Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Smart Tips to Effectively Handle Difficult Customers



Article by Valentine Okolo

Customers do complain when they are unhappy with a situation. These customers may sometimes pour their frustrations on you. You must remain calm and understand that the customer is usually not angry at you but at the situation. In such situations, try to win the customers respect by handling the situation professionally with a view to providing the customer a pleasant experience at the end.

Research shows when people are unhappy they normally don't complain. According to some researches, less than 4% complain and 96% just walk away, never to do business with you again. Unhappy customers tell others about their bad experience. On average, an unhappy customer tells between 10-20 people about his bad experience. This means if 10 customers are unhappy, the chances are that 200 people will hear the story. The damage to your company/business is inevitable.

In order to avoid this, you must learn to manage customer complaints with a view to achieving a positive outcome. So here are smart tips to help you effectively handle difficult customers.

1.       Learn to Control Your Emotions: When handling an irate customer, take a deep breath, keep the smile flowing, maintain a positive body language and demonstrate confidence. You must master the art of Emotional Intelligence.  Do not rush the customer. Allow the customer to vent off. Listen carefully to ensure that you fully understand the situation so that you can work towards providing a solution.

2.       Try to Be Comforting and Demonstrate the Act of Empathy:  This shows the customer that you are concerned about their worry and that you will work towards resolving the issue. Immediately apologize to the customer if you or your organization is wrong and assure the customer that you will work towards resolving the issue.

3.       Be Professional Even in the Face of Provocation: Some customers don’t handle frustrations very well. Such customers may get really upset and complain using a high tone that is discomforting. Remain calm and professional keeping in mind those customer complaints also present sale opportunities.

4.       Consider All Your Alternatives Before Responding:  When responding, be reasonable, firm, pleasant, mature and professional. This demonstrates to the customer that you will always do what is right no matter what. Take time out to think and then respond.

5.       Do More of Listening than Responding: The most successful way to handle such customers is to listen and use your body language to communicate that you are totally concerned.

Article by Valentine Okolo

These 7 Proven Strategies will Boost Retail Sales Volume and Improve Your Customer Patronage By 100% this Holiday Season

Article By Valentine Okolo

      Holiday seasons can be hectic due to large volume of sales, customer demands and the need to achieve company year-end targets. It's hard to keep a lid over the can while ensuring that service standards remain impeccable during this period. So, how do i ensure my customer service agents, Sales Representatives and Employees are hitting sales by delivering that wowing service every customer wants?

7 proven strategies to increase retail sales



      These 7 Proven Strategies will Increase Retail Sales Volume and Improve Your Customer Experience By 100% this Holiday Season
  
      Ensure Employees are Emotionally Intelligent                          


Customers learn to trust you when they discover you genuinely care about their feelings and their business. Showing empathy demonstrates to them that it’s not just about their money but that friendship is equally important.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to learn or understand the feelings of others. When translated to service delivery, emotional intelligence becomes the ability to learn or understand the feelings of your customers. To do this effectively, it becomes imperative that everyone in the organization learns to display a good degree of empathy in discharging service to the customer. I have written an elaborate article on emotional intelligence which you can find here.

Employ Service Driven Personnel
The truth is that we are all salesmen one way or the other. Whether you are a front desk officer, cleaner, security man, business executive, business owner or back end officer, we are all working for one thing; to promote and grow the business we work for.

Customers will continue to patronize you as long as they continue to have good experiences over and over again. This means that as a customer service representative or service person, you must continue to provide a wowing experience every time a customer visits you which lead to customer satisfaction. It therefore follows that for your business to be successful there is no substitute for satisfying the customer. In order to deliver that superb customer service experience, service personnel must learn to demonstrate at all times those customer service skills that portray them as true service professional.
These include: Exuding Integrity at all times, being Emotionally Intelligent to customer’s needs, Being the Expert they need,  always delivering on promises, Being Skilled in the Act of Managing Problem Customers, Communicating clearly and professionally, Being Responsible all times at, Dressing Smartly Your dressing is a reflection of who you are and the company you represent. Remember that you will be perceived and addressed how you dress. Dress beautifully, smart, professionally and responsibly, Understanding What Drives Customer Behavior and being certified. Read my in-depth article on 10 Customer Service Skills a Customer Service Representative Needs

      Use Mystery Shopping
A mystery shopper is a person employed by an organization, often temporarily, to buy goods and services from it with the aim of ascertaining the quality of service delivery by staffs within the organization.  The mystery shopper is often times unknown to the staff that will be attending to him/her. This distinct advantage allows the mystery shopper to obtain facts about the conditions of service given to him/her and obtainable within the organization without bias.

Mystery shopping has become a perfect tool for achieving excellence in service delivery as organizations now use this to improve on areas that impact negatively on service delivery. Get my in-depth article onhow to employ mystery shopping here.

      Perform Performance Service Appraisals: Performance appraisal is an excellent tool that can be used to measure whether service standards are improving or not. These service standards are measured using performance metrics that measure salient points that define the quality of service your organization renders.


      Use Customer Surveys:

Customer surveys can tell you how well you are doing and help correct service errors. Its helps guide you to determine whether the customers you are serving are satisfied with the quality of service being delivered during the period.

      Be Sure to Prepare Your Service Personnel through Trainings:

Training is essential to success. Preparing service persons to deal with and cope with the holiday rush is a sure recipe to success. Customer service persons should be trained to: manage impatient customers, irate customers manage customer emotions and feelings and handle increased packaging and customer requests.

       Obtain and Manage Feedback Properly
Feedback allows you to determine: whether your clients are totally satisfied with the product or service you’ve rendered ,what your clients may expect as product or service modifications, additional products or services that are required that you may not have been originally aware of and your customer service ratings. Thank you.

Article By Valentine Okolo

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Top 10 Small Business Killers: Common Mistakes Businesses make



Article By Valentine Okolo
Deciding to start your own business can be one of the most exciting and rewarding decisions you make in your life. A good percentage of new businesses fail today for a number of reasons which I will be explaining in this post. 



In today’s business world, succeeding in a new venture can be quite challenging and demands adequate strategics and planning. As a matter of fact, whether you will succeed or fail depends on how you’re your planning and executing strategy is.

Now when you plan, you must anticipate every possible scenario and when you execute you must do so with the greatest of diligence and attention to detail. Am not going to talk about new business planning, I have already covered that in a separate post which you can find here: 5 Tips to Help YouWrite an Effective Business Plan. Am going to talk about how you can avoid the worst nightmare that can befall any new business: The 10 Killers of New Businesses.

1.     Bad Management
A business is only as good as its owners and those who manage it. Bad management can be seen in a lack of clear objectives or strategy, confusion among senior leadership, poor decision-making.

Bad management usually starts with a faulty business plan or no business plan at all. No let me say this: if you don’t have a clearly marshaled business plan on paper; DON’T START. Please read myarticle “5 Tips to Help You Write an Effective Business Plan”. 

As a rule, you should always have a business plan before venturing into any business. Poor business research or missing out critical details can also spell the doom of the business even before starting. If your business must survive, then you must get it right from the business plan.


2.     Inadequate Working Capital
Inadequate working capital is what I call “Business Cancer”. It will eat up the life of that business slowly and surely. Most people think that the moment they can come up with the capital to start a new business, they are good. Take my advice, if you do not have enough money to take care of overheads for at least the first 2 years of the new business, DON’T START. A new business is like a new baby that needs food to grow, starve the baby and she would die.

3.     Poor Customer Service
Some people take great pains to start a business and then employ nonchalant people to serve their customers.

One truth you must know about customers is this:
Customers are both demanding and ruthless; they reward highly those companies that serve them best and allow those companies that serve them poorly to fail.

Let’s face it; customers care more about themselves and their own satisfaction than they do about the success or failure of your company. Customers will continue to patronize you as long as they continue to have good experiences over and over again. This means that as a customer service representative or service person, you must continue to provide a wowing experience every time a customer visits you which lead to customer satisfaction. It therefore follows that for your business to be successful there is no substitute for satisfying the customer. In order for you to deliver that superb customer service experience, you must learn to demonstrate at all times those customer service skills that portray you a true service professional. So here are customer service skills every customer servicerepresentative should possess.

4.     Wrong Business Location
Location is everything. I have seen people run out of business because their business was located in places where their targeted audiences weren’t in. You must first determine where your target audience is located and how best to reach them.


5.     Overwhelming Competition
Competition includes all the actual and potential rival offerings and substitutes a buyer might consider. Understand that your competitors include actual and potential offerings from industry operators, potential new entrants and market competitors.

A new business can easily be muscled out by a strong competitor who has already gained grounds in the market. Competitors can be ruthless and to survive you must learn to be even more ruthless and determined. You need a lot of patience and consistency to gradually create a niche for yourself. No matter how hard it may seem, hang in there, with time you would gradually begin to create a space for yourself. One advice though: ensure you don’t run out of working capital.

To analyze its competitors, a company must identify its competitor’s strategies, objectives, strengths and weaknesses and then device its own strategies to overcome them. It must also have a clear understanding of the environment it operates in. With all these being said, you need a business strategy to overcome the competitor.

The strategies available to a company will depend on the strength of opposition it is facing, its distinctive competencies, the expectations of its customers, the conditions prevalent in its environment, its resource capabilities, the cost/benefit derivable from the application of the strategy and its current position within the market. In addition, your strategy will also depend amongst so many other factors on your:

i.         financial muscle,
ii.       objective,
iii.      the level of competition,
iv.     competitors approach,
v.       your market position,
vi.     Marketing indices amongst others

For instance, a Low-Cost Provider Strategy will allow you to be the industry’s lowest cost provider. The company decides to pursue this in two ways:

     A) Lower price below that of its competitors in other to attract buyers and maximize profits.
     B) Lower its cost of production while keeping price constant in other to reduce costs and increase profits.

Whichever option it chooses, the company must be careful to ensure quality is not eroded and that all basic functionalities and features of the product or service they render are not affected. When employing a low cost strategy, you must find ways to cut costs across board by ensuring all cost drivers are lower than that of your competitors. In essence, while pursuing points A or B above; costs must be cut across production, administration, marketing, purchasing, research and development, finance and human resources.

The Broad Differentiation strategy on the other hand allows a company to design or attach unique features or attributes to its product or services such that consumers become attracted to the product or service because of its unique features. A company pursuing a differentiation strategy is more concerned about the quality of the offering rather than price cuts.

The Low-Cost Provider Strategy and the Broad Differentiation strategy are only a few out of a good number of competitive strategies that can be employed and because it is so broad, I would not be able to cover it in this article. However, you may avail my course on “Overcoming Competition in Business” to comprehensively study them.


6.     No Backup Plan
Try to have a backup plan for every possible scenario. Make sure your plan has a plan in case it fails. Make use of Insurance. Remember: there are 3 ways to manage a risk: To effectively handle these business risks, the following steps should be taken:

             Assess The Risk: To effectively assess the risk the following question need to be answered. Does a risk indeed exist? If it does exist, is there any alternative to be chosen? How much information is available about these alternatives? What is the potential impact of the risk should it occur?

             Assess the Alternatives: What would it cost the organization to pursue each of these alternatives? Note that the cost being referred to include both financial costs, human costs, cost to the organizations image, material costs, environmental costs, competitors reaction to your course of action etc. Alternatives could also present the option to:
a)            Transfer the Risk to another party more competent to handle it. (E.g. through insurance, joint ventures and strategic alliances, outsourcing etc.)
b)            Mitigate the Risk. I.e. to manage the impact of the risk by minimizing the odds.
c)            Ignore the Risk. I.e. brace yourself and accept the impact.

             Implement the Alternative Chosen: Once an alternative is selected, an implementation plan is quickly arranged. The plan should clearly itemize steps needed to implement the strategy chosen. The implementation plan should also have a backup plan for another alternative strategy should the former fail. There should also be a feedback process to handle issues that may arise in the course of implementation.

7.     Inadequate Marketing
Selling is probably the most important part of any business. Good selling involves providing the right product and services to your customers thereby creating customer satisfaction.

If you’re not selling, then you would soon be out of business. It’s that simple. A lot of upcoming SME’s find it difficult to come up with advertising cash. To sell effectively you need to do 3 things:

a.       Acquire basic sales, marketing and business development skills. There’s nothing more embarrassing than a salesman who lacks product knowledge. To cut a long story short, when you acquire basic sales, marketing and business development skills, you will be able to: Develop your personal sales standard, Acquire basic customer communications skills, Have an effective marketing strategy, Identify your niche market and strategies to win your niche market as well and Understand what business development is all about and the process by which new business is introduced.

b.      Master the art of managing customers. To be precise, you need to display exceptional emotional intelligence.

c.       Thirdly, you need to master the art of sales forecasting. To be precise, you need to be able to anticipate future events with a certain degree of clarity.




8.     Unskilled Employees

Inexperienced and unskilled employees are totally undesirable in my own opinion when employing for new businesses that are technical or professional in nature. This is one of the fastest ways to ensure the new business goes 6 ft. under the ground.

As a new business, employees must have excellent product/service knowledge to help them perform their duties quickly and accurately. Customers trust your organization when they know your employees have the expertise and knowledge to deliver.

9.     Mad Risk Taking
Did I hear you say, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward? Well, you may be right, but remember that it goes vice versa. My expert advice is to start small for new businesses. Test your business plan first, if all goes well then you can increase the stakes. Mad risk taking is dangerous and in my opinion silly. Come to think of it, why would you put all your life savings in one mad venture? Don’t forget the 3 ways I earlier mentioned on how to manage a risk. But seriously, to learn more about how to manage business risks, read this article on “Evaluating and ManagingBusiness Risk in Organizations”

10.   Excessive Spending
Unwise spending from a business profits does kill the business. Allow your new business to grow and then spend wisely from it.

If you enjoyed this article, then like it, Share it on Facebook, Google+, Pintrest, Twitter and of course comment.

Cheers.

Article By Valentine Okolo

Monday, December 28, 2015

Proven Strategies for Serving and Retaining Customers With Disabilities



Every customer is a unique individual with diverse backgrounds, needs, thoughts and expectations. The key to providing a unique customer experience lies in your ability to go the extra mile by personalizing your service to meet your customer’s expectations.

Some customers are quite different from others. For instance, you may need to exercise more care when managing physically challenged customers. Keep in mind that it may take such customers more time to get things done than it would take your usual customers. As such, service personnel’s must be patient when managing physically challenged customers.




When Managing a Physically Challenged Customer, Always allow the customer dictate the pace of the transaction. Never rush the customer.


You may be faced with the option of dealing with a customer that has a hearing impairment, or a visual impairment, speech impairment or physical impairment.

Managing a Customer that has a Hearing Impairment
While serving a customer that has a hearing impairment, ensure you are clearly visible to the customer. Speak clearly, slowly and with a normal tone, occasionally gesticulating to aid understanding. Make sure that the customer can see your lips. Repeat key words only when you feel the customer is not following you.

You may use a pen to write certain information when confidentiality is involved and there are other people around or you may make use of a private room. Always be mindful of confidentiality of customer information.

Managing a Customer that Has a Visual Impairment
When working with a customer that has a visual impairment, politely ask the customer whether he/she requires any help. You should guide the customer when required to fill out any forms or reading any report.

Note: Do not be overly helpful if not asked as this may seem offensive.

Managing a Customer that Has a Speech Impairment
When dealing with a customer that has speech impairment, patience is the keyword. Do not rush the customer. Patiently listen to what the customer is saying. When you are not clear, politely ask the customer to repeat the statement or question.

When dealing with a customer that has speech impairment, it is important that you:
·         Do not pretend that you heard the question.
·         Never cut the customer short on sentences or finish their sentences for them.

You should try writing as an option when it becomes really difficult for you to understand what they are saying.

Managing a Customer in a Wheel Chair
A customer in a wheelchair deserves as much respect and attention as any other customer. This goes also for any customer suffering a physical disability. Never patronize them. For instance, it is wrong to pat them on the head.

Be sure to maintain eye contact while addressing such customers and always consider distance, physical obstacles or any external/ environmental condition that may be of importance when giving directions.