Friday, September 18, 2009

Small Business Niche - Quality Added Value!





Large organizations are notorious for squeezing revenues out of their clientele. Days of productive time are spent coming up with new ways to add to the bottom line. This is a worthy goal for some organizations; however, we should look for ways to use this to our advantage against the “Big Boys”.

If we spend more time looking for reasonable, cost effective ways of adding value to our service package, we will be able to demonstrate to the client that our focus is on their benefit, not their pocketbook. This eliminates anger and frustration, allowing partnering to occur. This builds our relationship with the client and lessens the chance that the "Big Boys” will take our best clients.

For example:

"Tom, I realize that your business depends a great deal on sales to new clients. It occurred to me that you might be able to benefit from our ability to create PowerPoint presentations. Here is a presentation that we did for one of our other clients. Naturally, we usually charge for this service, but you are such a valuable client, I want to volunteer our TEAM to assist you in the development of a PowerPoint presentation for your business. I mean it. We think we can really help you in this area and would like to put something together for your review."


or


"George, I noticed that when you go on trips, you receive a number of telephone calls that demand to know where you are. Karen, our Executive Receptionist, said that many times she attempts to reach you but your cell phone is turned off. It occurred to us that having an itinerary of your trip would allow us to save up messages and then reach you at your next destination. We could even leave a message or send a fax with the contacts for you. If this does not help, do you have any other ideas we might consider?”









Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Customized Customer Service



Simplify Your Clients Life
Maximize Your Clients Productivity


One of the biggest problems for a large company is complexity. The larger the organization, the more complex the organization becomes. For this reason, large organizations often have more rules, procedures, and guidelines. Intuitive behavior is discouraged. Form and process creation is recognized with promotion.

Use simplicity as an advantage when competing against the “Big Boys”. Look at everything that you ask the client to do, and make it simpler. Become easier to do business with and make your clients life easier. Take every form and procedure, asking the question, do we really need this?... What is the value of this? And purge your systems. Then catalogue the ways that you do so and make them a part of your marketing and sales story. Point out to clients that you focus on their ease of operation, not yours.

For example:

"You know Tom; we like to keep things simple. We realize that your time is valuable and because of that, we have streamlined all of our business activities to make it easier for you to do business. We use to have seventeen forms for clients to use; now we have five. Our TEAM would rather work harder and make your business more productive. Rules are important, and of course we have some, but we look at everything from your perspective. If you want us to do something for you, we will take the time to make it happen. Our service agreement is four pages long. Our rules and regulations document is three pages long. Many of our competitor’s leases are over fifteen pages in length. You may need to hire an attorney to translate the agreement."


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