Companies like Amazon and FedEx dominate because they make it super easy to do busy with them. When small businesses make it hard for customers to do business with them, those customers will eventually go somewhere else. I am sure you can remember a situation when you’ve had a difficult time doing business with a company and made a choice to go elsewhere with your time and money.
One of the items I like to address when conducting strategic workshop sessions with my clients is to help them and their entire staff to become a fanatic about standing in their customer’s shoes. One of our goals in these sessions is to remove any friction in the customer experience. Many businesses are not aware of the barriers that make it difficult for customers and frustrating to say the least.
If you are a front line staff member or first time manager, it s likely that you have little influence over these barriers your company has created over time. Instead, I have found that many of you are tasked with mitigating these obstacles and helping your customers get around them. I know this can be very frustrating to you and your customers. I may not be able to change your company or small business and instead of focusing on what is wrong with your company and its barriers, I help my clients focus on what they can control. And that is YOU!
Here are a few questions to ask yourself or small business about if it is easy to do business with you?
- Do your customers have all of your contact information, web-site, phone numbers? Especially if there is a problem or urgent need.
- Do you quickly follow up on emails, voice mail messages on an high sense of urgency?
- Do you do what you say you are going to do and keep your promises to your clients. If you can’t keep your promise do you update your customers and let them know in advance?
- Do you quickly deal with complaints and follow up to make sure your customer is happy with the resolution?
- Do you proactively meet with your best customers or call them on a regular basis?
- When customers contact you for help with a problem or question, do you act like or make them feel like it is a hassle?
- Are you likable and a pleasure to work with?
While you consider these questions as a business owner or team, it is important to make an effort to see the answers through the eyes of your customers. You may want to even ask your customers what they think of those questions. Never forget that a big part of your customer’s experience can begin and ends with how easy it is to do business with you. Breaking down those unwanted and frustrating barriers for your customers will surly make the customer experience Magical! Please contact me if you need any help.