4 Core Principles of Customer Relations That Fuel Business Growth

Companies in all industries and all of sizes understand that customers are perhaps their most valuable asset. Improving the overall customer experience is vital for continued success and survival of their business.

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Customer relation is a way business relates to its customers, clients and patrons. Some business organizations hire people specifically to manage how the company interacts and communicates with people. The goal is to retain existing customers and to gain new ones by providing the best customer relations and clients’ services.

There are some core principles to relationship management that any company can and should follow:

Communication: Listening is just as important as telling. Think about how often you actually speak with your customers. Focus on less financial-driven communication (whether it’s E-mail, phone or face-to-face interaction) if you make your customers feel involved, they feel as though they actually have a stake in your company, and feel like you care about more than just trying to make sales.

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Rewards: Every company should initiate and make provision for reward programs. It is a very simple form of saying “Thank you” and particularly it is a viable and measurable marketing tool that big companies and small businesses can use to retain their customers and grow their business.

Be flexible: Be quick and attentive to customer’s complaints: The objective of customer relation is typically to interact with the customers in order to answer questions, resolve support issues, establish credibility and nurture relationships.

Here are strategies that Improve Customers Relations and building customer’s loyalty, from simply opening up communications channels to implementing elaborate point systems that reward loyalty enhanced customer communications.

Be prepared to meet and interact with lot of customers at TOSSE 2019.

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Providing customer feedback forms
Asking about customer needs in general when customer calls with problems
Training call-center staff to handle disputes
Encouraging a service culture throughout the organization.

Apr 09

Creating Virtual Opportunities in Business During Lockdown

Quite a number of places had some degree of lockdown imposed on them in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. This has sorely affected most businesses, big or small. In a previous article, we visited the possibilities of making social media a veritable tool for your business marketing and visibility. This article will discuss important steps to digitise your business.

Working from home has gained popularity over time, however, it has been a slow process. Running a virtual business has numerous benefits, not least of which is that it costs arguably less to run. Despite reservations about the idea from many, it has become a necessity for businesses to explore this mode of running a business as the restrictions to movement lingers. The following are some steps that can be followed in creating a virtual workspace.

Create Online Awareness

This is a very obvious step, so it goes right on top. For the same reason you would expect your physical business to be known around its physical location (unless you run a shady business of course 😉), your virtual business can do with online publicity. Social media remains a primary tool for this. This space gives you visibility and engagements, as has been discussed earlier.

Social media does not do it all, though. Your business needs its own private space, space where all your offerings and information can be seen. You need an up-to-date website that is easy to navigate. Websites do not personalise your business, however. For this reason, it is encouraged to run a blog also. Blogs provide a personal feeling about your business. People are more likely to patronise you if they feel there is a person behind it and not just a “mindless bot”.

Create a Business Plan

You need to identify what your business offers in terms of goods and services – what your business CAN offer. You need also to have a clear vision and set boundaries, create an effective working process, and have realistic targets. This helps you and members of your team to be able to be effective and have the best possible ROI in the shortest possible time.

Let all employees understand how working remotely differs from working in an office environment. Be selective when picking members of your team; not all are well suited for remote assignments and not all tasks can be handled by all members of your team.

Keep the Communication Line Open

This works for both customers and employees. There should be an open channel of communication across the designated hierarchy of your organisation. All members of your team should be comfortable coming up with ideas and putting them to those higher up the ladder. This gives them a feeling of belonging and drastically improves their input as they feel like a part of the system and not a misfit.

Regular meetings should also be set up. This will help to keep tabs on the progress of the team, communicate new plans to all, and maintain a personal relationship. Virtual meetings can be held using various platforms. Popular ones include Zoom, Skype for Business, Slack, Zoho Meeting, and WhatsApp.

Measure Productivity

Your business must first and foremost be productive. So you must have set down metrics to analyse the productivity of your business. Try not to only focus on the final outcome of a particular process. Evaluate various stages of the process. Use quantifiable data to measure how well you are doing. Analyse key performance indicators (KPIs) diligently and be willing to make changes to certain areas that seem to be lagging.

For every observation, you need to be willing to train members of your team to make them improve in that area. Do not stop at measuring the team as a whole, observe individual members of the team and help any such who might be behind to keep up. Make sure to have a rewards system as well as extra motivation.

Be Realistic

It will not be easy getting used to the remote working system for sure. There might be some losses along the way, maybe more. But with proper planning and determination, a virtual workspace will yield dividends. Overall, it’ll pay off!

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Dec 02

Navigating The Path to Business Growth: Innovate or Die

Innovation is a key component of a business. For a business to grow appropriately, the key decision markers and business managers have to think innovatively and creatively. The benefits of innovation on business are already well-documented, so there isn’t really any need to go over it again. In any case, you can read about them here.

How exactly can you think innovatively? Here are a few tips:

Clear your head: This should be the first thing you do. Make sure you are relaxed and do not feel pressured. The best ideas are formed in a relaxed and calm atmosphere. If you find it hard to stay calm or keep a clear head, you can complete some relaxing activities like taking a walk while listening to calming music, preferably classical. It works for me and should work for you too.
Ask questions: ‘Curiosity kills the cat’ a common phrase. But this does not work when it comes to business. Prime your mind to observe, inquires, question and understand concepts around. Remove any constraints that might inhibit your inquisitive nature. Challenge old ways of doing things and try to imagine new ways that they can be done.

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Increase your exposure: Make sure to put yourself in a position where you will be able to observe a wide variety of things. Never assume that any knowledge is useless. Note that ideas are usually birthed from other ideas. Henry Ford got his idea of the assembly line technique of mass production from observing a meatpacking plant. The more exposure you have, the more likely you’re going to pick up ideas for your ideas.
Be imaginative: You should be creative. Don’t squash that random idea that comes to you prematurely. Allow your imagination run wild. Think of ways things can be done differently. You can follow some tips to boost your creativity.
Exceed boundaries: Don’t feel caged or forced to follow the status quo. Be ready to think outside the box. Learn to deal with and learn from past failures; be ready to take risks to find out what works and what does not.
Welcome feedback: Ask for people’s opinions and ideas and gather these to come up with a better idea for your venture. Also, feedback is important to know if a current idea you implemented would be a hit. Never disregard this.
Run brainstorming sessions: This can be done individually or in a group, although it is usually more effective when done in a group. This would involve coming up with a large number of new product ideas. Make sure to have people from diverse backgrounds if you plan to have a group brainstorming session. You will be better served if you include a provocative outsider, like a consumer or supplier.

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Adapt old solutions for new problems: You could do this by applying an existing product to a new need available. You could look for new uses of your product. For instance, De Beers produced industrial diamonds but found a new use for diamonds when they introduced the concept of engagement rings. It opened up a large new market for them.
Watch your competition: This does not mean to blindly follow whatever innovation they come up with. Instead, observe them intelligently. See if there are any of their ideas you can refine and adapt and even possibly license as your own. You can also acquire smaller profitable businesses if possible!
Look outside: You can outsource your new project development to external companies to work on this. Company like Edumark Consult can help us engage actively within the education community. If that seems like a risk for you, you can ask individuals to come up with novel ideas for innovation. Countless big companies have been known to do this successfully.
Go back in time: Look back at older business models and products. Try to ascertain which of these models can work for the present market. Be sure to refine it, however, to fit into the current market trends.

The tips above are in no way exhaustive of all the tips that can be used to improve innovative thinking. Also, not all of them might apply to your business model. Whatever the case, use the tips as a guide to building your business even further through innovation.

Oct 30

Don’t Just Be At Trade Show To Make Up The Numbers, Be There To Make A Business Impact.

Trade shows and exhibitions are not for everyone. Before deciding to invest in a trade show, you must answer certain questions to safe-guide your time and money investment.

Ensure that the Expo focus align with your target industry and you have developed the right service/product that is required by the audience. Review all activities to be in-line with your business niche.
Failure to thoroughly review the relevance of event to business niche, may lead investors into bad decision making. Getting clarity about your trade show investment would also make it easy for the sales team to chart a rewarding plan for their activities, generate leads and evaluating performance.

Team succeeds by setting SMART goals that would guide them through strategic sales outing; they need to be prepared and equipped with products knowledge and know what to present, where to present it and how to present it.

Don’t just be at a trade show or exhibition to make up the numbers, be there to make a business impact.

Ask about the objective of the trade show to check if it aligns with your business goal? research before setting SMART goals. Why are you spending money, resources and valuable time to attend a show? The ROI must be realistic and measurable.

Define your objective and stick with it. Why is your organisation attending the event?:
• For Publicity.
• To build awareness.
• To showcase or unveil new product.
• To generate lead from the trade show.
• To connect and network with other industry professionals or vendors in your business line.

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