Common sense isn't common

I recently had someone tell me that what needs to be done in their business and how their staff should deal with customers is just plain common sense. His common sense equaled:

• Treat customers with respect
• Talk to them nicely and with a smile on your face
• If you answer the phone, deal with the problem yourself until it gets to the point that you are unable to.
• Customers are the most important aspect of your business

Now, these are pretty much common sense items to any good sales person or business owner... but not everyone fits into the above two categories.

Your normal customer services, administrative, and accounts workers deal with customers every day, and usually from a support perspective and not from a sales perspective. People in these roles can quickly come to see customers as an annoyance, not a privilege. Once this happens, your company is in serious trouble as customer services spirals through the floor and unhappy customers start lining up to voice their concerns.

What can you do to fix this problem?

1. Look at every customer pointing activity in your organisation and think about how you would treat the customer and how you would like to be treated if you were on the other side.
2. Write all of point 1. down and create policy and procedures for each and every customer facing activity.
3. Instil the need to please customers in your staff. The number one goal is to create a happy customer every time you deal with them... even ones who complain to start with can quickly be turned into happy advocates of your company by using the right language and solving their problem.
4. Clamp down on ANY customer facing person who doesn't adhere to the procedures. If you don't then each time that person talks to a customer you will hurt your brand.

Some key rules to remember:

• There is no such thing as a bad day when you deal with customers... they just don't care.
  
• Once your staff start talking to customers in happy way they will magically make themselves happy in the process. Nothing makes you happy like making another person happy... smiles are contagious.
  
• Your brand is all you really have, and your brand is made up of two things:
• Your Perceived Image
• Your systems that create that image
• Your employees are your most important assets, but your most important assets can't help your company if you don't have good systems for them to work in.

I think a big problem with small businesses is that they view their employees are important assets, but then think those assets should be able to just do their job, and do it well. This simply isn't the case. A small business will only ever grow into a slightly larger small business with this thought process in place. Systems are the lifeblood of any self respecting business, otherwise you rely too much on particular employees to do their job.

In a top notch business the management should be able to appoint anyone into a role and have that person will be successful quickly after they have been trained in the companies systems.

Another analogy is the franchise model... seek to do this with each and every segment of your business and you will find your life that much easier. If you don't know what i mean by this then please read E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber. This book will open your eyes on how to build a better business, and then make that business run by itself.

Please leave me comments and your thoughts on this topic.

The Field Creative

My good friend Christo has just been on a whirlwind visit on Auckland and he spent last night at my place; and our mouths wagged as in the norm when friends haven't seen each other for some time.

Christo is a leader in charity theory ideas and is looking for serious support and philanthropists for his parent project, The Field Creative. Please have a read of his theories, past events and projects, and current activities on his website thefieldcreative.org (or click the link above) His ideas will blow your mind, and although some are quite "out there" he is deadly serious about his overall objective of getting the world back on a sustainable path and ensuring there is a quality future for our children, our childrens' children and further beyond.

He isn't just talk either... he has lived and breathed his ideas for the last 3 1/2 years as he has sought to build groundswell support as well as refine his theories and the focus for The Field Creative.

I encourage all of you business owners to think about your own responsibilities to make the world a better place... we are the only ones with any real power to do something.

Please pass this message along as I believe this is something worth supporting.

Word of mouth power move

Have you ever wondered why some marketing campaigns, websites, companies, loyalty programmes, work better than others?

Are customer referrals a big source of your new sales leads? They should be!!

Customer referrals is THE most powerful way to get new sales leads... yet most companies focus very little time or effort on acheiving this. It is hard to be the worlds best at creating sales leads through referrals, but there is no reason for not being a close second... and anyone can acheive this by using some simple tools.

Andy Sernovitz is a marketing and word of mouth guru, so when he talks I listen. In this short youtube video Andy puts across some amazing points on referrals and how to get them.



So... please tell a friend about my blog and pass on the knowledge.