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THIS WEEK
Your Business is on Probation
ALSO IN THIS EDITION
Your Business is on Probation
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With each and every new customer that comes to your business – you are on probation. Each new customer looks at your business to work out if you are someone that they would like to do business with long term.
They watch to see if you deliver as you have promised. They listen to every word you speak to make sure it matches how you have marketed to them. They tap into their gut to see how you make them feel.
If you don't match up, they may give you one more chance, but generally they walk out the door and your probation is terminated. They simply don't come back to your business.
So what can you do to ensure that customers actually come back and possibly become raving fans?
This is where customer nurturing strategies come into play. Here's 20 simple ideas to help you nurture your customers. You don't need to do all of them – just try implementing a few of them and test your results.
1. Answer your phone and promptly return messages. Never let your phone ring out. 2. Respond to emails in a timely manner.
3. Make sure your voice is warm, yet professional when you speak with people.
4. Know your stuff & share your knowledge.
5. Make it easy for people to do business with you. Remove all barriers – whether they are physical, system based or emotional.
6. Guarantee your services.
7. Reinforce your professionalism with well-written marketing material.
8. Say thank you – more than once and in more than one way.
9. Confirm appointments – and take the chance to reinforce their decision to try out your business.
10. Ask for feedback on their experience as a first time customer and how you can improve.
11. Surprise them – little bonus gifts, extra service, information sheets all surprise and delight customers.
12. Share information – let them know useful facts or industry trends.
13. Give them your details – share your business card.
14. Introduce yourself and shake their hand (How many business owners do that? When was the last time your local Pharmacist or Baker did that to you?)
15. Be accurate – no slip ups or mistakes.
16. Know your numbers & measure the right things to make sure your team are consistently doing the right thing.
17. Honour their communication preferences. If someone asks you to phone them – then phone rather than email them.
18. Help them know details of how to get the best out of your business or service.
19. Make sure your business premises are clean and inviting.
20. Deliver what you promised.
So there you have it. 20 ways to nurture your new customers. The more you nurture your customers, the more likely they will stay with you and help you grow your business.
| HR Tip of the Week: Hire Slow - Fire Fast |
 Hiring people for your business is one of the hardest things you will ever do. If you are a small business one wrong hire can sink your company. If you are a larger business you have a bit more leeway - but bad hires can still be costly.
A bad hire costs the time you took the hire them, the time you took inducting them, the time you took training and checking their work, the lost sleep at night worrying about them, the actual money you paid them. And that's just for starters.
If they stuff up you have lost customer costs, lost productivity of other workers, costs to redo work, termination costs and a whole lot more.
If someone stole thousands of dollars from your wallet you would be ticked off and you would take action. Yet when bad hires take the same amount of money from us we feel guilty when we take action.
Here's a bit of HR advice from my years in the trenches - hire slow and fire fast.
Take your time when you hire - don't just settle for someone with a pulse. Spend time looking for the right person.
Once you have hired someone, give them the benefit of the doubt. During the first few weeks of employment be watchful and give firm correction if someone heads off the rails. Make it really clear what behaviour is and is not acceptable.
If they head off the rails a second time during the probation period (particularly if it for the same problem you have already corrected them for), then it is time to let them go.
Yes, the person will be upset (as will you if you have half a heart) . But in the bigger scheme of things early mistakes are straws in the wind. If you don't notice and act on them you will be hit later on by the haystack blowing past.
I spent too many years dealing with problems where managers wanted to be "nice" and didn't take the hard decisions, that years later ended up in court or had reached a point where the business was in turmoil.
So the bottom line is during probation - monitor closely and act decisively.
 One of the problem areas for many managers in performance reviews are probationary reviews. I tackle this area in my Employee Performance Reviews: Tips, Templates & Tactics manual, as well as in my bonus MP3 training session on Probation Reviews.
This manual helps all managers to create effective performance reviews and tackles a host of "difficult" issues including:
- dealing with tears and anger
- tackling BO and gossip
- poor performers who mean well but just aren't getting it
- employees who overrate their performance
If you need to do performance reviews for your staff, then Employee Performance Reviews: Tips, Templates & Tactics is for you.
This week I saw one too many "to be the worl'd best (insert business here)" strategic plans for business. Do you really need to be the best to have a profitable and successful business?
exuberantly yours
Ingrid
Heart Harmony
PS: This week's Small Business Tips blog included a post about "Do Your Numbers Add Up "
Legal stuff: This newsletter is intended only a general guideline for Australian businesses. You should seek specific advice for your situation rather than relying only on this newsletter
Earnings disclaimer. Some of the content may include advertorial information, which means I may receive financial compensation for the products I recommend. But - unless I know and trust the product, I will not recommend it.
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