Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Many forms of business require travel. Likewise traveling for business isn’t a vacation and must be treated accordingly. The following contributed post is entitled, Tips For Heading Away On Business Travel.
If you are frequently on the road travelling for business, then making the journey as easy and comfortable as possible will make the whole process more enjoyable. Unfortunately, travelling for work can be a necessity for a job and you might need to travel in a truck if you are a delivery driver, or head to meetings if you work in sales. You might have to regularly fly around the world, or you could just have to travel to different places in the country where you live. No matter where you have to travel, it is important that you are as organised as you can. Here we have put together some top tips for heading away on business travel.
Condense Your Packing
Whether you are flying, travelling in a car/truck or using public transport, the last thing you want to be doing is lugging around a large suitcase. Before heading off make a list of the key things you need for your business trip. Try to be strict with what you are picking and if there is any doubt, the chances are that you don’t need it. The lighter you travel the smaller your case can be making the journey a lot easier. If you are able to reduce your suitcase size to a carry-on when flying, you then won’t need to wait in the ques when checking in. Plus, always remember, if you have forgotten something you can always purchase it whilst you are away.
Ensure you have all the relevant insurance
As well as being prepared for the actual meetings and things when you are travelling for business, you will also need to have other insurances in place. If you are travelling abroad you will need travel insurance that will cover you in the instance that your flight or ferry gets delayed, if your luggage is lost and if you fall ill for any reason while you are out there. You will also need to know what to do if you are driving and get into an accident. In this case, it would be a good idea to look into getting a truck accident attorney who will help you.
Think carefully when book accommodation
When you are heading away on business, you will probably need to book accommodation to stay in if it is a long journey from home. When choosing your hotel there are many things you will want to consider. Price will probably be a factor as if your company is substituting they will likely give you a budget. For this, you can consider using a hotel booking engine to help you. You will also need to think about where your hotel is based. It is a good idea to be near the place where you will be having meetings or attending conferences to make it convenient for getting there and back during the day.
These are just a few top tips that can help you be more prepared the next time you are heading away on business. Business travel is necessary but these tips can help to make it more bearable.
This blog post is going to involve the areas of Blogging/Writing, Business/Entrepreneurship, and Technology. As many of you know, I was able to monetize my blogging platform a couple of years ago. With multiple projects, I only have a little bit of time throughout the year to generate pieces here for myself now. Much of the content is generated by customers/collaborators. By the way, my new blog entitled, ‘Big Words Authors’ is now up and running and has a more literary/storytelling focus. Take look if you want to read creative writing narratives, stories, poetry, and my new book project entitled, “The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story”, and the many supporting promotional pieces that are on the way.
This piece, while it will discuss how I monetized my blogging platform, will also talk about two important aspects of starting your own enterprise: monitoring your business receipts and customer service. Over the years I’ve heard that systems are an important part of any successful business, and I’ve found that to be true. I will thus also discuss what happens if some of your critical systems breakdown, compromising important aspects of your business like your customer service.
There are currently numerous documents on the Big Words Blog Site involving blogging. Some were written by me, and some were written by a customer. A year or two after starting the Big Words Blog Site, I unexpectedly entered the business of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I plan to discuss SEO in greater detail in a separate post. For now, however, I’ll just say that I started collaborating with other entities to publish content, for which I’ve been compensated. I’ve worked with several collaborators, and each involved the generation of business receipts and customer service.
Checking Your Business Receipts
In one of my Fathers’ Day posts (2017), I shared a memorable experience where my father reprimanded me for not taking my receipt and counting my change – a life changing experience for me. It turns out there’s a business context for checking your receipts. As I’ll describe in the business context, checking your receipts not only ensures a given transaction was executed properly, but it can ultimately save your business.
In short, I was able to monetize my blogging activities through the area of SEO. I’m no expert in SEO, by any means, but essentially it involves increasing your rank in the Google search engine by being linked to other websites. This is a big thing in our modern digital age and there are companies that specialize in this. The client/company/partner I started working with created short informational pieces of all kinds, linking companies in them.
Our partnership involved my publishing the content they sent to me perfectly, meaning that the final published version needed to match the draft they sent me in terms of content, structure and the weblinks inserted in the original piece. Once I sent them the published link and it was satisfactory, they would send me a receipt letting me know that the piece was perfect. I have partnered with other customers performing the same service, and still others who simply want their links added to specific contents. When the partnership with my main customer started a couple of years ago, I couldn’t believe it. It involved me publishing large amounts of content and it became profitable.
Interestingly, in some instances with large numbers of pieces being generated and passed back and forth, inevitable mistakes occurred. These were either on my end or on theirs. This was understandable as they were generating thousands of pieces (from me and others), and I was publishing as many as they could send me. Occasionally, I would unintentionally leave a link out, to which I’d receive a polite message saying, “Can you please put the X link back into the piece?”. In some instances, they’d send me an apology and would ask me to change something to update it from the draft they sent me – an error on their part.
In some cases, a link that was anchored to text would need to be changed to a naked link (the actual ‘https’ web address), or sometimes the other way around. Either way, the receipts were communications that we were good to go, and that I would be paid, or that a change needed to be made, and typically, quickly. These communications also occurred when I was offered a piece, when I accepted it, and in some instances, when they needed me to delete a narrative for whatever reason. They were very important communications for our partnership.
The Importance of Customer Service in Any Business
Up to this point I’ve discussed an important element for any business/organization without explicitly stating it, Customer Service. Depending on the office in which you work, many federal employees are rated for their level of customer service every year. Simply put, customer service is the proficiency, quality, and speed with which you see to the needs of your customers.
An example from a McDonald’s restaurant comes to mind. Years ago in a McDonald’s Restaurant I ordered an extra value meal. I could taste the food as I ordered it and was set to scarf it down as I picked the tray up from the register. Somehow, I tipped my tray in such a way that my fries all fell on the floor, spilling out everywhere in front of me. Embarrassed and sure that I’d have to pay some more, I turned back to the register.
“Can I have another medium french fry, please?” Within seconds the girl working at the register got me my new fries fresh out of the fryer, and she didn’t charge me for it. This was an example of stellar customer service.
In terms of bad customer service, how many of us have had to call technical support for your cable/internet provider? Maybe you’ve had to call for your new technology device you just purchased. How long did you have to wait on the line and did the person even speak English? Was your problem resolved or did it linger for hours, days and weeks? Depending on your answers, you may have experienced poor customer service and have either complained about that particular business, or you may have never returned to do business with them.
In a nutshell, they say that the reputation of your business spreads by word of mouth. Thus, if your customer service is poor, the word could spread quickly. The same is true if your customer service is stellar. You want to stay in the latter group as it can affect your profits. That goes for whether you’re in the food service industry or SEO.
Business Receipts, Your Business Systems, and Your Customer Service
It is said that the most important part of your business is its systems. When I started the Big Words Blog Site, I set up a Microsoft Outlook account to handle the email correspondence for the site. I eventually downloaded the Outlook app onto my smartphone and upon using it, I could quickly see the notifications my customers sent to me once we started working together. From the palm of my hand, I could see if the published pieces were satisfactory or if something needed to be changed. Outlook and its app allowed me lots of agility, so to speak.
Unfortunately, there is generally at least one technical glitch per year for my business. Earlier this year something disappointing happened. My Outlook account was hacked and I could receive emails, but I couldn’t send them. This threw a major wrench in my operation. If I couldn’t send emails, how was I going to accept and confirm the documents from my customers? Immediately, I had a light-bulb moment and decided to set up a G-mail account to conduct my business while the host attempted to fix my Outlook account.
In short, it worked, but it wasn’t the same. Fortunately, my customers started sending their content to my new G-mail account so that aspect of our partnership continued. One problem I encountered though was the functionality of the G-mail account wasn’t the same as the functionality of the Outlook account. With the G-mail account, I could see when new emails were coming in, but I couldn’t quickly differentiate when an action was needed. Also, when I opened the account on both my PC and my phone, it was difficult to differentiate between the new posts that were sent, when they were sent, and if they were satisfactory.
Because I was multitasking and was a little lax in terms of checking my business receipts, I was slow to accept documents and slow to react to errors in the pieces I published. My response time had become embarrassingly slow, and frustration built for both me and my customers. One issue went unresolved for a week and half, which was unfortunate because my customer worked according to deadlines. This was confounded by the fact that my blogging software didn’t always update in the most expedient way. A customer wrote me back once saying that they would slow down sending content and I came to the sobering realization that I may have permanently destroyed our collaboration.
Restoration Of My Outlook Account, Moving Forward and Lessons Learned
It took my webhost about three months to fix my Outlook account. In the meantime, my troubles using the G-mail account with my business taught me a valuable lesson. I paid much closer attention to every piece my customers sent to me, as they had not abandoned me. I refocused and attacked problems with a renewed intensity. I closely watched my business receipts and responded to customer emails expeditiously. Once my Outlook account was restored, things were pretty much back to normal and hopefully they will stay that way.
Closing Thoughts and Conclusions
I learned several lessons from the entire turn of events. They are as follows:
• Check your business receipts and ratings regularly. • Make sure your customer service ratings are as high as possible. • Have a backup plan should one or many of your business systems go down. • In the business arena, you must remain ever vigilant.
Thank you for reading this piece. For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign up button at the bottom of the announcement. Regards.
Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. As a business owner, one of the things you’ll want to think about is the practicality of your business’ products. The following contributed post is entitled, Dealing With The More Practical Side Of Your Business’ Products.
Running a business can be a grand new adventure. Many people are opting to start up their own companies following the pandemic, whether that’s due to job loss through company collapse and redundancy, or because they simply had enough time to realise their previous career path wasn’t for them. If you fall into this category and are getting involved in your own start up, chances are, you’ve already spent a lot of time learning new skills, areas of business management and more. There’s a lot to take on board, but all too many business owners get overly focused on more fun and engaging elements of running their company, such as market research, marketing and brand building. This is important, of course. But you do need to take time to focus on some of the more practical elements of creating your products. You can have the best ideas in the world and the best products ever, but if you don’t bring them to life, you’ll have nothing to offer your customers. Here are a few areas of focus that can help you to get the ball rolling.
Product Development
The product development stage of setting up your business may feel long and drawn out. Often, you’ll need to go through several rounds of suggesting products, receiving feedback and tweaking things until you’ll come up with your final design. But it’s absolutely essential that you grant this step the time, investment and focus it needs. It’s what will help to create a desirable, functional and sellable product that will prove the staple of your business’ success.
Manufacturing
Once you have ideas for your products, you’re going to need to bring them to life. This is where manufacturing comes into play. Manufacturing is the process of taking raw materials and transforming them into your final product. Now, you have a couple of options when it comes to manufacturing. The first is to outsource the process. When you outsource your manufacturing process, you will hand the work over to a third party who can create your products on your behalf. This will come at a cost, but it means you don’t have to invest in factory spaces, machinery, equipment or staff to create your products. Alternatively, you can invest in all these industrial supplies and bring your manufacturing in-house. Most startups find that starting out by outsourcing and then bringing things in house once they’re making profits and have created demand for their products works best.
Product Testing
Remember that all of your products will need to be tested. This will make sure that they are safe for the consumer market, saving you from liability if something goes wrong with any of your products once they reach the consumer. Product testing can also ensure that your products work and are up to standard.
These steps will take some time to get through, but the effort will all be worth it in the end. You should find yourself with a great product to confidently launch onto the consumer market!
Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. As a business owner, one of your tasks is managing the finances of the business. Thus you want to determine how and where you can save the business money. The following contributed post is entitled, How An Industry Can Make Savings.
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Saving money in business is one of the best ways to ensure growth, but making sure that savings are made can be a difficult thing to do – there always seems to be something else to purchase or invest in that means anything you are able to save suddenly needs to be used, leaving you with very little. However, you will find that the more you can save, the easier it will become, and anything you do need to buy won’t leave your company short of funds. Here are some of the best ways to save money.
Using the correct software to run your business can be an expensive upfront cost, but it is a wise investment. Although it is possible to buy software that will do a similar job to something that is more specific to your sector, in the end it just won’t have all the functions you need to do your work to a high enough standard. If there is something that has been made especially for your industry to use, then it is likely that it will be worth the money to start with, and it will save you money in the long term because you won’t need to buy additional software, and neither will your quality of work suffer.
Review Your Expenses
When you’re in the middle of running your business, you might not notice how much you’re spending. This is why it is essential to have a spending review once a month in order to determine what you are paying for and how much you are spending. Once you know this, you can work on reducing those costs. It also means that you can make sure your bank account tallies with your receipts, and if you do this on a regular basis rather than when tax time comes, it will save you a lot of worry and stress. Alternatively, you can hire an experienced accountant to help you do this.
Make Your Employees Responsible
If you have employees and they are tasked with finding new suppliers, searching for services, or even if they have a company credit card, it’s a good idea to make them responsible for their own spending. That doesn’t mean they have to use their own money, but it does mean that you should try to instill a sense of ownership in them. If they feel more involved in the business and they understand what it takes to run it, they will be less likely to spend without thinking, and more likely to come up with sensible ways to make savings, such as buying used ambulances for sale or renting essential equipment that only needs to be used occasionally. This can prevent unnecessary purchases and therefore save the business money.
Find Partners
Not all businesses will want or need to find partners to work with, but it can be a good thing for some companies, and it is a good way to save money. If you are working closely with someone, you can split the costs, and you will immediately have a good saving in place. As time goes on, you will be able to work together to boost your businesses as well, bringing more money into the company as a whole.
Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. As a business owner, one of the things you’ll want is for your customers to feel comfortable. The following contributed post is entitled, 3 Tips For Getting Customers To Feel Comfortable.
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To break down barriers and start selling your product or service, you first need to make potential customers and clients feel comfortable about your business. Customers need to feel safe as they want to know where they’ll be putting their money towards. It also helps if they’re able to see the product, service, or even have a one-on-one conversation. Customers and clients don’t want to feel ripped off. Nowadays, it’s so easy to scam people, unfortunately.
Anyone can build a website, create ads, and begin “selling” on the internet. In-person and online shopping are both completely different experiences but both need to be presentable so potential customers and clients can feel at ease when making their decisions. Here are some tips for making your target audience get comfortable with you.
If your business has a physical location, utilize this. You want your business, whether it be a shop, service, or anything else, to look professional. Some customers and clients want to meet and have a discussion face to face. Some are old-fashioned and it should be something that’s respected. If your physical location doesn’t look the best, such as lacking curb appeal or lacking any visually appealing qualities then you’ll want to look into fixing that. Having a comfortable and professional-looking space is vital. Not only will potential customers enjoy this, but it helps employees work more efficiently as well.
You may want to look into a skip bin hire and then make some changes to your workspace. Adding some nice furniture, painting the walls, and changing up the flooring can truly transform the space. Lighting and décor are important as well, as these help out in setting a desired atmosphere to the space. You may even want to add something to the exterior such as plants so the outside looks presentable too. It may seem like a lot of work but first impressions matter as they are long-lasting.
Have a Contact Page on Your Website
If you have a business website (and you should), you need to get yourself a contact page. Yes, a professional and up-to-date website is very important but it’s also important to have the appropriate pages on there too. This contact page should contain information about the company so customers and clients can reach you. You should provide a number as well, and answer any incoming calls. Sure, there may be challenges of using articulate speech during phone calls but it’s crucial to let customers know they’re real humans and you’re running a real business.
Utilize Customer Testimonials
Reviews are one of the most important components for a customer. This is what will help them in deciding on what to purchase or who to hire. You’ll find reviews on social media ( such as Facebook), Google Business Reviews, The Bom, YouTube, and even on a website testimonials page. Whether customers want to compliment you or criticize your service, they should be allowed to. Both positive and negative reviews will let customers know that you’re a real business and it will raise their comfort levels.
Make Sure They Know How To Use Your Products or Services
It’s important that your customers know how to use the4 services or products you’re selling. That’s why demonstrations and customer training processes can be very useful, particularly in certain niches. Software as a service is the perfect example of a niche that requires customer training in order for them to get the most out of the product. Good saas customer success training makes a real difference to outcomes in the industry.
Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Current Events. My businesses were obliterated by the Covid-19 Pandemic while others made it through, thrived, or were even started. If your business is still alive, you want to consider how to keep it going as the pandemic may be nearing it’s end. The following contributed post is entitled, Bringing Your Business Through The Pandemic.
Many businesses have been impacted by Covid-19, and while things are improving, firms are still battling to get back on track. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you may help your business grow stronger during this difficult time:
Keep Track Of Your Cash Flow
Identify any cashflow issues as soon as possible, and predict with the worst-case scenario in mind, ensuring that your company is ready for any future socio-economic shifts. Employees should be assigned to procedures that are critical to cash flow, even if this implies cross-training. Many businesses lack a proper, regularly updated cash flow projection, resulting in a lack of awareness of their finances and potential consequences; if this is your company, make it a point to build one. Using tools such as Wefunder Agency could help.
Examine The Dangers In Your Supply Chain
You must prepare for the worst, just as you must for cash flow. What if one of your suppliers is unable to supply you with the things you require? If possible, ensure you have viable backup providers, speak with them, and confirm that they can deliver what you require, as things may not be as advertised on their website at the time. You might also need to make certain strategic supply chain decisions, such as concentrating on your most profitable products or services while reducing other offerings and supply chain risks. While these may be temporary decisions given the current state of the economy, it is always necessary to risk analyse your supply chain.
Keep Yourself Updated
As a business leader, you must stay up to date on the newest COVID-19 developments on a daily basis, as the advice is constantly changing. However, double-check official recommendations, avoid sensationalised news and social media posts, and carefully consider what to tell your employees, suppliers, and customers. Avoid panic and perplexity! When planning your strategy for the coming months, keep in mind the government’s response and business assistance policies. The most recent advice can be found here.
Be Flexible And Open To New Ideas
Many firms that survive and prosper through a crisis like this will have open-minded CEOs who can adjust swiftly to change and inspire their employees to do the same. Given how our lives have significantly and rapidly altered recently, your business model may no longer be feasible and will need to be updated. There may also be fresh prospects for you to take advantage of and diversify your business. Check out the rest of my essay on how to adapt and diversify your business.
Make Preparations For The ‘After’
Start thinking about how you want your business to look once the pandemic is ended once all of the big obstacles have been addressed. It is preferable to begin planning now rather than face the shock of returning to ‘normalcy’ with no awareness of the significant changes we have all through. Make a list of everything that is functioning well for your team and that you might want to keep in place in the long run, as well as anything you want to get rid of. Are you looking for ways to work that are more productive and cost-effective? Is your team collaborating more effectively? Have you taken steps to reduce your company’s environmental impact? Consider how your customers and suppliers will function in the future and include them in your strategies.
Two key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. While the focus of a business is the generate profit, a key aspect of that is controlling costs and improving cashflow. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Improve Cashflow As A Small Business.
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One of the problems facing small businesses, even profitable small businesses is cash flow or lack thereof. Having a steady cash flow is important for all businesses as it is the means to meeting all overheads such as rent and bills. If payments are due to be made but cannot be met even a successful company could run into difficulty and uncertainty over their future. Here are some tips to consider when it comes to keeping your company cash available.
Choosing to lease over purchasing property or even equipment and goods may at first seem counterintuitive as commonly you will end up paying a higher amount over the duration of the lease than you would if you bought the property outright. While this may be the case outlying large sums of money into property or goods will tie up your company funds and could have a very detrimental effect on its access to cash and cash flow. It may also be that your lease agreements can benefit from certain tax advantages, advice on which should always be sought.
Liquidate assets
If you do choose to buy your goods or equipment then you will always have the option to sell them to liquidize those assets. Or, it may be that you have surplus inventory to your requirements that you can dispose of to increase your cash flow. Take a look around, and consider whether everything you have is truly needed. Your company tools or equipment will always be worth something and there are specialized companies available who can help value your stock and offer you competitive rates. If you are in the restaurant trade for example take a look at this site to see what services they offer for liquidating your inventory.
Stay on top of invoicing
It sounds like an obvious one but you would be surprised how many companies lag behind when it comes to invoicing. Firstly be sure to invoice as soon as possible and make sure all invoices are clear and easy to read with all of the relevant information easy to find. Relevant information such as payment terms and payment methods should be top priority. It is also a good idea to include a due date and to make it visible from several locations on the invoice. Finally be sure to chase unpaid invoices regularly. Set yourself weekly or even bi-weekly reminders to send out follow ups as the payment deadline approaches. If an invoice is unpaid after the due date be sure to charge late payment fees.
Consider how people pay you
If your cash is coming from your customers, which it will be, consider the payment methods you offer and whether you can expand these. There are so many viable payment options available from Paypal, Venmo, Apple Pay or even Bitcoin. The more possibilities you have and the more convenient it is for customers to pay you the quicker you will receive your money and improve your cash flow.
Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Arguably the most important part of any business is its marketing. A part of marketing is figuring out how to maintain your customer’s attention. The following contributed post is entitled, Tips For Maintaining Your Customer’s Attention.
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Maintaining the attention of your customers is super important so that they don’t lose interest. Non-interested customers will slowly hinder your business sales, which will decrease profits and make it harder to grow and expand your business. To make your business more effective and successful, it is important to engage your customers.
On that note, here are the best tips for maintaining your customer’s attention.
Make an engaging website If your business runs an online website, that it will need to be as engaging as possible to maintain the attention of your customers. If your business doesn’t have a website, then it will benefit your business to work with a website design team who will help to build your site. A business website will help your business be more discoverable, which will boost sales and success.
Your business website should be as responsive as possible, which will maintain the attention of your customers. Using an expert in the field will ensure that your website is easy to use and smooth so that your customers do not lose interest.
Fast responses An effective way to keep your customers engaged is to respond to their comments and questions as fast as possible. Although it would be ideal to offer your customers immediate responses, sometimes it simply isn’t possible. Therefore, ensure to stay on top of your comments/queries so that you can turn around quick responses.
If you do want to try and increase your response time and offer more frequent immediate responses then it can help to build a live chat service on your website. During business hours, customers can contact you there and attain an immediate response to their query, which will keep them attentive and interested.
Never promise anything You should avoid promising anything to your customers because if you fail to meet the expectations that you have set out for yourself, then you will lose your customer’s trust. Therefore, never hand out promises.
Instead, fulfilling your own expectations should be enough to satisfy your customers and keep them interested.
Get to know your customers The more personal you are with your customers, the more engaged they will be. Simply knowing their name or their preferences will ensure that you can be friendly and create a relationship, which will keep them coming back to use your business.
Getting to know your customers will also mean that you can rely on them for regular and honest feedback. The more feedback you attain from your customers about your business, the more you can improve and ensure that you provide your customers with what they want.
Offer regular deals Every customer will appreciate a good deal from time to time. Therefore, offering regular deals to your existing customers will make them feel appreciated and encourage them to keep shopping with you to attain more deals.
You could offer a reward scheme whereby you offer a free product for every ten purchases made. It will keep them interested and engaged with your business, which will maintain their loyalty.
Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. A component of your business is its customer service. Even in today’s digital age, a key aspect of that is communication over the phone. The following contributed post is entitled, Phone Etiquette Tips For Business.
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Phone etiquette is very important for maintaining customer satisfaction and representing your brand professionally. Your manner on the phone matters, and will change how your customers feel about you and how effective your business is.
Here’s what every business owner needs to know about managing phone lines, whether you’re a one-man band using your mobile phone, or a larger business with a voip phone provider.
Be Consistent
Make sure everyone answers the phone in the same way. If it’s an inbound call, all the customer wants to know is that they have called the right place. Keep your hello brief. Choose a professional greeting that mentions the company and then your own name. Don’t waste time with extras like, “How can I help you?”. Something like, “Hello, Mary’s Cafe, Ryan speaking,” is enough.
Never Interrupt
Don’t interrupt a complaining customer. It can be hard to do this, but listen to the whole problem, no matter how long the customer talks. Even if you use call center that will hand off the call to a member of your staff, listening to the whole problem is important so that the customer feels you are taking them seriously.
Use The Hold Button
Make sure everyone at your company knows how to use your phone system, including the hold button. Never put the phone to your chest to muffle the mouthpiece so you can talk to someone in the office. Clients might hear things that you don’t want them to hear.
Use The Transfer Button
You need to know how to transfer someone to another member of your team. Tell your customer something like, “The best person to handle this is Claire, so I’m going to transfer you.” If you need time to find Claire or explain the customer’s problem to her, tell the customer this, and put them on hold, so they understand why they’re waiting. Make sure Claire takes the call with some knowledge of what the problem is.
Keep Customers Informed
It’s important to train your team on this. They need to give the customer a list of what they are going to do, then a longer timeframe than necessary. Do this, because when you solve their problem faster than you said you would, the customer is pleased and feels you went above and beyond to help them. If you take longer than you said, they’ll be annoyed.
Smile When Your Talk
You can hear when someone is smiling. When you smile while you’re speaking on the phone makes a detectable difference to your tone of voice, so make sure that your team sounds as though they’re in a good mood when they’re on the phone. If a member of your team sounds bored or miserable, it will be worse on the phone, as the customer can’t see their body language. Words and inflection are very important over the phone, more so than they are in a face-to-face encounter. Smile, and keep your tone friendly and professional when you talk.
Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. If you’re running a business, you may hit stretches were you’re taking losses or a system goes down. You may experience difficulties from the start. The following contributed post is entitled, Helping You To Understand What Could Be Wrong In Your Business.
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Is something going wrong in your business? At some point in their business life, every business owner is going to go through a patch where something isn’t quite right with the business that they own. As such, it’s up to you to find out what the problem is so that you can start working on the solution. In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the more common issues so that you can work out where to go from there. Keep reading if you would like to find out more about this topic.
The first problem that you might have is the fact that your employees aren’t dedicated to helping you see success. If this is the problem, then you need to either put your current employees up for performance review, or you need to get new employees. You don’t have the time to let them sink your business by not caring about what goes on, so you need to make a decision fast. Of course, if there is an employee who is usually working really hard and things have slipped recently, try talking to them first to see what is going on. You never know, there might be something that you can help with.
If this is an issue for you and it’s becoming a constant problem, you can always look at outsourcing instead. This is a cheaper option, and you can get managed devops services, accounting services, human resources and so much more when you outsource.
Your Marketing Isn’t Working
Potentially, the issue is that your marketing just isn’t working. If this is the case, you need to start evaluating why this might be. Have you run your marketing campaigns past a focus group before you launched them? If not, why? A focus group will give you invaluable feedback that will help you understand the position you are in when it comes to your marketing. They will tell you if your target audience is going to find this campaign interesting and engage with it, or if it’s going to flop.
It could also be true that the issue is that you are not being creative enough with your content. People want to see something a little different than they are always seeing. The same thing over and over is extremely boring, and you’re not going to catch anyone’s attention like this. If your marketing is failing to garner attention, this will be your biggest issue.
Have you ever stopped to consider your reputation? Some business owners seem to think that a bad reputation is better than no reputation at all but this is untrue. If you have no reputation, it’s easier to try and build one, but if you have a bad one, then this is going to be extremely difficult to turn around. One of the things that they might say about your company is that you are not reliable. Now, you will know if this is true or not. You will know if you are consistently providing high-quality to your customers, and you will know if getting through to your business is as simple as it should be. If you are not reliable, we suggest that you get to work on changing that if you want to see an improvement.
Leadership Is Lacking
The final thing that we are going to look at is the leadership in your business. If the leadership is lacking, then things are never going to be successful. Think about the way that you run your business and ask yourself whether there is anything that you could be doing better. If you can’t come up with anything, then you may want to look at taking a leadership course. This might give you insights that you needed, but never would have found otherwise.
We hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the things that could be going wrong in your business. It could also be none of the things on this list and be something entirely different, but if any of these sound familiar to you, it’s well worth taking a look at trying to fix it. Try to remember that all issues in business can be fixed as long as you are willing to find the solution rather than just leave it to fester. We wish you the very best of luck, and hope that you find the answer you are looking for soon.
