Don't Let Customer Service Be Your Downfall

Customer service is a broad term generally used to define how well customers are served by the organizations they do business with. Our experience and observations indicate that there has been a deterioration of customer service levels in many businesses in recent years. This stems primarily from poor attention to detail and a lack of a customer-orientation throughout the business. Bear in mind that your business should be striving to provide nothing short of outstanding customer service.

It is a well known fact that customer service is one of the primary factors in a customer's decision to purchase again from a particular business. When customer service falls below the expectations of the customer, the likelihood of that customer buying again from that business diminishes. Every contact that a customer has with a business should be considered an opportunity by the business to cement a relationship with the customer.

We believe there are three key components to providing outstanding customer service:
1) hiring,
2) discipline and
3) consistency.

Let's look at each of them in more detail:

Hiring. The ability to deliver outstanding customer service is, without question, dependent upon the quality of employees hired. Employees who are not able to deal with customers effectively can have a devastating effect on perceptions of the business. And employees who cannot execute according to well-defined procedures will cause mistakes, delays and frustration. Laziness and lack of a thorough screening process are key reasons why marginal employees are hired.

Discipline. This term refers to doing things right on a highly consistent basis. A key assumption is that your business has well-defined procedures and processes that are customer-oriented and efficient. Once those are established it is essential that there be a very clear expectation of all employees involved that they execute their tasks exactly as defined. Managers must be able to hold employees accountable for meeting that expectation! When employees are allowed to deviate from the process/procedure or not follow rules, there is a lack of discipline.

Consistency. Customers cannot be served well one time and poorly the next. Unfortunately, the vast majority of businesses do not consistently serve their customers at a high level. Think about your own experiences with the businesses you buy from. How many truly deliver outstanding customer service every time you deal with them? We suspect the answer is not many, if any at all.

The inability to deliver outstanding customer service consistently can be the downfall of a business. In simple terms, it can put you out of business. There exists an opportunity for the business that can figure out how to deal with the three components discussed above. Because few, if any, businesses concentrate enough on delivering outstanding customer service, a business that understands how to do it will gain a significant competitive advantage over its competition.

Take the time to evaluate your own business in terms of the three components identified above. Does your business honestly deliver outstanding customer service at a highly consistent level? If the answer is "yes", are you absolutely certain of your answer? We have found that many businesses that thought they were doing an excellent job of serving their customers were actually falling well short of customer expectations. Don't allow your business to fool itself into thinking customers are receiving outstanding service every time they have contact with your company.

MyBusinessBooks Releases Marketing Plan Manual

MyBusinessBooks has just released our new Marketing Plan Manual! Writing a comprehensive and sound marketing plan can mean the difference between success and failure. The Marketing Plan Manual is a complete guide that includes all of the instructions, forms and templates needed to write the kind of plan that will help ensure high levels of success. This manual will help you:

-Create effective marketing objectives and strategies.
-Analyze and organize information and data needed to develop your plan.
-Identify and define your target markets.
-Develop realistic and attainable sales projections.
-Price your products to maximize margins and volume.
-Define an advertising and promotion plan that positions your company and products appropriately.
-Build a distribution channel that maximizes revenues and customer satisfaction.
-Plan your personnel needs and define roles.
-Develop a marketing budget that makes sense.
-Utilize market research to support decisions.
-Create an action plan that defines each activity or task, who is responsible for ensuring their completion, and when they must be completed.
-Write a complete and comprehensive marketing plan that will get the results you want.
Your marketing plan should be written in a manner that is straightforward, practical, and realistic. And it should give you the best possible chance of meeting or exceeding sales and gross profit objectives.

This manual is a comprehensive guide that walks you through the entire process of writing a marketing plan that will help you gain a competitive and strategic advantage. Written by marketing professionals who understand how to think strategically and develop plans that differentiate one company and its products from the competition, The Marketing Plan Manual is widely used by organizations of all types and sizes. It works equally well in small and large businesses.

Think Strategically

Getting employees to think strategically rather than operationally can be difficult. Here are some simple tips on learning to think more strategically:

1.Remember that the foundation for a sound strategic plan is goals. They provide direction and focus and well as a basis for finding alternative ways of achieving them. Never lose sight of your goals.
2. Forget about "the way it's always been done"! Think about how things could be and/or should be. Get outside your comfort zone!
3. Practice creative thinking. Tell yourself that no idea is too crazy. Generate as many ideas as possible. As an example, take one of your products or services and list all of the possible ways it could be marketed remembering that anything goes. Force yourself to be creative and think "outside the box".
4. Analyze and process data and information in an unbiased manner. Good long-term strategies are developed around good information and sound logical reasoning. Take the time to gather good data/information, but don't get caught up in over-analyzing things!
5. Look outside the operating environment. Learn to look at customers and markets available to you. Get externally focused! Understand your markets.
6. Think in strategic terms rather than task-oriented terms. For example, suppose a goal is to grow revenues at an annual rate of 9%. This sets off all kinds of task-oriented thinking; staff needs, promotional materials, space planning, etc. Think more in terms of alternative strategies for growing the business, new ways to penetrate existing markets with a new product for example.
7. Become a thinker! Take time to sit back and clear your mind of details and just think. Think less about details and more about your goals and how to achieve them. Step back and think big picture on a regular basis. Find quiet time to do it. Thought can be the most productive form of work.
8. Generate as many ideas as possible. Quantity will often breed quality. Also, some ideas can come together to form very effective strategies.