By Debbie Gregory.

Outsourcing Customer Service – Part 3 of Series

Some small businesses decide to outsource their customer service to another company that provides customer service agents. This is move that requires careful consideration for a small business.  Management needs to determine if they want to outsource   of hiring more employees to focus on customer service.

PROS

• It can take work off your plate and allow you to focus on other areas where you have strengths.
• It can be cost effective for startups or very small businesses.
• There are services that offer more than you could afford to do and monitor effectively in house. They offer a fully integrated customer service center that includes phone, chat, email, and fax capability that also manages online inquiries and issues.

CONS

• Loss of control over the quality of service and how that service is provided.
• It is more challenging to properly monitor service issues and address and correct problems promptly.
• There is not any idea the manner in which reps are chosen or if they are happy. Happy employees generally offer better customer service.
• You do not have the option to remove employees who aren’t working out.
• If the company that you hire provides poor service, it can seriously harm your business and you will need to repair the damage.

If you decide to outsource your customer service, you have many options to do so. Take the time to find a good, reputable company preferably one that is geographically close to you.  Make sure that you review and have a good understanding of the way they work, the services they are providing, and the costs compared with other choices. Additionally, make sure that you test out the company before you sign any agreements so that have 100 percent confidence in placing your customers in their hands.  After you are fully on board with the company, make sure to regularly assess your metrics and customer satisfaction scores to help ensure you’re getting the results you desire.

By Debbie Gregory.

Train Employees to Provide Excellent Service

Part 2 of 3 of Customer Service Series

Many small business owners are still making basic customer service mistakes that are easy to fix. Taking the time to learn, think, invest in your people, and improve on your service delivery will place you ahead of your competition.

Start by Learn the Ins and Outs of Customer Service Yourself:

-Training Courses

As stated in part 1 of this post, the U.S. Small Business Administration offers quite a lot of free online resources and training materials to help boost your business’s customer service – you take a look at what they offer here:

https://www.sba.gov/course/customer-service/

There are quite a lot of other organizations that offer free training, resources, and mentoring for small business owners. For example, SCORE offers business workshops on a number of topics, including customer service, both in-person and online, with recorded versions available to view at any time.

-Get A Mentor

Consider pairing with a volunteer small business mentor who can answer questions and coach you.

-Continuously Listen & Read

There are so many experts out there that offer other free resources that can be of value to you and your business. Take the time to find and to read blogs and books and listen to podcasts to continue learning.

Train Your Employees to Provide Excellent Service:

For excellent service  every employee needs to be trained on what to do and what not to do.

-Hire the Right People

Start by recognizing that all of your employees are actually salespeople and that you need to hire the kind of people who can provide great service regardless of their position. Your entire company culture should revolve around helping your customers. Take your time to choose candidates who have a caring attitude, patience, and the ability to listen, empathize, ask questions, and solve problems.   Hire positive people!

-Coach Employees on How To Talk to Customers

Employees need to know how to truly listen to a customer as well as speak to them. A casual-yet-professional style of speaking with a light tone of voice can warm up an interaction with a customer and help your company build a relationship, especially if the customer has a question or minor concern that your staff can easily fix. If there is a problem they need to know how to quickly empathize, apologize, and defuse the situation when dealing with a customer who is upset.  Put together a training plan for all employees on the best way to interact with customers and make sure that they practice these skills.

The Telephone Doctor offers customer service training and recommends using the “ASAP” approach to diffuse a problem. ASAP stands for:

• Apologizing immediately,
• Sympathizing with the customer’s situation,
• Accepting responsibility,
• Preparing to help solve the problem.

-Consider Outside Training for Employees

There are quite a lot of organizations and companies that offer customer service training to help take your business to the next level. Consider sending key employees, such as your customer service manager, to an in-person seminar or bringing in a pro to train your whole team.

-Model Good Customer Service

Make it a point to solve customer problems in front of your employees so they can see how you want it done.

-Watch and Offer Feedback

Make it a point to work near your customer service employees occasionally and offer on-the-spot assistance by making suggestions for alternate ways to deal with customer issues.

-Create a Library of Customer Service Resources

A great resource to have for your employees on how to deliver exceptional customer service is to build a library of frequent customer issues and questions as well as their solutions. Make sure to keep adding to the library as new issues and solutions arise. This is particularly helpful for new employees who can learn how to best resolve common issues that come up.

Exceptional customer service may not come naturally to you, your employees, or your business. Train yourself and your employees to look at things from the customer’s point of view. This is a crucial to creating a culture of excellent customer.  Training can help you identify simple mistakes, help develop ways to combat or solve potential problems, and turn your employees into customer service superstars.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this Customer Service for Small Businesses.

By Debbie Gregory.

Please enjoy this 3 part Customer Service Series

Providing exceptional customer service can be a challenge for businesses of all sizes, but particularly for small businesses. Whether you are just starting a business, or you’re an established small business, customer service is a priority.  Learning how to deliver great customer service can mean the difference between happy customers who keep coming back and those that make it a point to share with others to avoid you.

Provide stellar customer service by addressing these important factors:

• Know what outstanding customer service looks and feels like
• Create a culture of exceptional service within your business
• Put in place systems, management tools, and reporting that make it easier to communicate with and please your customers
• Train and empower your employees to solve problems
• Consider outsourcing

Great Customer Service Is Good Business

Customer service is more important to consumers than price or product. Poor customer service will cost you lost revenue and customers and can tank your business.  Negative word-of-mouth, stories of poor service can spread instantly via viral videos and social media posts.

On the flip side, excellent service can boost you above your competition.  Treat your customers as individuals. You need a system in place that identifies your customers’ needs and be ready to meet them.

Create a Small Business Customer Service Plan

Take time to really look at your business, the services or products you provide, and all the ways you currently satisfy your customers or clients. Look at all of the ways your customer service has gone wrong in the past and what you could have done differently for a better customer outcome. It makes sense to obtain customer input too.

Once you know where to focus your energy, you can design a workable plan to address problems. You may also want to consider bringing in a customer service consultant.

Choose the Right Customer Service Tools

There are many tools available — from social media, to chat, to CRM systems — that can make it easier to serve your customers. Consider these small business tools to help provide stellar service:

-CRM System

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is an essential customer service tool. Not only will a CRM provide you with the reports you need to monitor your customer service, but it also can help you organize and streamline other aspects of your business including operations and marketing.

CRM helps you manage your customer relationships by letting you store and analyze data about your customers, create customized reports, and send custom emails. CRM also lets you slice and dice data so you can analyze patterns and trends.  You will need to find the right CRM system at the right price for you.

-Live Chat

Customers today expect instant gratification. Different customers prefer to reach out to you in different ways. While some might like email or phone, chat is essential for any small business. CRM systems do not offer chat functionality that allows a customer to “chat” with you about issues online. If this is a service you wish to offer you will need to use another platform, such as social media.

-Social Media

Your small business should be found on all major relevant social media platforms. Make sure that your business pages are consistently branded, filled out properly, and have information on how your customers can reach you. Social media is not just a place to post about your new products or an award you won; they are essential customer service channels that need to be monitored and used to interact with customers and address concerns.

-Team Communication Technology

Desktop and mobile apps can help your customer service team communicate issues quickly with each other and with you,

Get the Right Reports to Identify Your Customer Service Issues

It is critical to monitor uour customer service. Take the time to review service reports on either a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You should be monitoring and reviewing the following reports:

–Complaints Report

Make sure that your employees log all complaints so that you can review which customer complained, what it was about, how big the customer is, and what is being done.

-Glitch Report

These reports are not necessarily complaints but common issues that customers bring up about your service or product. Look closely at every open service ticket, what was last done to resolve it, and what is the next scheduled action.

-Time-to-Close Report

This report focuses on how long it’s taking to resolve customer problems. You can use this report to set customer service goals to improve your service.

Amazing customer service can help make your business a success, but it’s also easy to make service mistakes that can tank your business. A great place to start is the website for the U.S. Small Business Administration. They offer quite a lot of free online resources and training materials to help boost your business’s customer service – take a look here:

https://www.sba.gov/course/customer-service/

Keep an eye out for Part 2  and Part 3 of this Series.

Part 2 will feature Customer Service for Small Businesses : Train Employees to Provide Excellent Service.

By Debbie Gregory.

Advertise your business:

In order to build customers, they need to be cognizant that you exist, and they need a reason to engage with you. Advertising allows new customers to discover your brand and reminds current customers of your offerings. Your competitors are advertising and if you are not, you may lose business to them. Depending on your business and your offerings, you may want to go with traditional print ads in newspapers or magazines or online ads with search engines and social media platforms.

Create a professional brochure for your business:

Even though this seems like an outdated marketing strategy, it is still a good idea to have a strong, professional brochure created for your business. Brochures are cost effective and provide a lot of information while simultaneously personalizing your small business. They help your customers build trust in you and build awareness with your brand.

Send press releases to relevant media outlets:

Press releases are a great way to highlight important company events, new products, or awards you’ve received. Press releases allow you build brand awareness and communicate directly with your audience.

Host an event or open house:

Hosting an event or open house helps publicize your business, bring awareness to it, and allows you to show it off. You can sponsor your own even or join with other local businesses to showcase specific products, introduce your staff, or even provide free samples.

Offer a deal or discount:

Everyone loves a good deal, especially if they get something for free. Offering a coupon, discount, or some other special deal helps your business in multiple ways. It can help increase the number of new customers you receive, increase sales in general and for specific products, increase brand awareness, provide rewards to loyal customers, promote your social media accounts, show customer appreciation, increase your market influence by motivating customers to travel for your deals, and even help move inventory that has been sitting on your shelves.

Offer a Referral Fee to Existing Customers:

Referrals are golden and there is nothing better than a customer referring you to someone else because they hold a high opinion of your products and/or services.  Perhaps offer clients a special discount or referral fee to tell their colleagues and friends and spread the word about your business.

Regardless of the type of business you are running, whether you offer products that are tangible or intangible or series, you can make it successful right from your home. Just make sure that you spend the time researching your ideas and target market thoroughly, put together the right environment, build a strong team, and market your brand effectively.   Using a combination of online and other marketing is a recipe for success.

We encourage Veteran and Military Business Owners to join VAMBOA, the Veterans and Military Business Owners Association.   There are not any dues or fees charged to our members.  Here is a link to join:  https://vamboa.org/member-registration/

By Debbie Gregory.

Part 3

There are many challenges with any business, including a home-based business.  To help ensure your success, establish your brand, get the word out, and build your reputation Below are some tips for Branding and Marketing your Home-Based Business:

Identify your target market:

You are more likely to gain business if you have a clear idea of who your target customers are or will be. You need to research potential customers and determine who may be interested in your product or service, identify the specific demographic you want to reach, review your existing industry competitors, and identify the characteristics that you want to highlight about your products and services.

Make sure that the products or services you offer match the needs of your target clients. Find what makes your business stand out from your competition and highlight it. Determine how you will fulfill the promises you make to your customers and how you will you make them connect personally with your business. When you are able to help people relate personally to your business, they are more likely to gravitate toward your products and services.

Create an awesome website:

In our technologically advanced world, your business will need a unique URL (web site address) and user-friendly website that is mobile friendly. If you are web savvy you can certainly create your site yourself but hiring a professional to get it up and going is usually your best bet. A professional will know exactly what your site needs, help you write the site’s content, and make sure it is optimized for search engines.

Whether you hire a pro or you decide to go it alone you will need:

A domain name or URL name:

This is your site’s address on the Internet (i.e. google.com or amazon.com). Write out a list of 5 or 6 URLs you would like for your business, as your first choice may be already taken. It is best to select a domain name that is short, easy to remember and ties in with your branding. Avoid hyphens, special characters, or numbers.

A website host:

Your website will need to be located on a server or “host” in order to be viewed on the web. There are plenty of reputable web hosting companies out there. Do your research and choose the one you feel is right for you and your business.  If you plan to grow your business with online sales, make sure you select a company that has the capacity you will need as you grow. Try to avoid the cheapest options, they are cheap for a reason.

Put together your design:

The look and feel of your website should match your business and align with its goals. Choose colors that represent your company. Keep it consistent with any other marketing materials you have already created. Make sure to incorporate a compelling home page or landing page that captures your customers’ attention right away; use concise messages and make sure all photographs and visuals are of the highest quality; make sure that you are easy to find and use a navigational menu that helps your visitors move through your site with ease; avoid visual clutter and keep your content up to date; also make sure that you place strategic calls to action throughout your website (“sign up” or “subscribe” buttons placed in notable locations).

Set up your store and any online payment options (if necessary).

If you are selling products or services directly on your website, you will need to setup online payment options and connect them to your new website.

Last checks before launch:

Before you finalize and publish your website you will want to make sure that it loads as quickly as possible. You will also need to check and be sure that it’s mobile friendly as smartphones are increasingly used for online shopping. You want your website to be easy to use, accessible, and convenient for all your customers.

Create a matching blog and post regularly:

The blog ideally should be housed underneath your main website. Blogs are a great marketing tool for businesses as they help you enhance your social media presence, they help you establish yourself as an expert in your industry, they help increase your customer base, they increase your company’s visibility on the web, they help develop your brand, they help your brand build trust with your customers, they help you grow your email list, and they can be valuable for gaining better and more frequent customer feedback. Blogging can also help improve your business’s search engine optimization (SEO) by increasing your back linking, adding more frequent new content to your site, and increasing overall traffic to your website.

Create and regularly post to social media platforms:

Social media is a great way to market your business, website, and offerings to customers. Setting up an account is totally free and allows you to directly connect with you customers’ interests, opinions, preferences, and changing needs. Social media helps you increase your brand’s awareness, helps build your reputation, creates loyal followers, improves your SEO, and increases click-through traffic to your small business’s website (just make sure that all of your social media platforms link back to your website).

Collect email addresses and send out regular newsletters.

Newsletters are an awesome marketing tool to help you build trust and rapport with your customer base. They establish a regular communication channel that can lead to stronger business relationships. Use newsletters to showcase your expertise in your industry; share new products, services, or promotions; highlight your company, your employees, and your clients; you can also toss in a bit of humor or appropriate holiday posts to keep it interesting and not so focused on selling.

We encourage Veteran and Military Business Owners to join VAMBOA, the Veterans and Military Business Owners Association.   There are not any dues or fees charged to our members.  Here is a link to join:  https://vamboa.org/member-registration/