What sets a business apart? Seriously? Awesome products? Well, yeah. A fun, unique approach to their industry? Of course. But you know why consumers are still doing business with little mom and pop shops when there’s a major supplier of just about everything out there, and the Internet is available to conveniently bring it to them? Because they take the time to turn their heads from product development and where they want to go and make the most of where they are.

I think a lot of us fall into the trap of losing sight of the balance between where we are and where we’re going. If you’re a big business, you’ve got a whole team of people whose sole job is to come up with awesome new ideas to keep your business moving into the future. If you’re a small business like us, however, you have to split your resources. You have to divide your day between taking care of the customers you have now and the customers you’re going to have tomorrow, and if you think a bunch of customers that don’t even exist yet aren’t going to take up a whole lot of your time, you’ve got another think coming.

So how do you make sure your customers are satisfied without digging your business into a rut you can’t get out of? I have three words for you: Marketing, and Time Management.

Set aside a certain number of hours each week to plan for the future of your business. Those can be hours spent out in the field, talking to your customers and getting a feel for what they want and expect from you, or hours spent in your office brainstorming ideas and/or implementing ideas you’ve already put into place. Once you have that idea, kick it over to your marketing and development people and let it go. Let it breathe. Let it take shape. And let it transform.

Once that time is done, turn your attention to your business today. Get to know your customers, they love being recognized when they walk in the door. Figure out what you can do to make their customer experience better right now. A coffee pot on a cold winter day? Cookies and candy bowls at Christmas?

Yes, I’m a compulsive feeder. The kids in my neighborhood swarm at my house like little locusts because my cookie jar is never empty. Which is exactly my point. When you’re planning Christmas dinner but your cookie jar is empty, your place is going to be packed on Christmas day and empty the other 364 days of the year. Keep that cookie jar full, and make sure you’re taking the time to appreciate where you are, and the people who love you now, as well as where you’re going to be.

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Have you ever sat in a coffee shop on a busy street in the middle of winter, when the temperature’s in the single digits and the snow is dumping down? Take a poll one of these days. How many of the people walking down the street are actually smiling?

No, not that grimace you get when your cheeks are frozen solid. I’m talking about an actual smile.  

If you live somewhere that actually gets that cold on a semi-regular basis, you know business and traffic don’t shut down fer nothin’. Kids go to school in near-blizzard conditions. Their parents are expected to show up for work in far worse. So bad weather isn’t a reason to stay at home.

winter, snow, city

Would you run errands in this? If you lived in Rochester you would!

It is, however, a reason to be a crank. And misery loves company. Guess what? If your doors are open, you just became company! So here are four tips to help keep your customers smiling, even when the weather doesn’t want to help you out.

1)      Keep it warm. I can’t count how many shops I’ve walked into that were barely any warmer than it was outside. Their logic? Their customers all had coats on anyway. This way they didn’t have to take their coats off and carry them around. (It didn’t hurt that the shops got to keep their heating bill way, way down.) Trust me, that blast of heat will do wonders to warm the icy hearts of your frozen customers.

2)      Stock toasty warm drinks. This might not be the most practical idea if you’re, say, running a Wal-Mart, but if your customers do more than get in and get out a pot of coffee will be greatly appreciated.

3)      Choose warm colors for your walls. When you’re looking at nothing but grey and white all day long, stepping into a shop filled with warm yellows, purples, greens, reds and blues is an almost instant mood lift. (See our earlier posts on the meaning of color.) It’s a relatively small investment that can have dramatic returns.

4)      Smile! Your staff should be greeting your customers with a smile anyway, but when they’re already tired, cold and miserable a warm smile is just the thing they need to kick off an awesome customer experience. Awesome customer experiences=repeat customers=referrals. What have you got to lose?

Have any other great winter tips to share? Let us know!

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Okay, before we go into the ins and outs of improving your customer service, I want to ask you a question. A serious question. One that could, coincidentally, inspire you to chime in below and let us know, because…well, because we really want to know!

What am I talking about? I’m talking about how much time each week you spend catching up on the latest news in the business world. Do you scout the headlines every morning? Every other morning? Religiously sit down and devour the business section of your local paper?

Studies show that the most successful companies in the world are the ones that encourage their employees to keep up on current events, which is precisely what inspired this particular blog post.

When I was sitting down with my coffee this morning and scanning to check out the day’s headlines I stumbled on an article titled, “Customer Service isn’t Dead After All”…or something to that effect. The topic? The importance of good customer service for the continued life, health and happiness of your business!

One of my favorite quotes came from a small business owner who stated, “It’s easy to get busy being busy.” There are never enough hours in a day to get done everything we need to get done. As a result, we end up trying to cram 27-28 hours’ worth of work, projects and social interactions into a 24 hour day. That means things get rushed, and our customers don’t always get the personal, one-on-one attention they deserve-the personal attention you promised them when you sent out those direct mail marketing pieces we talked about earlier this week!

How do you keep your customer service from slipping so your customers keep coming back for more? Just follow these 5 simple steps to see a guaranteed improvement in your employees, your business and the reputation your company earns for customer service:

1)      Educate your employees. Nothing leads to bad service like service people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Make sure any employee interacting with your customers knows all of the ins and outs of your products, and make sure every employee knows where to go for answers when they don’t (whether it’s their job or not).

2)      Stay adequately staffed. Leaving 2 service people to try and do 3 people’s jobs is an instant recipe for disaster. They’re going to be so rushed trying to do everything they need to do in a day that they’ll never have time to give your customers the personalized customer service they deserve.

3)      Don’t be afraid to host a customer service training program. Encourage your employees to actively expand their education when it comes to pleasing your customers. Role playing, seminars and yes, articles/blogs like this one will go a long way in helping smooth the rough edges of their customer service skills. While you’re at it, why not teach them all of those upselling skills you wish they’d come with in the first place?

4)      Employee autonomy isn’t a 4 letter word. Customer service is most effective when your customers don’t have to sit around waiting for management to give the A-OK. Give your employees a certain amount of latitude to make their own decisions. Within reason.

5)      Always keep a back-up on board. Waiting tables and washing dishes paid my way through college, and I can’t count how many times in those very, very long years I stepped in to help a co-worker when a customer was tap dancing on their very last nerve. Always have someone ready and able to step in when you’ve got an employee that needs a time out. It might seem self-defeating, but I promise: It’s all for the best.

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It’s Friday, race fans. Friday, Friday, Friday. What does that mean? For most of us, it means the weekend is right around the corner. Two whole days of freedom away from office politics, the day-to-day routine of making a dollar and (let’s face it) clients that leave you gnashing your teeth in frustration as often as not.

Before you give in and snarl at the next person who asks you for a price check, or starts nitpicking at a project you laid out weeks ago, remember-90% of customers say the reason they stopped doing business with a particular company was because their customer service stank. Blunt, but true. For some unfathomable reason, giving in to the urge to scream the 500th time a customer asks you the exact same question doesn’t inspire them to come back!

Statistically speaking, 85% of your business will (eventually) be due to repeat customers. You really don’t want to bring that kind of customer influx, positive reputation and word-of-mouth marketing to a brutal and abrupt end just because the weekend isn’t coming fast enough. So grit your teeth and smile, even when it hurts. It’ll all be worth it in the end.

“More than half of us say we won’t go back to a place where the service is bad, no matter how good the food is. Meanwhile, thirty percent of us say that we would return to a place where the service was good, even if the food was not.”

San Francisco Magazine Opentable Pool — August, 2002

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