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It doesn’t take a genius to explain why a happy customer is important to business success. Satisfied consumers will come back, and hopefully, bring friends with them.
The trick is to ensure customer satisfaction and get the message out that you are the place to go to, rather than your competitors.
In this guide, we look at various strategies and methods to evaluate your current operation and improve to do better in the future.
Know Who Your Customers Are?
How can we best serve our customers if we don’t know who they are? The key to any success is knowledge, as there has never been an example of anything in life where additional information made operations worse.
How to best get to know your customer base will greatly depend on your type of business. More specifically we are interested in the number of customers and value of average order.
Market research is how we do this. We can send out surveys or request current customers fill them in, this strategy is useful for businesses such as retail where you have a high number of sales at low value.
If you have low sales but each sale is of a higher value, say you are a construction firm that regularly bids for large projects then a more qualitative approach will be necessary.
This is where we are getting into the world of corporate hospitality, taking clients out to dinner, or large sporting events, can give them a more personal relationship with you, seem impressive, and might be what clinches the deal.
Talk to Customers.
As well as the more formal methods of gathering data, it is important to never pass up a chance to talk to your customers, no matter how small that opportunity is.
If you have customers in-store a simple smile and a quick hello, asking about their day can go a long way. If you have less regular contact with your customers, pick up the phone occasionally.
The personal touch may not seem like much, but it will leave a lasting impression. Often these small interactions will flag up an idea or strategy you had previously missed.
Have a Clear Staff Training Regime with Set Standards?
You are only as good as your people. For all but the smallest companies, your staff will have to deal with things when you are not available. It’s important to have a clear training regime for all staff and ensure it’s regularly updated and monitored.
There should be clear benchmarks that are identifiable and measurable. We can see if each employee is following the schedule and offer assistance to those who are struggling.
You might consider outsourcing your training and development operation.
There are various advantages to following this strategy, you may be an expert in your given industry, however, this does not necessarily mean you are skilled in delivering a training program.
With the training schedule being delivered externally you can be left to run the business and make sales. Training can be offered on-site, online or at several locations nationwide and can be tailored to your firm’s needs.
Order Fulfilment
Order fulfillment is more key than ever before. With the rise of internet giants such as Amazon, the customer expects items quickly and conveniently.
For a small operation, it can seem daunting to match this level of customer service.
To match the big firms, we need to think like them. Jeff Bezos has attained such mammoth success by following a model of “customer obsession” and this thinking has permeated every business that delivers to customers.
We need to think about how we can get close to these standards. Do we look to set up and operate our delivery network? This depends on various factors; how far do we send goods? How many orders do we fulfill, and how often are they placed?
We would need to consider staffing levels and vehicles. You can find international trucks for sale and then work from there.
There is always the option of using an external warehousing and fulfillment company, and they will store your products and then send them out when orders are received.
You should carefully consider the benefits of each model and weigh them up against the cost.
Deal with Complaints Well
Handling of complaints is not an area of business you should take lightly. There are two principal reasons to respond thoroughly to complaints.
Firstly, you can see if any trends emerge, showing areas of weakness that need to be rectified.
Secondly, a negative can be turned into a positive if handled well. If a customer sees you are attentive to their complaint, they can be so impressed they tell people about it.
Assess Your Competition.
Sometimes we need to consider how we look in comparison to our competition. Shopping around is what all potential customers will be doing.
We can link this activity back to the market research we discussed earlier. We need to conduct a detailed competitor analysis, taking account of all aspects of operations, this should be done as structured and as scientifically as possible.
Direct comparison between each of your main competitors and yourself is useful. You should analyze your operation as if it were a competitor, showing how you look to an outsider.
Efficient Advertising
With all the data we have now gathered about our operation, and our competitors, we should advertise and promote successfully.
There is no point in being the best in our field if no-one knows about it. We will have identified what our USP (unique selling point) is, and who our target market is.
With this data at our disposal, we can go about creating the best marketing campaign possible.
We should carefully consider where it is best to promote? Social media is often the place to go, but even then, different platforms have different audiences.
We can use local radio, newspaper, or flyer distribution. Pay attention to what works, and be prepared to switch strategy, if necessary.
