Do you ever feel like an interruption when you enter a business?  Ever stand there wondering why you’re being ignored or otherwise treated like you’ve ruined their day rather than staff being excited to know their pay checks continue to arrive so long as more people like you walk in the door?

Perhaps we’ve had such a long running boom-time that businesses have become process heavy or laden with doing the “work of the biz” and forgotten about the customer.  When money is flowing in good times, there’s less need to search for leads or seek to figure out how to bring people through the doors. Customers are ready and willing to spend, spend, spend, without concern because times are good.

The environment has changed significantly in the last 10 months and all businesses large and small are affected as shown by special offers, deals and coupons never heard of before from both large and small companies everywhere.  Marketing efforts have been evaluated, budgets altered, staffing and salaries re-evaluated, costs cut, and benefits pulled in tighter. I ask, have the companies focused on what brings in the dollars, the customer?

Re-evaluating how staff is treating, dealing with and keeping customers is the front-line focus that will make or break a lot of businesses in this environment.  Here are a few tips to help small and large businesses give their customers a reason to choose to spend money on their products or services.

1. If a consumer has entered your business, the hardest part of gaining their interest has already been achieved.  You have their attention and they’re ready to spend.  Give them staff time. Customers wandering around asking 3-4 people if someone could help them is not the way to get sales.  I spent almost 2 hours in a Walmart recently listening to page after page of “ALL associates” being called to manage a company process, but a minimum of 4 customers in that section were wondering if anyone worked there at all.  At least two of these customers were so frustrated they left the store to shop elsewhere.
2. If you are a restaurant, hair salon, golf course or other business serving customers in a specialized niche, your best bet is to remember, they spend at your place of business because they want an experience.  Focus on WHO your customer is and how to make their experience stand out against your competitor.  What makes you unique that a consumer will select your business over another?  How have you trained your staff to make customers feel like they are truly justified in spending their money with you rather than the competitor down the street? I was in a local restaurant the other day where employees were so busy catching up on their antics the night before they missed my walking in and let me sit for over 20 minutes before offering me a menu. I will never return.
3. If you are a large corporation you have no doubt been given the difficult task of cutting costs.   Time, energy, and money have all been applied to that very tough job.  How much time and money has been spent securing the current customer base and kicking up your customer service efforts while building stronger client relationships? If you say you don’t have a strategic plan for making the customer feel like their relationship with you is worthwhile in both service and customer attention, you have left out the most important plan in down times. Evaluate your customer base and your prospective customer leads, choose to get creative in how staff pays careful attention to understanding, serving, building relationships and valuing  customers.  You care about the bottom-line for shareholders, right? Contributions to that dollar figure come directly from customers and how staff works with them!
4. Training and motivating the staff with a vision of how to best serve the customer is a priority right now.  Think about the experience YOU would like to have when you walk in the door and make certain each and every customer or potential customer is treated with respect, dignity, great service, and top-quality products.  Teach staff to provide an experience that is second to none by creating internal campaigns for employees to follow.  “At ABC Company, no customer waits longer than 5 minutes for exceptional service.” Post these reminders where employees can see them, mention it at staff meetings, get staff involved, and give them a reason to understand the value of your customers.

The long and short of it is that if your staff attitude consists of; “This would be a great job if it weren’t for those pesky customers!” Then your customers will feel it!  In this year of lessoned sales, dipping margins, and short cash-flow, give your company a reason to thrive!

Strategic Sense is a Leadership Development, Customer Service, Plans of Action and Facilitation organization who’s mission is to change the world for the better for leaders and their employees everywhere.  We believe each individual comes with their own unique talents and skills that can be enhanced and utilized to help them become the very best leaders only they can be while providing exceptional service to their customers.

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