Our role is to support and guide your business towards certification. Our experienced assessors will help your business audit and improve its management systems, offering training and support where necessary. We take out all the heavy lifting and our experts will help you each step of the way.
The standards are designed to be generic, so we can flex around your company – our assessors are there to help you identify what is relevant for your business, whatever its size or turnover.
Richkop will make the journey towards ISO certification simple. For a free, no obligation meeting with an ISO Specialist to discuss how ISO certification can improve your organization’s efficiency and profitability, please click on contact us button!
Are you curious about the Richkop ISO implementation processes?
ISO doesn’t have to be complicated. At Richkop we make your journey simple.
A business plan can do wonders to clarify where you’ve been and where you’re going…
Why write a business plan? Simple: The business plan is the blueprint for your business. If you wanted to build a house, you wouldn’t walk over to an empty lot and just start nailing boards together. Starting a business without a business plan is just as risky.
Yet, unlike a house, a business isn’t static. We often make the mistake of thinking of a business plan as a single document that you just put together when you’re first starting out and then set aside. Something to check off the to-do list and be done with.
But in actuality, the business plan for any business will change over time as the business develops, and any particular business may have multiple business plans as its objectives change.
In the growth phase, an updated business plan is useful for forecasting or raising additional capital for expansion. And if you decide to sell or close the business, the business plan can include strategies and timelines for the transfer to new ownership or dissolution of the company.
If you’re not convinced yet, here are five good reasons to write a business plan when starting a new business.
1.To Test the Feasibility of Your Business Idea
Writing a business plan is the best way other than going out and doing it—to test whether an idea for starting a business is feasible. In this sense, the business plan is your safety net. If working through a business plan reveals that your business idea is untenable, it will save you a great deal of time and money.
Often, an idea for starting a business is discarded at the marketing analysis or competitive analysis stage, freeing you to move on to a new (and better) idea.
Unfortunately, many prospective business owners are convinced that their idea for a product or service is a can’t-miss proposition, so they don’t take the time to do the necessary research and work through a proper business plan. The more you know about your industry, your prospective customers, and the competition, the greater the likelihood that your business will succeed.
2.To Give Your Business the Best Chance of Success
Writing a business plan will ensure that you pay attention to the broad operational and financial objectives of your business and the small details, such as budgeting and market planning.
The exercise of budgeting and market planning will help you define your target market, your unique selling proposition, optimum pricing strategies, and outline how you intend to sell and deliver your products to customers. In addition, developing a budget for implementation will assist with determining your operating capital requirements.
3.To Secure Funding
Most new businesses need startup and operating capital to get off the ground. Without a well-developed business plan, there is no chance of getting debt financing from established financial institutions such as banks or equity financing from angel investors.
Established businesses often need money, too, to do things such as buy new equipment or property, or because of market downturns. Having an up-to-date business plan gives you a much better chance of getting the money you need to keep operating or to expand.
Investors and financiers are always looking at the risk of default, and word of mouth is no substitute for written facts and figures in a properly prepared business plan.
4.To Make Business Planning Manageable and Effective
A business plan is essential if you’re thinking of starting a business, but it’s also an important tool for established businesses. Viable businesses are dynamic; they change and grow. Your company’s original business plan needs to be revised as you set new goals.
Reviewing the business plan can also help you see what goals have been accomplished, what changes need to be made, or what new directions your company’s growth should take.
5.To Attract Investors
Whether you want to shop your business to venture capitalists or attract angel investors, you need to have a solid business plan. A presentation may pique their interest, but they’ll need a well-written document they can study before they’ll be prepared to make any investment commitment.
Be prepared to have your business plan scrutinized. Both venture capitalists and angel investors will want to conduct extensive background checks and competitive analyses to be certain that what’s written in your business plan is indeed the case.
Conclusion
Writing a business plan is time-consuming, but it’s essential if you want to have a successful business that’s going to survive. If your business doesn’t have one, maybe it’s time to start writing it. The process of writing a business plan can do wonders to clarify where you’ve been and where you’re going.
This article is for business owners who want to train their staff to deal with dissatisfied customers more effectively…
Although “the customer is always right,” they may not always be easy to deal with. Learning how to deal with difficult customers is an important step for any business owner, especially those who work in the customer service industry. Even businesses with the best products and services are bound to have occasional run-ins with angry customers.
To build a positive reputation with consumers, it is important to have properly trained staff who can handle difficult people and resolve customer complaints.
However, handling an angry customer doesn’t stop there. Here are several other techniques and strategies that your team can learn to enhance the quality of customer service when dealing with complaints.
Difficult customer experience scenarios
The impatient customer
The situation: An impatient customer may have been waiting in line longer than usual, they may be running late to their next appointment, or maybe they’re restless while you search for a solution to their issue or concern.
How to handle it: Be clear and to the point without appearing dismissive of their demeanor. Explain transparently why there’s a wait or delay without getting into specifics. Make sure an impatient customer knows that effort is being invested in resolving the situation.
Frame your answers in a positive light, too. For example, instead of saying that an item is out of stock, explain that a new delivery is expected by a certain date or that you are working quickly to restock the items in question.
The indecisive customer
The situation: An indecisive customer struggles to choose between several products or service options, but they may not communicate this concern to you.
How to handle it: Ask specific questions about some of the most common factors that impact decision-making, including features, service tiers and price. If you have any literature that can help them make a decision, point them to those resources as well. Most importantly, listen to their concerns with care.
The angry customer
The situation: No matter the scenario or solution, an angry customer is simply not satisfied with the end result, and attempts to rectify the situation are not helping or are worsening the situation.
How to handle it: Even if you don’t feel it’s warranted, begin the interaction by apologizing for the issue. Try to resolve the situation by addressing pointed grievances they have regarding the subject at hand. Remember to keep it brief: The longer you linger, the more opportunities for grievances arise and the less time you have to spend with your other customers.
The demanding customer
The situation: A demanding customer zaps lots of your energy and time, often at the expense of other customers. They may be dead set on the product or solution they want and may not accept alternatives, even those that are a better fit for their needs.
How to handle it: Speak slowly and be patient. Hear their concerns and move swiftly to address them. Be transparent, too; answers to buy time or put off their needs while addressing other customers may not go over well.
The vague customer
The situation: This customer comes to your business without a clear idea of what they need. They may have difficulty articulating the problem, or they may not have a complete understanding of their options. As you ask questions to get to the heart of the issue, the answers don’t necessarily help or may even add more confusion to the situation.
How to handle it: Just like with the indecisive customer, ask a vague customer pointed and specific questions about their needs. This is more likely to provide the information you need to best help them. Each question you ask should be with the purpose of getting to the bottom of the situation so you don’t spend too much time while other customers are waiting.
The customer that demands a refund
The situation: This customer type is so disappointed or unhappy with the product or service that they are requesting their money back.
How to handle it: Each company has their own refund policy, as well as regulations that determine what items can be taken back. While the best course of action is to provide a refund in full or in part, your company may want to offer a credit toward future purchases. If you do give the refund, be clear about when it was processed and how long they can expect it to take.
The unhappy customer
The situation: Despite your best efforts to resolve their situation, the customer is still dissatisfied with the resolutions offered.
How to handle it: An angry customer and an unhappy customer require a similar response. Begin with an apology, even if you don’t feel like one is warranted. Briefly take stock of the solutions offered and attempt to offer something else; consult your company policies to determine what you can offer in this situation. During the conversation, don’t dismiss their concerns or complaints; listen with a sympathetic and attentive ear.
Some strategies for dealing with difficult customers
First and foremost, listen. Do not try to talk over the customer or argue with them. Let the customer have their say, even if you know what they are going to say next, that they don’t have all the information or that they are mistaken. As you listen, take the opportunity to build rapport with the customer.
Build rapport through empathy. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Echo the source of their frustration and show that you understand their position and situation. If you can empathize with a customer’s problem, it will help calm them down.
Stay calm. If the customer is swearing or being verbally abusive, take a deep breath and continue as if you didn’t hear them. Responding in kind will not solve anything, and it will usually escalate the situation. Instead, remind the customer that you are there to help them and are their best immediate chance of resolving the situation. This simple statement often helps defuse the situation.
Don’t take it personally. Always speak to the issue at hand and do not get personal, even if the customer does. Remember that the customer doesn’t know you and is just venting frustration at you as a representative of your company. Gently guide the conversation back to the issue and how you intend to resolve it.
This article is for business owners and managers who want to expedite deadlines through efficient project management…
When starting a project for your company, you need a plan in place to keep everything on track. A project manager’s job is to be the point person for this plan, overseeing every step of the project to ensure its success. There are several project management styles, and the one that’s best for you will depend on both your team and the scope of the project.
Good project management not only ensures that your project aligns with your company’s strategic goals, but also establishes a clear and focused process to achieve them. It sets realistic and achievable goals for each phase of the project, holds all team members accountable for their part in the process, and ensures all steps are completed correctly and in a timely manner.
Project Management Styles to Consider
You know the importance of project management and determining the right style for your team, but how do you know which one to choose? Here are some of the most popular types of project management, as well as their pros and cons.
1.PRINCE2 Project Management
PRINCE2 (Projects in Controlled Environments) project management focuses on organization and structure through the project’s life span. With PRINCE2, projects must have a business justification, including a detailed cost assessment and baseline requirements, before they are initiated. Team members’ roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, and the project is broken into phases, with plenty of time for quality control and reflection.
The PRINCE2 project management style emphasizes an organized and controlled process, while still offering the flexibility to make changes as necessary along the way. The time spent reflecting on each stage allows team members to learn from the project and apply these lessons to future projects. However, the highly detailed process often requires extensive documentation and can be slower than other project management styles.
2.Lean Project Management
Lean project management is a philosophy that focuses on increasing efficiency across processes. In the principles of Lean, project managers must first specify what value means for the customer. Then, they must identify the project’s value stream – the sum of all the actions necessary for the project to reach completion – and eliminate actions or processes that don’t add value. This evaluation process is ongoing, allowing for customer feedback and continuous improvement.
The Lean project management style can be applied to a number of different industries and used in conjunction with other principles, such as Kanban.
3.Six Sigma Project Management
Similarly to Lean project management, the Six Sigma method focuses on understanding the needs of the customer, eliminating waste and continuously improving processes to deliver a high-quality project.
Despite the number in its name, Six Sigma has five phases, referred to as DMAIC:
Define the project.
Measure data.
Analyze the root of any problems.
Improve processes.
Control by implementing solutions.
Six Sigma also keeps in mind the four constraints of a project: scope, time, cost and quality. It focuses on clearly defining and planning for each of these constraints without compromising any of the others. This has the obvious advantage of increasing efficiency and organization. However, the structured nature of the process makes for a more cautious approach and can potentially inhibit innovation and flexibility.
4.Agile Project Management
In contrast to the linear nature of Waterfall project management, Agile project management is an iterative system. A project using Agile methodology has several iterations or releases, providing plenty of opportunities to adjust along the way. It breaks the larger goal into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be worked on simultaneously, decreasing the time required to complete a project.
This management style works well for projects that require frequent innovation, collaboration and modifications. This is why it’s highly popular in the field of software development, where technology and customer needs are constantly changing.
It should be noted that “Agile” is an umbrella term for a set of guiding principles, rather than its own distinct step-by-step method. Agile project management can be subdivided into two schools of thought: Scrum and Kanban.
5.Scrum Project Management
Derived from Agile project management, the Scrum methodology focuses on completing work in short cycles called “sprints.” Teams have “daily standups,” which are brief meetings held to discuss task progress and address any issues. These meetings are led by a “Scrum master,” whose main responsibility is to oversee the day-to-day work and remove any impediments to productivity.
Scrum project management helps teams turn projects around quickly, while maintaining quality as well as flexibility for changes as needed. It emphasizes productivity and collaboration and is an especially effective system for small organizations or teams.
6.Kanban Project Management
Another system derived from Agile project management, Kanban methodology helps managers to visualize and organize their team’s workflow. It emphasizes eliminating wasteful work and inconsistencies to increase productivity and efficiency. To do this, Kanban divides projects into smaller tasks, allowing team members to focus on one actionable task at a time.
Team members and project managers can easily visualize assigned tasks and progress in real time with a Kanban board. A Kanban board has separate columns for each stage of the process, such as “to do,” “in progress” and “complete.” While Kanban is commonly associated with software development, its principles can be applied to nearly any industry.
7.Waterfall Project Management
Waterfall project management is a straightforward, linear system in which a project is divided into distinct phases, and the next phase cannot begin until the prior one is complete. The process and each team member’s responsibilities are clearly defined and mapped out from the beginning; they are not expected to change over the lifespan of the project.
Waterfall project management is ideal for longer, linear projects that require step-by-step phase completion, as well as projects with a static goal and scope. If your project has overlapping timelines or requires frequent modifications along the way – for example, incorporating customer feedback on an ongoing basis – the Waterfall model can be limiting.
What makes a project manager an effective leader?
A project manager must have excellent communication and interpersonal skills. They must be able to clearly convey goals, expectations and the big picture of the project to their team, which comprises people with varying roles and personality types. They must also build the trust of others, both at the individual and team level. To do this, a project manager must demonstrate not only their competence, but their commitment to upholding their personal values as well as the company’s.
Successful project management also requires a certain temperament. A project manager must maintain a positive attitude and keep themselves and the team focused on the project at hand. They must be able to make informed decisions and take responsibility for the outcomes. This means a project manager needs to stay calm under pressure, working quickly and creatively to solve any problems that arise.
In an era where customers know exactly what they want, customer intelligence is a key…
What Is Customer Intelligence?
Simply put, customer intelligence is the gathering and analyzing of customer data. It helps you get to know more about your customers’ actions regarding your business. You have to do this in a fast and efficient way because your competition is also trying to get an edge in the market.
How Customer Intelligence Can Help Your Business
Customer intelligence is less about the information that you obtain and more about the way you analyze and use this information to better serve your target market. While collecting customer intelligence, you will gather plenty of data. Unless you analyze it properly, gain useful insights and make great business decisions, it is pretty useless.
Done well, customer intelligence enables you to have your finger on the pulse of your target market. In this position, you are able to make the best business decisions to ensure that your organization meets all the needs that your customers have or are likely to have in the future. At the end of it all, you achieve quantifiable results that you can directly tie to the decisions driven by the insight obtained from the customer intelligence.
Why Customer Intelligence Is Important
Customer intelligence will do your business plenty of good, endearing you to your customers. It puts your business in the shoes of the customer, enabling you to see and feel what is expected from you as an organization. Obtaining this perspective and using it to your advantage will put your business head and shoulders above the competition.
Reasons to Start Using Customer Intelligence
Up until this point, we’ve been talking up the importance of using customer intelligence. But why exactly should you integrate it into your business process? Here is a handful of reasons you should seriously consider adopting customer intelligence in your organization.
1.Foster Loyalty Between Customers and Your Business
Back in the day, painting a comprehensive picture of your customer base was a process that took ages. By the time you identified and attempted to address their gripes about your business, they had moved on to a competitor who could address it. Newer methods of gathering customer intelligence mean you can get to know what your customers require in real time and address it as soon as possible.
Customers will stay loyal to your brand when you always cater to their needs and assuage any worries that crop up during their purchasing journey. It is, therefore, vital that you always know what they need and fill this need as soon as possible – before the competition takes advantage.
2.Monitor Changes in the Market as they happen
Customer intelligence provides you with a constant stream of information about your customers and the industry at large. This means you are up-to-date with the goings-on at every level of your target market. This real-time customer intelligence provides you with insights that you can use to make quick decisions.
3.Improve Sales Efficiency
Success lies in the number of customers who come back to do repeat business with your company. This means that you should not be contented with a large number of customers who buy once and then go elsewhere. You need to make sure that you capture as many of these customers so that they can offer you repeat business. This is where customer intelligence comes in handy.
Customer intelligence enables you to monitor your customer journey and identify the areas that you can make more efficient so that your buyers have the best experience when doing business with you. If they go through this smoothly, they are more likely to return and become loyal to the brand.
4.Customer Intelligence Adds Agility to Your Strategy
You might be employing a number of strategies to drive traffic to your store (online or offline) so that you can improve your sales. This creates a situation where you are expending a lot of time and resources. Some of them redundant on achieving the same goal.
Looking at it from afar, it seems like your strategies are working. However, if you surgically analyze the situation, you will find that only a couple of the strategies are actually making a sizable difference.
Customer intelligence enables you to get insights into which strategy makes a bigger impact with your customers. You can then direct the rest of the resources and energy to other areas of your business. Like coming up with a better customer retention strategy or efficient workflow in the organization.
5.Customer Intelligence Helps You Be More Relatable to Your Customer Base
With customer intelligence, you are able to know what the customers prefer. By taking in these preferences, you are able to craft a persona that your target market can relate to. The more they can relate to you, the more likely they are to choose your business over that of your competitors.
Conclusion
If you are looking to gain an edge on your competition, you should seriously consider using customer intelligence to inform your business decisions. The insights you gain from analyzing this intelligence will increase brand loyalty. It will also increase your sales and make your business ready to address any changes that occur in the industry. Contact Us for your Customer Intelligence Support.
A SWOT analysis is a good tool for business strategy…
A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps a business owner identify his/her strengths and weaknesses, as well as any opportunities and threats that may exist in a specific business situation. A SWOT analysis is most commonly used as part of a marketing plan, but it is also a good tool for general business strategizing and serves as a starting point for team discussions.
When conducted thoroughly, a SWOT analysis can uncover a wealth of information and can be useful in a number of situations. This article will walk you through how to conduct a SWOT analysis and provide some tips that will help you use the tool effectively.
Using a SWOT Analysis Matrix.
A SWOT matrix is usually depicted as a square divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant represents one element of the SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
Questions to Ask During the Process
The easiest way to start filling in each quadrant is by answering a series of questions. Use the list below to get started, focusing on the questions that are most relevant to your business and current situation.
Strengths: For this quadrant, think about your and your business’s attributes that will help you achieve your objective. Questions to consider:
What do you do well?
What are your unique skills?
What expert or specialized knowledge do you have?
What experience do you have?
What do you do better than your competitors?
Where are you most profitable in your business?
Weaknesses: For this quadrant, think about the your and your business’s attributes that could hurt your progress in achieving your objective. Questions to consider:
In what areas do you need to improve?
What resources do you lack?
What parts of your business are not profitable?
Where do you need further education and/or experience?
What costs you time and/or money?
Opportunities: For this quadrant, think about the external conditions that will help you achieve your objective. Questions to consider:
What are the business goals you are currently working towards?
How can you do more with your existing customers or clients?
How can you use technology to enhance your business?
Are there new target audiences you have the potential to reach?
Are there related products and services that provide an opportunity for your business?
Threats: For this quadrant, think about the external conditions that could damage your business’s performance. Questions to consider:
What obstacles do you face?
What are the strengths of your biggest competitors?
What are your competitors doing that you’re not?
What’s going on in the economy?
What’s going on in the industry?
Using Data Compiled in a SWOT Analysis
One of the most important parts of your SWOT analysis is using the data you compiled to identify new strategies and goals for your business. For example, you can:
Create a plan to build up your strengths even more.
List ways you can work on building up your weaknesses.
Set SMART goals for each of the opportunities you identified.
Devise a plan to use your strengths to decrease the threats you identified.
Then, look for ways to combine data from different quadrants in even more ways:
Explore how you can combine your strengths and opportunities to develop new strategies.
Try combining strengths and threats to identify threats you can eliminate.
Look at your weaknesses and opportunities to create a list of areas ready for improvement.
Make a list of areas to avoid that fall under weaknesses and threats.
Once you understand how to compile your SWOT data and find ways to use it strategically, the SWOT analysis will be a tool that you can use over and over in your business to explore new opportunities and improve your decision-making process.
Customer satisfaction is the key to successful business development…
1.Treat every customer as if they were a VIP Give every customer the same excellent treatment as you would like to receive yourself. It’s as simple as that! You could use some of the following approaches:
Thank your customers for their business, both in person and also printed on the receipt.
Make a real effort to help your customers and assist them in every way you can.
Keep your promises and integrity. If you say that you will contact them to let them know when an item is back in stock – be sure that you do! Every so often, businesses forget or fail to get back to their customers, who might very well find another supplier in the meantime.
2.Keep measuring customer satisfaction Studies show that 91% of unhappy customers will never come back to a business they believe is below par. By frequently measuring customer satisfaction, you can reduce the number of unsatisfied customers and prevent customer churn. An effective and easy way to measure customer satisfaction is using an online survey tool from a survey provider.
3.Know how you should survey your customers happiness – the right way With a customer feedback survey, you are able to find out how happy your customers are with you, if and what you need to do to improve your product or service and to identify those customers who love your product and could possibly send new customers your way. A Net Promoter Score is the ultimate survey to find out how likely it is that your customer would recommend your business to others, with one simple question. If you choose to have a slightly more comprehensive survey, make sure you keep it fairly short, less than 10 questions and not longer than 3.5 minutes.
4.Keep an eye on what customers say about you on social media When you track and monitor customer satisfaction on social media you are updated on both positive and negative feedback and can take appropriate measures to resolve them. The majority of people use their mobile phones up to 150 times per day and many of them turn to social media when they want to leave a complaint. Take the opportunity and use social media to increase your customer satisfaction!
Here is how you can use social media:
As a customer support channel – make sure you are active and respond to your customers within 24 hours.
Emotional connections in business can help prospects turn into customers…
Emotions are the driving force behind most buying decisions. Creating strong emotions – either positive or negative – can help build a bond between your customers and your business. Positive emotions are vital to a good retail customer experience as a loyal customer is more likely to recommend your business than a one-time customer.
A brand’s connection with consumers’ emotions, also known as brand intimacy, directly affects the growth of its business. Brand intimacy encourages bonds that are reciprocal and are deepened by emotions. The user must have engaged with or repeatedly tried a brand before a connection is expected.
Brand intimacy model
A strong emotional connection is determined by the degree of overall positive feelings a customer has toward a brand and the extent to which a person associates the brand with key attributes. Some of the patterns or markers of such intimacy are fulfillment (when your brand delivers service that exceeds expectations), identity, nostalgia, indulgence, ritual and enhancement.
There are various stages that reveal the degrees of brand intimacy with customers: Sharing is when the user and a brand engage and interact. In the bonding stage, acceptance and trust are established when an attachment is created, and the relationship between a user and a brand becomes more significant and committed.
Fusing is when a person and a brand are inexorably linked and co-identified. The identities of the person and the brand have merged and become a form of mutual expression.
A Marketing agency developed a model, which measures brand level intimacy and assigns a brand intimacy quotient. A first step is building strong emotional connections with the customer. This can be achieved by investing in any of the six archetypes or characters of bonds.
Fulfillment: Meeting a customer’s needs beyond their expectations. This positions your brand as one that over delivers.
Identity: Creating an aspirational image that resonates deeply with consumers. Customers identify as a group and feel the brand represents them.
Enhancement: Helping customers become better, smarter and more capable through using your brand. This reinforces your brand reputation and makes consumers even more connected to your brand.
Ritual: Making your brand part of the daily routine of your readers. Think of the blog that you read daily and consider how you feel about the brand. Certainly, the connection is far more intimate than a blog you visit randomly.
Nostalgia: Evoking the memories customers have of your brand is a sure way to make the connection deeper. This is particularly effective if a brand had been part of a customer’s childhood.
Indulgence: Creating a relationship around fun and gratifying experiences. Consider your to-do activities in your moments of bliss and reflect on the brands you interact with.
Thefollowing are best practices for your business
Practice empathy
One of the easiest ways to connect with your customers is to read body language, ask questions, pay attention and offer concise solutions at any point of contact. This is especially important in the sharing stage. If consumers feel you are not invested enough in solving their problems, they won’t be moved into a relationship.
Be authentic.
The best way to send a brand to oblivion is to lose it a sea of sameness. Gone are the days when outlandish corporate-speak was the trade of the market. Today’s consumers expect a brand to connect with them in an instinctive human way. Doing these means finding and pushing your brand’s uniqueness in non-intrusive ways.
Identify what drives the customers
Zeroing in on what emotionally motivates your target market helps nurture an emotional connection. As an example, many customers may want to be perceived as unique and special. Marketing efforts, in this case, should be extremely personalized with associates making themselves readily available to meet client needs.
Show your caring side
Companies that act tone-deaf during key moments in our history can be a major turnoff to customers looking for an emotional connection with their brands. Brands don’t have to become political, but they do want to demonstrate their human sides. Participating in relief efforts or donating to disaster recovery efforts are just two examples.
Connect whenever possible
When interacting with customers always put yourself in their shoes. What’s important to them? How can you talk in their “language”? Be willing to connect with customers both in person and through outlets like social media.
Tell stories
If you look at the six archetypes, you would find that it would be nearly impossible for a brand to score for any of those points without strong storytelling. Timepiece brands use storytelling to build strong traditions around their products. No matter how big or small or the brand is, we see storytelling playing a pivotal role in building brand intimacy.
It takes strategic sales management to win back the ones that left…
It’s inevitable in sales that you will win some and you will lose some. Not every customer is aligned with your company’s thinking and sometimes it just wasn’t meant to be.
But for the most part, these lost customers don’t have to stay that way. It just takes some strategic sales management to turn the situation around and win back the one that got away. Here’s how:
1.Consider Why They Left
Some customers aren’t just salvageable, and therefore the time and effort spent on trying to win them back could be better spent elsewhere. If they can be won back however, the solution will lie in the reason they decided to jump ship in the first place.
Usually the catalyst for the customer deciding to leave is a misalignment in the product/service you are offering and their expectations. And the only way to find this out is by asking customers who leave to give honest feedback on their decision. You can then distinguish what needs to be done to win them back as well as learn from their feedback to prevent further customers leaving for these reasons in the future.
2.Adapt Your Offer
Often people are enticed to leave by the prospect of a perceived ‘better value’ or lower priced offer from a competitor.
The perceived value of what is being offered by yourself and your competitors is the key to winning back old customers, and if people are jumping ship in favour of a competitor’s offers then you need to review your own offers.
This could mean adjusting the price or offering slightly more for that price. In many cases, simple adjusting the way the ‘value’ of your offer is put across to appear better than it previously did can be enough to sway lost customers.
3.Accept Responsibility and Apologise
Ever heard the saying ‘the customer is always right’? Sometimes things go wrong and cause an issue with the product or service, or the customer just isn’t 100% happy with what they received. Even if the fault isn’t directly your own (e.g. if a supplier is late with the delivery of a product or a third party service provider working through you is at fault), you should still accept responsibility and apologise.
Aiming to rectify the situation with excellent customer service will, in most cases, leave the customer feeling positive about the company once again and see them return their custom despite the issue. Often, it’s not the problem itself that causes the customer to never return, it’s the way it is handled by the company.
4.Don’t Send In ANew Salesperson
It’s a common mistake, but sending in a new salesperson with no prior knowledge of or interaction with the customer will not help the situation. It is better for a member of management, particularly one who has dealt with this customer before, to deliver the win-back sales pitch and resolve the situation.
The familiarity and experience of the sales manager will make for a better connection with the lost customer, and the sales manager will be able to better gauge the situation having had prior knowledge and experience of this customer or similar situations.
Conclusion
The art of winning back lost customers will differ from company to company and from customer to customer, and it is important to approach each situation afresh to gauge what action should or shouldn’t be taken. Almost every lost customer is open to be won back if the right offer is on the table or if they are dealt with in the right way. But there will always be one customer who doesn’t want to come back no matter what you say or do, and in this case you just have to accept that you can’t win them all.