| |
| |
|
Management Information |
|
Customer Focus - Just 5 SimpleThings You Need to Think About
You can boil down the difference between successful businesses and the rest in how they work with their customers, in just five areas. Selling what your customers really want is just critical. Being on good enough terms with your customers to research, (hey maybe just by chatting with them - radical idea, huh?), helps you find out how you can best serve their needs. By balancing the kind of pricing you want to offer with exceptional service levels, there is a fascinating calculation to be made. Prices rock-bottom with inadequate attention to item 5 are not likely to bring profitableconsumers rushing to your door. Providers have an ongoing dance between price and service - be aware of it. It is not possible to sustain your business with lowest prices and poor service. In the internet world, availability of your goods and services is measured critically far more than ever before. You may not need to be 24/7, but you certainly need to be aware of it. More traditional customers are also becoming more demanding. So businesses need to be especially sensitive to the hours they trade, whether they sell goods or services, by stores and/or phone. With the advent of the internet, making it easy to purchase is vital. Why not make purchases from the comfort of your home study or workplace office? So having your people who are available, exactly when your customer wants them, to make payment for goods and services relly easy is a serious point worth considering. Even in shops, the sensitivity of simply having staff focused on delivering the very best of attention is critical. Every day there may be threats to different shopping channels, so the adage that you 'only have one chance to make a first impression' is becoming ever more important. By ensuring that you have all your ducks in a row so far, sustainably building whatever business you are in, is vitally dependent on how you handle ongoing customer service. Indeed if you are only focusing on a one-time purchase, then, frankly, you are not going to have much of a future. Repeat business is very inexpensive for you, so an investment of post-purchase excellence is very worthwhile. By focusing on these five elements, teasing out the consequences with your management teams, you will have a great chance of making business progress. If you choose not to take the time to analyse what you truly need to do, there will be a jeopardy for you in the not to distant future. Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com. (Note to editors. This article may be edited for use in your publication or newsletter as long as a live link to the website is included)
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Your Appraisal System Can Be Better - Overcome These Nine Serious Failings This article is directed at senior managers. As a senior colleague you have the authority to make tremendous improvements. 2 Steps For Increasing Company Profits or Performing Business Turnarounds 1. Eliminate wasteEliminate reports, habits, products, duplicate input, and processes that waste time and money. The Three-Dimensional Communication System Human communication is always three-dimensional. No spoken or written message is ever just words or rational thoughts. Performance Expectations - 5 Tips and 5 Questions People want to understand their role - they want to do well! So by being clear, really clear about what it expected of them, makes a big, big difference! And that improves performance as well as saving you time chasing others around to deliver what you want.5 TipsBe Clear - your people need to know what they are doing, both in terms of actions and the standards that you will be expecting. Diversity Training: The Worst Possible Reasons to Request Executive Funding You're on your organization's diversity committee. You have the best of intentions. Are You Cascading Your Strategy, or Fragmenting It? INTRODUCTIONThe typical approach executive teams use to cascade, or roll out, their strategic direction is to produce a clear set of goals, objectives, critical success factors or a scorecard and then get each departmental or functional manager to take this on board and customize it for their part of the organisation. The trouble then begins?A TYPICAL APPROACH: EACH DEPARTMENT ADOPTS OR ADAPTS A VERSION OF THE CORPORATE STRATEGYThe first phase of most organisational planning processes is that the organisation's executives design and express a strategic direction using a framework of some kind. Why Half of All Mergers Fail After the Honeymoon Ends Marriages and corporate mergers in America have at least one thing in common, more than 50 percent end up on the rocks. In fact, according to a McKinsey study, only 23 percent ever recover the costs of walking down the corporate aisle. Why We Judge Judgment is the process of forming an opinion of something by making a comparison. While judgment can play an important role in decisions we must make to live productively, sometimes the thoughts we hold are what prevent us from having what we most desire. Once Upon a Conflict Once upon a time there lived an innocent, hardworking manager. One day he dared to wander from the safety of his open-concept office to speak out at a team meeting. Giving a Good Appraisal Interview Although this performance discussion is an opportunity for you to discuss your employee's work during a given period of time, it is also, and importantly, a time for you and your employee to check perceptions and reach mutual understandings and agreements about the purposes and priorities of their jobs. This discussion can positively influence your mutual working relationship. Business Innovation - Ignoring Content Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Innovation Management - IBM Opens Lid On Its Treasure Chest IBM, which registered 3248 patents last year, has decided that sharing technology can sometimes be more profitable than jealously guarding its property rights on patents, copyrights and trade secrets (Herald Tribune, April 11 2005).International Business Machines have come to the above conclusion 205 years after the invention of electric light - thus clearly illustrating that even the 19th largest company in the world (fortune. Muggers in Our Midst - When Rumour and Gossip Pay You a Visit 'I heard it on the grapevine' the old song goes. But the grapevine has the potential to cause your business strife, misunderstanding and ruin! In effect the rumour mill and gossip are dangers you cannot ford to ignore. Uncommon Common Sense - Know What is the Most Important Thing in Your Business Over 3 of my meetings with 3 business owners last week, what really shocked me was how uncommon common sense was. 2 out of 3 I spoke to do not know what is the most important thing in their business. 5 Tips For Creating Great Jobs 1) Create A Powerful "Mission Statement"-When your business mission is clear, every part of your business will improve, because you have a clear, definite major purpose. You will more easily attract people that believe in your mission. Forget The Sandwich Technique Do you remember being told to use the "sandwich" techniquewhen you needed to reprimand someone? Let me give you anexample:"Fred, I'm really pleased with how you've been progressingsince you joined us and you're doing a great job. Howeveryou're not getting your reports in on time and we're missingdeadlines. Islam in the Workplace Suggested practice for HR personnelMuslims now form one of the largest religious groups in the UK. At a time when great misunderstandings and stereotypes circulate the media and society regarding the religion, it is crucial for an effort to be made at all levels to go beyond archetypal images and to begin to understand Islam and Muslims. Innovation Management: The Quality and Quantity of the Idea Pool Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Use Every Weapon You Have One of the strongest weapons available allows business, non-profit and association managers to begin changing the behaviors of their key external audiences in ways that lead directly to achieving their primary operating objectives.The name of that weapon? The fundamental premise of public relations: People act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. Reducing the High Cost of Absenteeism Employers pay a high price for absenteeism, often more than they may realize, in terms of both financial and production losses and employee morale. Managers may view the tasks of finding a substitute employee as a short-term inconvenience; however, absenteeism frequently has more serious long-term effects.
|
| home | site map | contact us |