Remembering Customer Service

With the big arrival of social media in 2009 and other aspects of business getting more electronic, it is important to remember real customer service and what exactly that entails. Poor customer service can give your company a bad reputation and in the most extreme cases possibly put you out of business. In order to ensure business success and keep your customers happy, make sure good customer service is continually practiced throughout your company.

Lisa Barone with Small Business Trends talks about the importance of using social media sites to help market your business and obtain new customers but that it is equally important to make sure you’re providing good customer service to your existing clients so you keep a strong, happy customer base.

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Your ROI for Social Media

The idea of social media had been in the works for some time but really became full swing in 2009. Such sites as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn became common names in companies. As business owners start to put money and effort into developing and running their social media sites, it is important that you track and measure your ROI from these outlets. It is also important that you lay out your business goals and what you’d like to achieve from these sites.

Openforum.com gives tips on how to measure your ROI for social media.

“As more and more businesses – big and small – start to embrace social media, it becomes equally important for businesses to track their return on investment (ROI) from different social media tools and campaigns. It’s important to measure the positive and negative impact that any strategy has on your business and this is just as true with social media as it is with anything else.”

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Avoiding the Spam Filter

As technology progresses and more marketing efforts are going towards online and E-mail marketing, people’s and company’s spam filters are getting even tighter. Spam had become such a big problem that even the White House got involved to try and get a hold of the number of Spam e-mails that were being sent.

So how do you as a business owner still showcase your business ideas, products and services without being placed into someone’s spam folder or even worse, blacklisted? HubSpot lists the following best practices for inbound marketers to follow in order to be incompliance with the anti-spam laws.

“Be happy that you are not Bill Gates.

In 2007, he received about four million emails (that’s approximately 11 thousand each day), most of which were spam. For us mere mortals, toiling in our cubicles, how would you feel about receiving over 9,000 email advertising messages per year? That’s 25 marketing messages in your Inbox every day, and, according to recent research, nine of every 10 emails are categorized as spam. And, just a few years ago, only half of our emails were considered spam.”

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Define Your Driving Critical Success Factor

With 2010 right around the corner, business owners should be planning for next year. A big part of their plan should be defining what their Driving Critical Success Factors (DCSF) are going to be for next year. Having a DCSF will help to guide a business in a positive direction and will help ensure business success.

TAB President and CEO, Jason Zickerman, talks about the importance of a DSFC and how it can benefit your company as well as business owners and employees.

Every once in a while, good luck may come your way. However, if you base running your business on good luck, you are more than likely going to find yourself out of luck. The reality is you may find yourself in the same or worse situation and possibly even out of business. In these difficult economic times we are facing, when budgets are down and your company’s bandwidth has more than likely decreased, it’s more important than ever to have your greatest efforts be focused on your Driving Critical Success Factor (DCSF). This may not be easy since there are many critical factors in your company, but this is the most critical factor in order to move your organization forward.

Once you’ve identified your DCSF by yourself, with key executives or people you trust, you can share this with your entire team so they too have clarity and know in which direction the company is heading. This will be one of the greatest benefits you can give your employees because it will allow them to clearly identify their priorities.

A key element to achieving your DCSF is helping your team see how their efforts and contributions are directly impacting the DCSF and the success of the organization. Don’t assume they understand how important of a role they are playing; take the time to communicate this with them. To keep employees driven, it’s a good idea to tie-in incentives— typically something that is short-term and related to the DCSF.

Benefits of identifying your DCSF include:

Reduces stress level—by having one main focus this helps eliminate work that isn’t critical and does not support the DCSF. Employees will experience less guilt for not getting through their apparent workload. The simple fact is they will get more done by doing less.

Communication—having a DCSF allows you to be able to communicate effectively to your stakeholders where your company is headed. At times you may find they may not be happy with some areas that might not be getting appropriately addressed, but in these times, they will respect your prioritization and thinking.

Provides inspiration—achieving your company’s DCSF provides a sense of accomplishment which inspires employees to move forward and be ready to attack the next DCSF when it’s appropriate.

Makes decision making easier— normally you have several critical factors competing with each other for a finite amount of resources—your DCSF will allow you to decide what projects you do and do not take on based on whether or not they support your DCSF.

Be sure your DCSF is measured frequently with you and your team and adjustments are made accordingly to keep your company moving in the right direction—this is most critical in these challenging economic times.

Lead Generation and Management

As the 2009 comes to a close, business owners are looking for leads for potential new customers for 2010 as well as ways to keep their current customers happy. Good management of current leads as well as a good source of for new leads is key to business success.

TAB-Certified Facilitator and Coach, Allen Himmelstein, talks on his blog, TAB-Scottsdale, about ways to generate good leads as well as how to mangage the current leads you have.

“Doing better at sales is always a topic at our Alternative Board meetings. It is what drives every business. Yet despite the countless books, weblogs, and articles written on lead generation most companies do not take a systematic approach to handling them.”

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