Small businesses and start-ups are often succumb to the downfalls of business, which includes late/non-payers, and lost leads; whether it’s down to a lack of human resources, planning or flexibility, it can cost a business everything.
I decided to write this after our most recent example of external economical factors effecting businesses – the postal strikes. This will cause problems for businesses across the nation, with late incoming payments, product 
delivery delays and of course, incoming bills, on top of their usual problems!
With other controversial subjects, such as the recession, strikes and unemployment, businesses have to be on top of their game, now more than ever, to come out on the other side. This is not the time to stop investing – that’s what you hope your competition does – but you do need to use some clever marketing.
- You must target or ‘hit’ (and keep) your relevant consumers
- Give them an irresistible offer or reason to get in touch/visit you
- Shine above your competition when it comes to customer service. Your customers are you business, and every customer is a valuable customer.
- Maintain a professional or unique image
You cannot limit yourself – if your consumers require you to have an online shop or enquiry service – you should do all you can to get that. If you’re selling ebooks over the internet, immediate delivery of the eproduct to the consumer is expected, which means it needs to be automated. If someone makes a payment online, they’re going to want to know that it was successful right away – waiting for a real time person to process it on a machine is not good enough in this day and age.
If your consumers want or need to pay online, or if 
you require an autoresponder, you’ve got to get it.
Consumers like to be appreciated, and as a business, if a consumer sends an enquiry through, you should acknowledge their enquiry as soon as possible, to reassure them that someone will address their issue in a stated amount of time. With a large amount of incoming enquiries, this can become a time consuming procedure, which is why the revolution of autoresponders has transformed business efficiency. Good communication, product delivery and a variety of payment options will allow consumers to have the best experience possible and gives them no reason not to buy from you!
If your staff have less to do, you must utilise them else where, like creatively increasing business leads. That is what you need, so that’s what you get them to do (if they’re comfortable with it)! You might be surprised how willing they are to get involved. Infact, you should ask your employees what they would improve if they were a potential consumer.
As a business manager, you should thoroughly understand your product or service, and the best way to reach your consumers; if you don’t, you ought to get on and find out. Where would your potential customers go to find your services or product? How would they prefer to buy or view your product? Over the internet? In a shop? And why is that?
You must understand your consumer needs in order to provide for them. Not only this, but your team, whatever the size, also needs to know what the business offers and stands for, how to deal with problems and also how to treat people in general. Unfortunately a surprising amount of people are losing their manners, their language skills, and respect for others. You must ensure that you have the right staff and training for your business. Your staff are the people who deal with consumers every day, and if they’re not happy, don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t value the consumer, it will come across.
Good, and bad customer service, will be remembered. You must surpass your competition and exceed your consumers expectations to be recognised for your customer service.
Essentially, your target should be to ensure that the consumers experience with you is the best one possible. The key is to start, and maintain, a permanent flow of happy customers – if you have something of value to offer, and everything is to your consumers satisfaction, they will help to spread the good word!
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Be different. Why not ask for their birthday? As quoted by a hugely influential English marketer, Chris Cardell, “The most important date for any customer is their birthday,” because they don’t expect anything, so it’s a nice surprise! While trying to be different, remember that in any communication you must address a consumers interest, needs or desire(s).