How To Maintain Quality Relationships With Your Customers
Customer service and quality relationships should be high on every creative entrepreneur’s priority list. As a manager, it is your job to be on top of every situation, anticipate your customer’s needs and be ready to act when they have an issue. But more than just reacting to a problem, you need to be able to preempt it, with solid solutions laid out before the event. Silence may not be golden If your customers are not over-communicative, don’t just assume they are 100% happy with the service on offer. Assuming that is the worst thing you do. Silence can make a little problem worse. Therefore, take every opportunity to follow up with your clients to ensure that they are happy with the service or product supplied. Seek your customer’s advice Balance your communication with respect for their time. Your customers don’t want to be bombarded with calls or emails every five minutes. Reaching out once to garner feedback about their order is recommended however, and it not only strengthens your relationship, but reminds them that you are there should they need anything else from you. Listen to your clients The feedback provided by your customers is particularly helpful, so do...
Read More7 Tips For Fostering Loyalty In Your Customers
It is well known in the business world that it costs a minimum of five times more to gain a new customer than it does to keep one. While the time, effort, and resources may be worth it from time to time, it is more prudent to foster loyalty in your customers. One of the main benefits of this is that customer loyalty can significantly reduce the time and money required to acquire new business. Your loyal customers will do all the hard work for you. This doesn’t mean to say it isn’t any effort at all. It will take some effort, and some expense, as well as fundamental changes to the way your business operates. All of it, however, will be of great benefit for your customers, and your business. So how do you foster this loyalty in your customers? 1. Use their name If they’re long term and/or regular customers, you should know their name. If you don’t, there’s no harm in asking. Not only will it provide you with opportunities down the track, it will show them that you care about them, not just as a customer, but as a person in their own right. As...
Read MoreHow To Keep Your Customers Coming Back For More
Customer retention, or repeat custom, depending on your business, can be hard work. From recommendations to make your prices more competitive, to giving away free stuff, there is a load of information we can access that will tell us how to keep your customers. Most of the information given, while providing practical solutions and actions for you to take, often misses one vital ingredient. People like to feel special, to be acknowledged or recognised, and to be listened to. Giving a free gift, or lowering prices is okay and appears to tick off the items mentioned, however both, along with numerous other ideas reduce your profit margin. This practice goes completely against the point of being in business in the first place! Before you plan any sort of customer retention campaign or scheme, you need to consider the actual customer. Write down these three questions: What will make my customer feel special? How do they want to be acknowledged or recognised? What are they asking for or telling me? A vast majority of the strategies written about make gross assumptions about the customer and their wants and needs. The best way to find out exactly what they want is to...
Read MoreHere’s Why A Deadline Is So Important
A common misconception among the general public is the thought that when you own your own business, you are “the boss” and free to set your business hours as you like and only work when it pleases you. The ability to control things such as your working hours is one of the chief incentives that tempt many creative types to go into business for themselves. When you are working for yourself, it’s true that you are no longer an employee that receives some sort of warning from a manager for showing up to work a few minutes late. But, you also don’t have as much freedom and flexibility as you might wish when it comes to setting your working hours. When you open your own business, it’s important to remember that even if you hire a staff to take care of sales and customer service, you will still have clients and customers who will have a set time for when they expect to receive your product or service. You will need to either produce the service yourself, or oversee operations to ensure that these products and services are produced and delivered before your customer’s due date. Creating and delivering...
Read MoreThe Price Is Right
Picking the right price point for your products and services is critical for your success, but it’s a challenge that is often easier said than done. Other than trial and error, how can you know when the price is right? Most popular financial gurus say that the ideal price for products and services is one that covers costs, maximises profit, and is at a rate that is still attractive to clients and prospects. While this is good advice to follow when you are first developing your pricing strategy, it doesn’t take into account intangibles, such as consumer behavior. Consumer behaviour is often motivated by emotions and feelings as well as logical step-by-step analysis. In general, shoppers tend to make a purchase when they feel that they are buying something of value or getting a bargain for their money. Regardless of the motivation behind the purchase, many consumers rely on an inner sense of what they feel things should cost when they are shopping. They then make the decision to purchase based on whether or not the price feels right to them. Understanding your target customer’s feelings about when a price is right is the key to setting the perfect...
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