Nov

Write An FAQ – Day Eighteen

Write An FAQ How many times have you answered the same “dumb” question? Maybe the only reason it’s starting to sound dumb is because you haven’t done anything effective and efficient with the question. Your FAQ can be a an efficient way to handle your customers needs and it will free up more time for you every day.

Write An FAQ

The simple solution to how to answer less “dumb” questions as a small business owner is to write your own FAQ. As always taking time to invest in a long term solution will pay off for you. Just like the rest of these steps you can implement a solid solution in about 30 minutes and grow and manage your small business more effectively.

1. Read Through The FAQ’s You Receive

The first step is just to scan through your email, support queue, and notes you take when you receive customer questions and complaints. Once you see a pattern of a few common issues make a note of the question or problem and save some of your answers. Go through all your customer questions and come up with 10 or less. Ultimately your FAQ sheet should be short and informative with all the top issues included in it.

2. Write Your FAQ And Provide It Automatically

Take your top questions and write them out with a simple answers. Read them over a few times to be sure that if you were experiencing the problem or had the question yourself the answer would be clear and simple. Now put the FAQ on your website, in a prebuilt email, and in a PDF.

In your initial support response you can provide a link to the new FAQ. You can also put the answers in a canned response in your email and share a PDF of the answers on your site and with your team and customers. Make sending it to your customers easy and automatic.

3. Ask Your Customers To Provide Input

After you’ve sent out your FAQ to a few customers ask them what they think. Are the answers effective? Did it save them time? Once you get some feedback make the changes as necessary so that your FAQ can be an effective and efficient tool.

542 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Grow Your Business In 30 Days/Instructional/Small Business Resources

customer/customer service/faq/management/time management

Nov

Be Available For Your Customers – Day Seventeen

Be Available For Your Customers As small business owners it’s easy to become overwhelmed with day to day tasks. One of the first things I see young small business owners do when they are overwhelmed is withdraw from customers. This is probably the worst thing that could be done. Your customers are the life blood of your small business.

Be Available

Just like you have to say yes to business you have to make yourself available for your customers. Your attitude is the first thing they’ll hear you communicate and secondly they need to know that you are open for them to meet with you or call. I’ve never seen someone fail who makes time for their customers.

1. Open Your Schedule For Your Customers

If you’ve scheduled 40 hours of work this week on just the technical end of your work then you haven’t properly planned for the most important aspect of your work. Your customers need your time throughout the week. I like to think of 9-5 as prime time for customers. Because I have built a team around me that helps me do various aspects of the work I try to make myself available first to customers during those hours. When I was the only person working in my company I left midday open for customers and scheduled to actually do the work later in the day or after business hours. This is an extra time commitment, but it pays off when you can have more face time with customers.

2. Expect An Appointment

Rather than be inconvenienced by a customer needing your time learn to expect the appointment. Can you imagine calling your auto mechanic and him saying “Hi, I’m so glad you called today, I was looking forward to servicing your car today!”. That would be so oddly refreshing that you would remember it. That’s the kind of attitude and response that customers need to get from you and from your team. Expect the appointment and look forward to it. Whoever taught you by words, attitudes, or actions that customer appointments are inconvenient really didn’t help you out at all. Forget that bad habit and create new one. Expect the appointment.

3. Explain The Use Of Your Communication Channels

Just like your customers, you should have setup communication channels that help you get the work done. If you are running any kind of service business or technology firm then you need to have some sort of FAQ sheet and also a support channel. Once you have these pieces in place the next step is to explain to your customers how these items work. Take the time in your initial few meetings to explain to your customers how these tools work. If they understand how to communicate their different needs to you they will follow procedure and help you get more work done.

Remember that end of the day it’s up to you to be available to your customer when they need you. Create good systems, expect the appointment, and make sure your attitude is to be there for your customers.

543 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Grow Your Business In 30 Days/Instructional/Small Business Resources

customer service/sales/service/small business owners

Jul

Policies That Kill Customers

This past weekend I went shopping with my wife and we ended up at Marshalls. She was looking for a dress for a wedding we are going to next month. We finally found the perfect dress and headed up to the counter to checkout. To most guys this is the greatest moment of shopping, when you get to leave. We weren’t sure what it cost because it was missing it’s price tag but it was on a rack with reasonably priced items so I figured it couldn’t be to much.

When we got to the register to ring out we were informed that the dress was apart of a set so someone was sent to locate the other piece. They returned right away and said that the other piece was not found and so they couldn’t sell us the dress. What!!? I was astonished that they wouldn’t take my money. I explained that I was happy to pay the normal price even though the item was incomplete. Since the missing accessory was just a scarf we didn’t need it because my wife had other accessories that would work with the dress. The associate then explained that the piece would be held for 7 days and then marked down as a clearance item and sold. I then asked for a manager so I could see if there was anyway we could purchase the item immediately since we were leaving town in a few days. I got a generic answer again about their policy and was rudely told I would just have to wait to purchase the item later if I came back when it was on clearance. I was furious.

What a ludicrous policy (incidentally Wikipedia’s definitition says “A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s).“). There was nothing rational about that decision! Why wouldn’t you allow your customer to purchase the item they want to purchase? Even if that was standard policy shouldn’t a manager have enough common sense and authority to allow an exception in order to make the customer happy?

That is a policy that kills customers. I walked out the door and swore I’d never shop there again.

We all make mistakes sometimes when we setup our company and make new rules, policies, and procedures. If you do realize you’ve made a bad policy then CHANGE IT! Don’t allow your bad idea to kill your customers.

671 days ago Short URL Comments

Instructional

associate/customer service/customers/marshalls/policies/rules/wedding

May

The wrong way to introduce change to your customers

Last night I went to my favorite nearby location of a well known restaurant chain. I expected the same good food and good service I had gotten the last time I was there, but it ended up being very different than the last visit.

When my wife and I approached the door it seemed busier than normal and a nice young woman approached us who I assumed was the hostess and asked us for our name so she could put it on her list. I gave it to her and she said it would be about 10 minutes until our table was ready. This was perfectly normal and acceptable so my wife and I proceeded to wait in the waiting area at the front door.

Exactly 10 minutes later a completely different woman came up and told us our table was ready. I didn’t notice her speaking to me at first because I suppose I was expecting the same woman from before. Woman number two then asked us to follow woman number three to our table.

The night continued just like that. We had one server ask us for our drinks and order, and we had another two or three deliver our food and ask us if we needed anything else. My wife said she didn’t want anymore to drink, and she was brought another drink anyway. The whole thing was rather confusing and the two tables next to us experienced the same thing. The customers behind us got very angry about the situation. When they asked for the manager the manager explained that they “all worked as a team, and that is why they saw so many different faces”. I was rather curious about the new management style so I stopped to ask a different manager on the way out after our meal was over. This manager I spoke with had no idea why we had so many people served us so I was left rather confused again.

My experience made it pretty clear to me that if drastic change is going to be introduced it is a good idea to inform your customers. Imagine what my night would have been like if I would have seen a sign on the door that said “We’re doing things a little differently here, ask us how!”. From there when I walked in it would have been nice for the greeter to explain that their staff teams up to all serve each table. I think with two small pieces of information the night would have been less confusing and I would have known what to expect.

The lesson I learned was this: change can be a great thing if you enlist your customers the right way. Set the right expectations and everything will go more smoothly. Don’t bother to inform customers and don’t set new expectations and you can guarantee yourself you’ll have confused or angry customers.

740 days ago Short URL Comments