excellent customer service they had always wanted to.

So remember, your business processes should be designed with the customer in mind and not just to suit you. Great customer service is more than just training.