Tag: Business growth

Shhh…I have a secret

Posted on by Odette de Beer & Jean Liebenberg

Customer service is a hot topic and can make or break your business. Consumers have little patience for poor 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 buy more from your business over and over, they will stay longer, and, more importantly, they will tell everyone they know!

There are three secrets to good customer service, the first one we are 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:

  1. 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.
  2. Doing business with you needs to be a warm and pleasant experience. Your staff must be knowledgeable, approachable, warm and patient. Your customers need to feel like they are getting good value for their time and money. Perceived value goes beyond the price of the products and extends to their shopping experience. Keep in mind that customers are willing to pay double the price when they perceive four times the value.
  3. Change your mindset and ask yourself “How can I NOT afford to do these things?” This should not be a question of expenses but making and keep happy customers.

With these thoughts in mind, you also need to take a few things into consideration when deciding on the actual programs and standards you will put into place.

  1. Share your customer service vision with the rest of your team.
  2. Connect your incentive programs and bonuses directly to customer service.
  3. Monitor the level of customer service your team is delivering.
  4. Know when you can ignore what your customers want.
  5. Continuously focus on your goals.

 

Now that you know what you want, you can start thinking about how to meet those wants and create a positive customer service experience.

If you’re having a hard time deciding on what you want, the tools, resources and coaches in our GUIDED TOUR can help you define the wants and needs of your company in relation to customer service.

Expanding the life of your business

Posted on by Odette de Beer & Jean Liebenberg

Today I’m going to talk about the life cycle of a business and how to get the most out of each cycle while also extended the lifespan of your business.

The four different stages of a business life cycle are:

  • Infancy
    Adolescence
    Growing Pains
    Maturity
    We’ll talk a little about what each of these cycles means and how they can each help expand your business’s lifespan.

Infancy

This is generally considered the technician’s phase, which is the owner. At this point, the relationship between the business and the owner is that of a parent and a new baby. There is an impenetrable bond that is necessary to determine the path your business will follow.

The key is to know your business must grow in order to flourish. You cannot stage in this stage forever.

Adolescence

In this stage, you need to start bringing your support staff together to delegate to and allow growth to happen. The first line of defense is your technical person as they need to bring a certain level of technical experience. This cycle really belongs to the manager though. The planning stage needs to start and a relationship should be built with the entrepreneur to plan for the future.

Growing Pains

There’s a point in every business when business explodes and becomes chaotic. This is referred to as growing pains. It’s a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. You are often faced with a number of choices:

  • Avoid growth and stay small
  • Go broke
  • Push forward into the next cycle
  • Maturity

The last cycle is maturity, though this doesn’t mean the end of your business. Your passion for growth must continue in order for your business to succeed. You need to keep an entrepreneurial perspective in order to push your business forward.

You see how all three of these cycles are connected and depend on a strong foundation for each one of them for your business to be and continue to be successful. All three of your key roles must also work together to work through these cycles.

If you’re having trouble putting together your business life cycles and figuring out which of the key roles you fit into, try our GUIDED TOUR and work with one of our amazing coaches.