Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Feeling Dirty!
Gang Raped by the banks & date raped by Talk Talk... Do I feel abused & dirty or just hurt because they don't call any more?
Searching for the perfect relationship is it worth it?
If a relate councellor was involved in trying to sort out this relationship they would be calling the police by now and looking for a refuge for me. So what went wrong? It was all going so well... The promises of good times and mutual happiness gave me hope that something good was at last about to happen. Oh and it was going to be so good valuable quality time spent together and at last someone I could really communicate with. If only!
Like any relationship the first few days were fantastic - just what I wanted someone who cared - someone who understood - someone who wanted me to do better. The honeymoon soon came to an end. Suddenly I was too demanding, too needy, just too damn close - things went downhill fast, all I wanted was what had been promised . Very quickly it became clear they were just like all the rest. To explain: If the bank that is dedicated to the small business person - yes you know who you are. Keeps employing inadequate sour faced front of house staff they can't expect hard working small business owners to bother with them I must admit if only they could perform as well as their advertising agency they would have cleaned up by now they are definitely finding another way...
As for the numb nuts at talk talk heaven forbid that they have anything akin to competence at any time. It has now taken them three months to do absolutely nothing in fact they rang me on Saturday afternoon to say exactly that although after going through all the checks to see I was who they said I was (they rang me not the other way round) they finally told me they needed to know so they could book a call from their technical department. After all the promises from the bunch called the "house moving team" they have yet to actually get me an account number to give me the rebate they promised me for delaying the installation!
They keep asking me if I have booked someone else for the broadband as if they have become jealous of any other relationship I may have with another telecoms provider. After ingnoring me for three months they are now stalking me. I have to say the recent relationships with large organisations has left me feeling grubby and used.
I would go to another bank or BT but they are no better none of them has any idea on customer service, they should change the name of customer care to customer we-don't-care teams.
Enough of this rant the anger has yet to subside but if anyone knows who can give me a quality service or in fact just call back when they say they will and preferably not cut me off when I have waited for an hour to speak to someone having finally got through and then said "I'll just put you on hold" a euphemism for cut you off and when you lose your cool they say I am not here for you to rude to but actually yes they are.
That's called putting your customer first. Charles Dunstone stop chasing the yanks for money and get your business right!
Friday, May 23, 2008
New Business and Web2.0
The web with its websites and portals and to some extent forums (if you can be bothered) has given small businesses profile on the net so we can look like bigger companies (with the right amount of spend) and trade like them too. But can we get across the fundamental difference the actual main USP of the small business. We are small because in most cases we like to be small. Small is fast thinking quick agile and responsive. Not hide bound in procedure and not stuck in with crappy company rules which work against us.
No we are acutally business with personality then it hit me Web 2.0 allows us to have a personality on line. A face and feelings and with the stuff we can now share it has a little bit of us online.
Which large organisation can give us that and who is going to write the personality? is it the PR department in a clinical and safe style (we don't want to be sued do we?) or will it be the marketing department? neither I hope but whoever tries it will certainly have a job on their hands. This is why all small business must embrace technology advances or die.
take a look at www.punchingaboveyourweight.com and see if it makes sense...
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Give em what they want
Three people interested but then thats usually the start of greater things we should have this one off the ground and running independently by September...
I have been getting an unusual amount of marketing promotional stuff by email during the so called "credit crisis" panic ensues and headless chickens are running around crying that the world is coming to an end. For some in really will be the end and probably not before time. Running aground when the pond is full is always more difficult than when the water level is down a bit. But take heart and be strong do not fall for the next big promotional idea just because ruin is around the corner the quickest way I know to hasten its arrival is to spend money on stuff you don't need or is not being looked at. The time to sell lifebelts is when the titanic is launched but the time to get the best price is moments before it plunges to the darkest depths of the freezing ocean.
A couple of pointers came my way which I think are worth repeating:
1. Customers dislike being interrupted by advertising even when the world is about to end
2. They don't want to pay for things that are usually free - so when you used to offer a bit of free advice don't stop just because you are short of cash
3. The want advertising appropriately labeled as advertising - no free offers of crap you don't want and make sure everything you do has serious value to the client
4 They sometimes appreciate finding out about unique products or services that will benefit them - okay how do we get them to see the benefit if it doesn't fit their perception of where they are at the moment.
5 Don't state the bleedin' obvious
In troubled times you can hold your head in your hands and whistle up your Barcelona or get on out there and reaffirm your existence give em what they want when you want to give it.
Have a great time money needs to be spent and it's our job to help them spend it.
Remember the words of Arkwright "get a cloth granville" time to clean up a bit
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Key Information for Businesses
However a few good ideas do cross the desk and I intend to distribute these to my client list in the meantime I will copy them here so they are easily accessible under the tag small business briefing.
This one is on PR and customer feedback.
1. PR and Customer Research
Business is about selling. Everything else, including the whole process of production, management, and even marketing, is basically sales support. It all comes down to persuading a customer to give you money – and to go on doing so. So it is astonishing how little most businesses actually know about their customers and how little trouble they take to relate to them.
Your customers define your business, and not just because without them you are nothing. Their needs form your bedrock and their desires shape your future. The key to a solid business is to make them feel closer to your business. This involves finding out what they feel and want.
This essay covers two separate but inter-related areas:
- Customer relations, which is about keeping existing customers happy.
- Customer research, which is about getting feedback from them.
Define your objectives
Before you start contacting customers or asking them any intrusive questions, you must be careful to define your objectives clearly.
Customer relations
Customer relations has several objectives, more or less in the following order of priority:
- To make the customer feel valued.
- To provide indications of emerging needs or trends for use in future product development.
Customer relations is a continuous ongoing process whose principal tool is communication.
Customer research
Customer research tends to be based more on discrete projects, each of which may have one or more of several different objectives:
- To measure how good your customer service is and where you could improve.
- To identify problems or possible improvements with an existing product/service.
- To test changes to an established product/service.
- To provide indications of future needs or trends for use in product/service development (note that this is also the third objective of customer relations).
- To assess potential demand for a planned new product/service.
- To test a new product/service.
- To identify potential problems in advance
Note that customer research, unlike customer relations, usually embraces potential as well as existing customers.
Do not expect your customers to come up with all your ideas for you. They are most likely to respond if you present them with a range of options. Having said that, if they do come up with ideas on their own, look at them seriously. If a lot of people bring up the same issue without prompting, there could be a major problem or unmet need out there.
Customer relations
Talk first
To understand your customers, you need to talk to them whenever you have the opportunity, whether they are direct clients, consumers or intermediate resellers. More importantly, encourage them to talk back. At every contact, try to get them to open up a bit. Be friendly, but not intrusive or long-winded.
Ask if they have any problems or suggestions –
- 95% of the time the questions will seem a routine formality, but the other 5% is the bit that matters.
- If they are vague, pin them down. Try asking, ‘If you could change one thing about our product or service, what would it be?’
- Be specific. Ask, ‘We were thinking of doing x – what do you think of that?’
- Ask new customers why they came to you, and, as tactfully as possible, why they left their previous supplier.
- Accept that customers will look at or try other suppliers. Encourage them to come back to you for a final talk before finalising any change of supplier, if only to say why they are going.
- What was it that made them buy at that point?
- How can you apply this information to prospective customers?
Be open to criticism, so do not try too hard to defend yourself: this is not a debate to be won, but an opportunity for you to learn and to show you are willing to learn.
Following up
The first indication many businesses have that a customer has a problem with them, is when they realise that they have become an ex-customer. The challenge businesses face is the British dislike of complaining. People would rather avoid any embarrassment by dropping you without a word.
The solution is proactively to ask customers if they are happy with their purchases and whether they have discovered any glitches. This may involve after-sales support, such as a follow-up phone call, which is actually customer research in the guise of customer relations.
Customers can tell you about:
- What is right or wrong with your products/services.
- How they use them. This may highlight new uses or suggest refinements that you can pass on to other customers.
- How they perceive the benefits now that they have experienced them, which will help you channel your marketing and sales efforts more precisely.
- What they would change/improve if they could.
- Problems they are having. For example, if you question them, you may find that they
consider the new software package they bought from you, say, is more of a hindrance than a help. If this is the case, you might be about to have an ex-customer on your hands unless you can reverse the situation. The solution may be as simple as recommending a good training course. - What they like least about dealing with your business.
- What they like most about your products.
- Themselves and their wider needs and wants.
In many cases, you may be able to address these through another part of your organisation or by recommending a colleague or associate business.
Of course, what you will hear from customers is not comprehensive, systematic, measurable, or even reliable – for one thing, people tend to say what they think you want to hear. It is, however, the most important source of information your business has.
Don’t rely on memory. Keep a customer contact book and take notes of each comment they make. Better still, use a customer database on your computer so everyone can share the information.
Listen
Hold regular meetings with your staff, at which one of the items should be a report on what they are hearing from customers either in work or socially. Much of this is little more than gossip, but if the same things keep coming up, take notice. Act on what you hear. In particular, be prepared to feed it into product development.
You may also hear things that cause you to alter your actual marketing strategy. Do not be too proud to change.
Customer research
Customer research is just one discipline within market research. It aims to provide both hard factual data and less tangible feedback or feelings:
- Who bought what, when?
- Are any trends or patterns apparent?
- What are your common cross-sells and up-sells? Could this be systematised so that when a customer buys X they automatically get a follow-up call to see if they might also find Y useful as well?
- What is the average size of order?
- Where are your customers based?
- What sort of business are they?
Such data tells you little on its own. It is how you interpret it and the building picture that matter. Check how much other information you can find out in-house.
For example, the knowledge that most of your customers employ less than five people may appear irrelevant at first glance. However, knowing this, you will begin to understand the mindset of the owner can’t afford to have people away from their desks for an extensive three-day training course. So you might change the way you deliver courses to make them telephone-based.
Other data can help you target your marketing more precisely. For example, asking new customers how they first heard of you – an advert, article in a magazine or word-of-mouth – will help you track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. And analysis later will show which media to target in your next campaign.
Types of customer research
There are two basic types of customer research:
- Qualitative. Usually based on in-depth discussions with customers, either individually or in groups.
- Quantitative. Usually done using standard questionnaires that allow the results to be easily analysed.
The former is of greater use in gauging what people actually think, but depends on good analysis. The latter gives an air of certainty, albeit often artificial, which can be useful in convincing others.
Can you do it yourself?
Like most business disciplines, market research can benefit from specialist skills and experience. Hence, some people maintain that market research is best done by experts. Knowing how to design effective questionnaires, how to get the right sample, how to contact people and get a good response rate, and how to interview in depth or work with a focus group are all specific skills that most business owners and managers do not have.
Most market research firms have their own way of doing things. This is often a closely guarded secret. It is also difficult to find out which firm’s approach is right for you. Moreover, as with any form of consultancy, it can be hard to tell the professionals from the charlatans.
Research firms are often expensive and while their services may well be worth the money, they are usually out of reach of most small
businesses. Hence you may be forced to do your own market research instead. This is not as difficult as research firms would make out. A great deal depends upon common sense. You can gain enormous benefits from even simple techniques and projects. The key is always to be alive to the need and opportunities to gather information from all sources.
Firstly, you can find out a good deal of very useful information from basic desk research. Before you even get down to talking to customers, for example, your database and management accounts should be examined for information.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires are the main tools of customer research. They can also be used as a supplement to customer relations, but should never take the place of talk. They may be sent or given to the customer, or filled in by an interviewer. They can be delivered by a variety of methods, such as direct mail or email.
Questionnaire design
A good questionnaire is:
- short: this is more likely to get a response
- to the point: collect only what you need to know, not what might be ‘nice to know’
- easy to read – clearly printed, open, and nicely set out on the page
- easy to fill in and navigate, with a few, easy instructions, and plenty of space for those with large handwriting
- unambiguous: avoid terms like ‘usually’ and ‘frequently’
- jargon-free: if you must use a technical term, define it
- unbiased: leading questions defeat the object.
Questionnaire analysis
Above all, questionnaires should be designed with their ultimate use in mind – analysis.
If your research is quantitative, use tick boxes or points systems (4 = excellent, 1 = poor, and so on). These can be analysed using spreadsheets on a computer.
If it is qualitative, leave lots of space for personal comments. Do not restrict replies to your own categories so include a category of ‘Others (please specify)’.
Target your mailshot carefully. You may decide to mail just existing customers, or you could include dormant or ex-customers. You will then have to decide whether you want to mail all of your customers, a random selection or a specific group – individual buyers, say, or retailers.
A word of warning: people who take the time and trouble to fill in and return a questionnaire are a minority – and therefore not necessarily typical of the majority.
Testing your questionnaire
Email surveys
Prepare a ‘dummy’ questionnaire and send it to a few colleagues to fill in. Listen to what they think of it. Clear up any ambiguities – you may know what you want to know, but others do not. Check that your questions ask for the answers in the form you want. Put ‘male or female’ rather than ‘sex’, for instance.
You can use these responses as test data for a ‘dummy’ analysis, using a spreadsheet if your research is quantitative.
Making contact
Once you have decided what you want to ask, you must put your questions in front of the people you want to ask.
Mail surveys
Mailed questionnaires do not usually get a good response unless a large number of people happen to feel strongly about a given issue. If you receive such a response, you would do well to take notice.
You can increase responses by offering an incentive, or a prize draw, and by enclosing a pre-paid or freepost envelope. You might also consider making responses anonymous to get more honest answers.
Email surveys may get you a better response than a letter, but bear in mind that:
- An email survey could be seen as suspiciously like spam.
- Unless you have been diligent about collecting every customer’s email address, you could end up with an unrepresentative group.
Telephone interviews
Telephone surveys are much more laborious and expensive but can provide much richer feedback. The key to telephone canvassing is to have a good script and to stick to it. However, telemarketing is increasingly seen as intrusive too, and those who reply will, once again, not be typical of the majority of people, who will want you off the telephone as quickly as possible.
Face-to-face interviews
Face-to-face interviews can take many forms. At one end of the spectrum a researcher with a clipboard approaches customers as they leave your shop, say, and runs through a closely defined script with prompts. At the other end is the in-depth interview in which a highly trained interviewer encourages the customer to speak at length for half an hour or more. Unlike the in-shop situation, this process is designed so that the questioner will say relatively little. There is a range of variations between these extremes. Bear these general points in mind:
- It is not usually cost-effective to interview every customer. On the other hand, it is difficult to get a really random sample when selecting people, say, as they leave your shop. Saturday shoppers are quite different to lunch-hour shoppers.
- Those willing to take part in such exercises are not typical: many people simply do not have the time.
- People are suddenly invited to talk in detail about things which they have probably not spent much time thinking about before.
Focus groups
Focus groups are managed group discussions. A typical exercise will involve groups of six to eight people who represent a cross-section of customers – current or potential. The ideal focus group will have the air of a brainstorming session. A trained moderator will draw out the shy, check the dominant, and introduce new information and key questions at appropriate points. For many such reasons, focus groups may best be conducted by experienced professionals.
The criticisms that apply to face-to-face interviews apply doubly to focus groups. What sort of people would want to take part in such a discussion? Can the result be anything but artificial? On top of this, there is the distortion of the social dimension. Some people will want to impress the members of the group, or not offend them, or defeat them in argument, or dominate, or do any one of a thousand other illogical things people do when they interact in groups. They will not be thinking and acting as they do when deciding whether or not to buy your product. Nevertheless, many organisations find such research extremely useful.
Analysis
All this research is pointless unless it is analysed – and used. Everything should be designed with that analysis in mind. So establish in advance:
- the sort of analysis you require – qualitative or quantitative.
- the kind of information you require and in what format.
- who the survey will be sent to.
- the purpose for which the results will be used.
If it is to be worth the effort, the results should impact on every aspect of business planning and strategy. Not least will be the lessons such exercises teach you about the direction of your future marketing.
Developing relationships
Developing a relationship with existing customers can itself be an adjunct, possibly an alternative, to formal market research.
For example:
- Observation is a great tool of market research: visit your customers and see how they use your products and services in practice.
- Use existing customers for advance product testing – they will enjoy the novelty and will appreciate being asked.
- Use loyalty groups, cardholders, club members and the like as the basis for feedback and market research; these are
- people with a proven and active interest in your product
- Above all, establish a two-way relationship. This means:
You must listen as well as talk.
The benefits go both ways.
- As well as being an excellent resource for market research, customers will appreciate the fact that their opinions are seen to be valued
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Moved
Don't make the mistake of removing stuff that is emotionally someone else's to clear out. I made the mistake of suggesting that we cull my wife's wardrobe to a managable size. I failed to see that she was still holding the stanley knife and I only just managed to get out of the room in one piece.
So the moral is de-clutter re-evaluate and get rid of the crap alternatively sack 10% of your customers every year they are the one's who use up most of your goodwill and most of your patience. You will feel a lot better without them and work a lot harder for the one's who deserve the attention.
Happy Easter
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Working our way back
Unless this state of mind changes it will always be a problem - think about it you set up in business because you believed that you were really good a something, it does not matter what that something is, now you don't feel confident in telling anyone about it with passion. That's all selling really is... finding out what your prospect wants and finding out if your product or service will do that for them if it does then for gods sake tell them what you believe it will do. Shyness is not an attractive quality in anything but small pet rodents. Be confident and moreover be proud of what you can do for your clients. Tell them what you have done for others in the same situation as them and there you have it... You are a salesperson.
Keep the faith!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Keeping your customers happy take note
- How are customer and client perceptions and expectations created, understand the real facts and how you can make a difference
- What keeps the customer or client happy, know how to find out what they think is important
- Find the golden key to developing exceptional customer and client relations
- Use non verbal signals and body behaviour to get the best results
- How to build rapport quickly and easily — even the ‘difficult’ ones
- The myths of rapport building, and what REALLY works
- See why false rapport (manipulation) doesn’t work in the long term
- Learn how to make sure your customers clients 'feel' they get what they want
- Change your customer or client perceptions and your own to achieve greater impact and effect
- Find their ‘hot’ buttons, press the right ones and avoid the wrong ones!
- You treat your customer or client as an individual, but does it work for them?
- What are they really saying. Find out why most people have trouble finding out
- How much information can your customer or client deal with, how much keeps them happy , and how do you package it best
Sunday, February 17, 2008
It don't happen if you don't make it!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Get your clients to pay you to advertise your business
We all have loads of potential customers who cannot yet afford what we do or are not in a position to make the best of it if they could. Sell them something small but useful to them that gives them a taste of what you could do for them if you had the chance on the explicit understanding that they should sing your praises at every opportunity - social or business
Getting yourself noticed by giving away something for free go hand in hand.
Sometimes we have to teach our future customers and clients just what it is we do of value.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Home Searching and Business Services
It is high time to spring clean our stuff and our business minds at the same moment. How much crap is in your head at the moment. Credit Crunch, House reposessions up and all that and business still seems to go on.
Clear it out and look at the new opportunities that exist all around you. There is only a recession in our minds. I love it when the press proudly announces that "£120 billion was wiped off the value of companies today" can they tell me where it has gone? no of course not because it didn't really exist in the first place. The stock market runs on rumour and emotion. If that is really the case are we right to leave our pensions in the hands of a bunch of uptight emotional degenerates who mix up rumours for lies...
Look to your own destiny. These big loss announcements are, they tell us, a reflection of confidence. When was the last time you were given money just because you were confident?
Spring clean and really lighten your load and clear out all the crap you have been fed over the past few months if you don't want it to happen it won't.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Road Warrior?
It got me to thinking that in business we should all be adding value to our customers and clients which goes above and beyond... Yeah yeah heard it all before!
But think what can you add to your current offeriing whiich has nothing to do with your core stuff and everything to do with what your clients want. How about free and open wi-fi in your offices and reception and if you are feeling really flush throw in a latte or two. I know that you might just get a contact who can help you in the near future. Go on try giving something different FREE.
Friday, February 1, 2008
How Much?
I see many clients on a weekly basis and I can categorically state that nearly every one of them must feel sorry for their customers - so sorry in fact they charge them so little it's hardly worth being in business. You started up in business because you believed that someone out there would pay you for your skill or product then you undermine your offering by putting the wrong price on it.
Just stop and think. It's now time to review your prices and put them UP!!
I recently sat with a client who after working through the basic figures found out he was charging less than his car mechanic but with much higher overheads.
People do want what you have to offer and if you are too cheap you undermine yourself. Pricing right is so important that you do need to understand it and if you don't then get help from someone who does...
Have the confidence to value what you do - if you don't who the hell else will!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Advertising tosh
Listen everyone just stop doing it I cannot even think of how you can justify the money ever!!
You could try talking to people and getting them to talk about you.
Remember that advertising is self promotion its about you saying your good - well you would wouldn't you!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Networking
Or of course you could try speed networking...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Why is it that I am awake at 3 am every day
I have been working on this theory that if we are all entrepreneurs in some form at some point we will all be waking early...
So why don't we move the day's start forward by five hours so we can at least have someone to talk to when we need to.