Who Loves Ya, Baby? Using Social Media for Customer Service
As I’m writing this, Walmart’s @walmart Twitter account has racked up almost 250K tweets. You’ll find similarly huge numbers if you check out many of the country’s biggest retailers. This is because Twitter has become a major conduit for customer service conversations and many companies use it – and other social media – quite wisely to resolve customer service issues and also to proactively improve customer relations. However, not every company is putting social media to their best use when dealing with customer service issues. Much of the problem can be boiled down to the age-old tradeoff between words and action. When a customer brings up a customer service problem in social media, the responder needs to be empowered to make the situation right whenever possible. Lending a sympathetic virtual ear just doesn’t cut it. For example, I’ve had a few Twitter dialogs with American Airlines about various issues, and while I get quick responses, so far they haven’t been able to resolve any of the problems that I’ve brought to their attention. They apologize and thank me for my patience, but there seems to be a missing link in their system; they either don’t have enough authority or they are disconnected from the operational side of the airline. Situations like this make a customer want to respond with, “Can I tweet to your supervisor now, please?” Advantage: Small biz It should be easy for small businesses to avoid this kind of problem. They don’t have the layers of management that prevent nimble responses to customer service problems. Some have had good success using their Facebook pages while others are leveraging Twitter. Dave Greenbaum, who runs Doctor Dave Computer Repair in Lawrence, Kansas, has made great use of his Facebook page. He is able to respond to customer service queries all throughout the day as well as use his posts to engage his customer base. If you commit to opening social media channels to customer service inquiries, just be sure you have the systems in place and the authority bestowed properly to guarantee good outcomes. However, don’t stop at viewing social media as just ways to resolve customer service issues. See them as tools to create unexpected delights. Anticipate customer needs A Four Seasons Hotel in California carefully monitors its Twitter mentions. If you’re a Twitter user, you know that it’s not too unusual to tweet something like, “Heading to @hotelname for two days of business meetings. Really looking forward to #amenity.” This Four Seasons Hotel saw that a customer was on his way and he was really looking forward to hitting the spa when he arrived. The hotel quickly replied via Twitter and asked if they could make a reservation for him. Telly Savalas, when he was starring in the ’70s television series “Kojak” was famous for the catch phrase, “Who loves ya, baby?” That tag line reflects the approach you should bring to your social media customer service interactions. Let your customers know that you care for them: Take care of their problems and treat them to an occasional unexpected thrill. Image: Public Domain via Wikimedia...
read moreThe Go-Giver and THE Small Business Expert!
I’m sure most of you recognize my friend, Bob Burg. He’s the international bestselling author of five books: The Go-Giver, Go-Givers Sell More, Endless Referrals, It’s Not About You and Adversaries into Allies. We recently got together for coffee and he told me about his Go-Givers International (GGI) group. I am now a member and I want to share it with you too. Go-Giver’s International is a worldwide community of individuals who live their lives and conduct their businesses… The Go-Giver Way! As a member you’ll get access to information and resources that will undoubtedly help you accelerate the growth of your business with integrity. To learn more about Bob and his Go-Givers, check out the website. Oh and by the way, tell them THE Small Business Expert sent you. Here’s to your...
read more5 Boredom Busters to Boost Productivity in Your Small Business
Here’s an interesting paradox for you: Boredom may be the biggest cause of burnout. Consider the times in your life when it has been most difficult – on a regular basis – to pull yourself out of bed in the morning. It’s very likely that those were periods when you have boredom breathing down your back – not when you’re being challenged by long list of daunting projects. Boredom is an equal-opportunity plague. It can strike in the highest levels of management as well as among entry-level minimum-wage workers. However, according to some 2011 Gallup research, well educated middle-aged workers are the most at risk. Worse yet, Gallup found that only 29 percent of American workers were “engaged” in their positions. The rest were divided between “not engaged” (52 percent) and “actively disengaged” (19 percent). Boredom is a productivity killer. Not only do bored workers produce less, they are far more prone to errors and some even engage in active sabotage. Hey, they have to do something that interests them! However, I suggest we see this not as some hand-wringing scourge on the American workforce, but as an opportunity to greatly increase productivity with very little capital investment. All we have to do is challenge, motivate and energize our workforce, and the resultant boost in creativity and productivity should be something to behold. Changing the business culture that seems to be fostering boredom requires a variety of steps, both big and small. Foster better communication. Do you have a workplace where an employee can approach a manager and say, “I’m bored, I need more to do”? Many employees are afraid to say that they are underutilized, fearing they will be fired. Let your employees know that if they have time on their hands, you have important things that need to be done. Reward suggestions that increase productivity. Be more flexible. Rigid walls between “job descriptions” are productivity killers and boredom creators. We all have stereotypical images of union workers who will sit idle rather than pick up a hammer because it’s against union rules. Don’t let that kind of mentality creep into your workplace. Cross train employees. Let employees see tasks all the way through to their completion. Don’t unnecessarily “assembly line” the workflow. Meet less. Hold fewer meetings, or dramatically slash the time spent in meetings. Make meetings interesting, focused and relevant. National Public Radio recently ran a fascinating piece on holding meetings standing up. When Washington University’s Olin Business School, Andrew Knight and Markus Bear tested standing meetings, they found that participants were more open and less territorial. That should lead to greater creativity and more engagement. Broaden horizons. Give your employees opportunities to learn more advanced skills and develop a deeper comprehension of your industry. See this as preparing your workforce for the growth of your company; adopt the idea of “if you build it, they will come.” Mix it up. Perform random acts of energizing. Break up the routine in fun and exciting ways. Bring in food. Get out of the office. Declare Halloween in August. What you do isn’t as important as the message the activities send: You want your employees to have a positive attitude about their work and workplace. How have you energized your team? Image: Public Domain...
read moreCounteroffers: As in Poker, You Need to Know When To Fold
It’s a situation many of you have faced: a valued employee announces his intentions to leave in order to take another position. It’s one that I’ve experienced as well. When it happened to me I put a counter offer on the table and also made several other concessions. In the final analysis, it wasn’t just economic reasons that were driving his decision. His new job would reduce his commute to just a few minutes, while my offices were 45 minutes from his home. The new job gave him back family time and allowed him to engage in other activities. I couldn’t compete with that. And thank heavens I couldn’t! Phew! That was close. In retrospect, I’m generally relieved that he didn’t accept my offer, it would not have been healthy for the financial condition of my company. I dodged a bullet there, albeit somewhat unwittingly. When presented this situation, often small business owners are unable to see the bigger picture. For one thing, they have time working against them. When a valued employee is about to jump ship, and you know all the pressing needs of the business, it’s hard to sit back, relax, and calmly analyze all the implications of the situation. The “fight or flight” reflex takes over and there’s no way you and take the “flight” option, so you “fight” back with a counter offer. However, if you can internalize a few principles before you’re confronted with an employee who’s about ready to pack his things and go, you’ll increase your odds of making the right decision. Three-fold affordability If you have determined that the main reason for the employee leaving is money and a counter offer carries a high probability of success, there are three “areas of affordability” you need to consider before weighing in with your counter offer: Financial. Can your company afford it? Social. Can your “esprit de corps” afford it? Managerial. Can your authority afford it? First, determine what the financial impact will be and take off your rose-colored glasses before you start to crunch the numbers. Can you replace the employee at the current rate, or perhaps even less? Will a raise prompt others to lineup outside your door with their own requests for a bump in pay? The payroll hit may end up being larger than just the additional compensation to the prodigal employee. Next, consider the possible demoralizing effect the counteroffer will have on other employees. Will coworkers turn on the employee who was ready to bolt? It might also prompt others to start looking for “greener pastures,” and this would greatly compound your problems. Usually it’s less painful to pull the bandaid off in a single fast motion. Who’s in charge here? Finally, would a counteroffer decrease your authority and ability to manage your workforce? Will the rest of your workforce see you as having been a pushover? This will decrease your authority down the line and once you lose authority, it’s difficult to get it back. File away these three points, but make sure they are there when you need them. The biggest mistake you can commit in a situation like this is to make a hasty decision, because trying to turn back once it’s made, is the worst of all worlds. Image: By Promoplay (Template:Www.promoplay.ru) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)],...
read moreThe Freelance Revolution and How to Join It
In sports, talented athletes look forward to the day they become free agents. They can then shop their services around to the highest bidder or look for the best “working” environment. A certain basketball player named Lebron James—maybe you’ve heard of him—is doing this right now. Aren’t freelancers in many ways the business world equivalent of professional athlete free agents? This is especially true today when a lot of very talented businessmen and women have lost full-time corporate employment. It seems that many agree with my premise. Freelancers are American’s fastest growing workforce and almost nine out of 10 freelancers say they would keep their independence even if offered a full-time job somewhere, according a survey released by Freelancers Union. We discuss work-life balance a lot here; it’s an important topic and it’s one reason freelancers deeply appreciate their situations. Other top benefits of freelancing are Flexibility, Schedule control, Being one’s own boss,and Doing what one loves. The boom in freelancing is probably attributable to a “perfect storm” that involved the collision of telecommuting and the Great Recession. We know that recessions always give a boost to the number of small business startups, so when the last one hit—and the Internet had made telecommuting effective and efficient—everything was in place to create a bumper crop of solopreneurs. The salient question today is, are you thinking about joining this revolution? If so, here are a few tips to help you get off to a strong start. Make sure you have enough money in the bank to get you through your lean startup months. As an alternative, you can piggyback a freelance business onto your current gig and then transition to the freelance lifestyle as it grows. Not recommended: forcing a reluctant spouse back into the workforce. Be on the hunt for a couple “anchor” gigs. If you’re currently working for someone, perhaps they would want to keep you on in a freelance position that could provide a sizable chunk of the new business you need to drum up. In any case, without a few steady clients you will end up spending far too much time running down jobs. Tip: On sites such as Elance.com, when projects are posted that say something like, “We have a lot of work for the right freelancer,” it’s a lie. They just want you to lower you bid in hopes of future work. Leverage collaboration and networking. Sometimes there will be gigs or elements of jobs that you cannot handle yourself. Develop a network of like-minded freelancers who you can turn to in situations such as these. They will end up doing the same for you. Not only will you get additional work through networking, you will be able to offer more services to potential clients. Wow. It’s almost starting to sound like a business, isn’t it? One of the promises of the Internet was that it would liberate and empower individuals. The move toward freelance employment is one tangible measure that at least some of the web’s promise is being fulfilled. Image: Lemonade Stand by John O’Nolan, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike...
read moreThe High Costs of Regulation and How to Reduce Them
The results are in: Two-thirds of US small business owners believe their government’s policies are unfavorable to small business. Trinet, a company that provides cloud-based HR services to businesses, engaged Harris Poll to conduct the survey. Here are more highlights: 32 percent rate US policies as very unfavorable. 53 percent of small business owners believe that legislation hampering small businesses as well as the overall economic health of the United States (53 percent) will get worse in 2014. 76 percent of small business owners strongly agree that the amount of federal government regulations regarding employee benefits is restrictive to the growth of small business. 75 percent believe state government regulations also restrict the growth of small business. 35 percent think that the impact of the Affordable Care Act has been worse than they anticipated. The Heritage Foundation has taken a look at government regulations and found that the cost of federal regulations to businesses rose by $70 billion between 2009-2013. Further, at the end of 2012 the number of federal regulations affecting small companies was 13 percent higher than at the end of 2008. Small businesses hurt the most Government regulations deliver a bigger wallop to small businesses than they do to larger businesses. Because they are generally fixed costs, smaller companies register a higher cost-per-employee than do larger firms. Nicole and Mark Crain of Lafayette University say the price tag for complying to federal regulations is $10,585 for companies with under 20 employees while the figure is $7,755 for firms with 500 or more employees. These kinds of numbers are of interest to companies such as TriNet, because small businesses can often reduce their direct need to keep up with changing regulations when they outsource some overhead functions. In fact, moving the regulatory burden to others is one of the best ways to minimize the impact of regulations on your small business. An actionable plan Business strategist Sandy Graham suggests that businesses develop a long-term plan to deal with regulatory costs that has three goals: Reduce or mitigate the impacts of government regulations, Limit the impact of regulations on operations as a cost factor, and Develop a growth plan. His approach is to deal with the problems directly, assess them as variable cost factors and then encourage growth so the burden of regulations is reduced overall. Specifically, look at strategies such as: Sharing space with other businesses, Using infrastructure companies, such as UPS logistics, PitneyBowes, cloud-based services, payroll providers, etc., and Contracting out manufacturing, warehousing and fulfillment. Attack the job of reducing the costs of regulation just as you would any other cost of doing business. Don’t just accept it as a “given.” And when you do a cost benefit analysis of signing on with service providers, don’t forget to factor in the savings to you in a reduced regulatory burden. Image: Public Domain...
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