Customers – Page 16

Proven Techniques to Deal with Customer Complaints

February 21, 2011

For small business owners (and for large ones too) customer complaints is a fact of life. Every business runs into few customers who are not happy with the service or product or something else. The complaints in and of themselves are not going to hurt your business much. It is how you deal with them that determines how they will impact your future business.
We have heard many business owners say – “but I know that this customer is wrong. He/she is just trying to get free stuff or get discount by complaining and making a scene.” And they may be right; but does it really matter who is right or who is wrong? At the end of the day, it is about who has the power to hurt your future business. It is these customers who are complaining – genuine or sham.
So, is there anything you, as a small business owner, can do to alleviate this problem? Obviously, you cannot stop customers from complaining; although you can reduce the number of genuine complaints by providing excellent products and services. Based on our experience in running multiple restaurants we have come up with these guidelines to deal with customer complaints and mitigate their impact on the business.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Operations Tagged With: Customer-Complaint

Best Ways to deal with an Irate Customer

November 21, 2010

Post from Guest Contributor Chris Blanton, editor of Ingenious Business Guide.
Do you remember the last time you were frustrated while making a purchase? Maybe you were talking with an unintelligible company’s customer service rep on the telephone. Or maybe a retail clerk was arguing with you. Perhaps a returns department refused your refund because you had lost the receipt. Regardless why you were upset, you wanted two things: someone to solve the problem, and a sincere apology for being disrespected.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Operations

How to Improve Sales with Community Involvement

November 9, 2010

Many small business owners focus all their marketing effort on advertising and promotions. As we mentioned in this post on 5 Fundamental Rules of Marketing; marketing is much more than just advertising and many times costs very little to do. One of the great marketing opportunities overlooked by small business owners is getting involved with the local community.
Community involvement establishes long-lasting relationship with your customers that will keep your business on top of their mind for a long time. A typical advertising, in contrast, only has a single transaction relationship where the customer will think of your business as a result of advertising flyer or coupon for a short time.
There are several avenues you can explore to get involved with the local community.
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Filed Under: Customers, Marketing, Sales Tagged With: Advertising, Community, Coupon

Demonstrate Confidence in Negotiations to Get an Edge

November 7, 2010

Post from Guest Contributor Chris Blanton, editor of Ingenious Business Guide.
Many business owners leave money on the table by reacting to pricing pressure by haggling or discounting.
Seasoned deal makers assert in a negotiation that the first person to name a figure loses. Information has value, and the one who possesses more of it is better positioned to come out ahead in a transaction. When one party is ignorant of their opponent’s expectations, the best strategy is to get the other party to name a starting price.
When, as in retail sales, the seller publishes the price, buyers are forearmed with the seller’s expectation but the seller is not similarly equipped with the buyers’. Thus a seller who exhibits price flexibility puts herself at a disadvantage because she better arms her buyer.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Operations Tagged With: Negotiation, Profit

How to “fire” Customer the Right Way

September 27, 2010

Post from Guest Contributor Chris Blanton, editor of Ingenious Business Guide.
Sometimes you just need to let a customer go. If a client is abusive to staff, or demanding but you’re unable to satisfy or reason with them, you may have to show them the door.
It can be valuable to periodically evaluate your customer base and jettison the ones that are no longer a fit. Many companies routinely rid themselves of their “D” class unprofitable customers. It is a valuable strategic practice that will not harm customer relationships provided you do it correctly.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management Tagged With: Customer-Complaint, How-to

Do You Understand Why Customers Buy Your Products?

September 11, 2010

Guest Contributor Chris Blanton is a former serial entrepreneur and business
advisor. He is currently editor of Ingenious Business Guide, a collection of proven practical techniques to ignite business growth and profitability. He can be reached by email and tweets under the handle @cmblanton. His guests posts appear here each Sunday.

One of the most important questions business owners should be able to answer is why their customers are buying their product or services. You have to determine what benefit your customers pay for. You can employ a skilled marketing consultant to guide you in this exercise. But if you’re determined to go it alone, you can get great mileage performing a thought experiment to uncover the true benefit your client realizes buying from you.
Our consumer culture so artfully manipulates us that we are often unaware of our own motivation. For instance, examine the process of buying a new car. Why does someone buy a new car? What wants or needs does it satisfy?
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Marketing, Sales Tagged With: Advertising

How to Earn Additional Profit from Every Sale

September 6, 2010

Do you know that every company loses potential profit on every sale? It’s true. You could be earning much more income than you are now. The key is to reduce your price flexibility.
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Filed Under: Customers, Management, Sales Tagged With: Pricing, Profit

Why You Need Poker Face as a Business Owner

August 16, 2010

If you are not careful to check your emotions when running a small business you may stand to lose number of customers and sales. As a small business owner, you are not only the leader of your employees; but also represent the face of the business. Whatever emotions you show in front of employees and customers reflect upon your business. That is why it is important to have enthusiastic demeanor and smiling face when facing customers and employees.
Many small business owners and leaders cannot control their emotions, especially when things are not going right on a particular day. They get too frustrated with the pressure of the time and get upset with employees and customers. We have experienced this first-hand.
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Filed Under: Customers, Employees, Management, Operations Tagged With: Customer-Complaint, Leadership

How do you deal with “bad” customers?

August 2, 2010

All businesses have “good” customers and “bad” customers. We like to call “bad” customers the “undesirable” customers. You don’t mind losing them because they do not contribute much to your bottom line. In fact, they usually drain too much time, energy and money from you and your business either directly or indirectly. We showed how you can identify these “undesirable” customers in the previous post here.
As a business owner you do have a choice as to who you want as a customer. However, you don’t want to be seen as rude when dealing with these customers, even though at times you may feel compelled to do so. You have to figure out a subtle approach that gets the job done, while at the same time doesn’t appear rude.
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Filed Under: Customers, Marketing Tagged With: Coupon, Customer-Complaint, Customer-Service, Profit