Embracing complaining customers

When confronted by a customer with a complaint, all businesses really want to do is make them go away. However, this is a step in the wrong direction. The complainer isn’t just a troublemaker; they are a person who can help you understand how to improve your company. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to deal with them, not just get rid of them.

Most unhappy customers don’t complain; they just go away. Instead of letting you know why they’re unhappy, they’re just not going to come back and they may even warn other customers away.

Whereas most complainers have legitimate concerns, often indicating systematic problems in your business. Maybe your product actually isn’t performing properly or your employees aren’t providing the quality of service a customer should expect.

It’s easy to dismiss complainers. After all, sooner or later, every business will have some customers who are just impossible to please. No matter what you do, they’re never going to be happy. Often, these customers have misunderstood the nature of your products or services and want you to change completely to accommodate them. That’s not realistic.  

Even unrealistic complainers need to be listened to and acknowledged. In fact, unhappy customers can be turned into life-long loyal customers if you recognise their complaints for what they really are: a chance to improve your business. To do this, business owners need to:

Listen: Train yourself and your staff to not get defensive when someone complains, but to start actively listening, ask questions. You can’t solve a problem unless you take the time to understand it.    

Apologise: Your customer has had a bad experience. You are sorry, even if you don’t think you’re entirely to blame. Some of the most powerful words in a businessperson’s language are “I’m sorry.”

Learn: One complaining customer likely represents the feelings of dozens of customers who don’t complain. Explore whether this one complaint is emblematic of bigger problems.

Respond: Genuinely try to address the issues a complaining customer raises. First, do what you can to solve the specific individual’s’ situation. Next, look at whether you need to make changes to how you run your company or make your product to reduce the likelihood of other unhappy customers.

Empower: You’re not always going to be the person an unhappy person turns to. Give front-line sales and service people the authority to solve problems.  Don’t make customers jump through hoops to get satisfaction.  Empower employees to solve problems themselves.

Changing the way you interview job candidates

The entire recruitment and interviewing process is currently undergoing a lot of changes. Social networking sites such as LinkedIn are becoming an increasingly mainstream way to identify job candidates, and the entire workforce is becoming more fluid. There have also been a lot of exciting new ideas about how best to conduct interviews, many of which might be able to give you a much better idea of how a candidate will perform in the role.

Multiple interviewers
It can be a great idea to invite other staff members to sit in on interviews, either as silent observers or active interviewers. Not only will this give you the benefit of a second opinion, but they may be able to hone in on qualities or skills that will be valuable to the company’s inner workings.

Behaviour based interviews
This can be anything from asking a candidate to describe their behaviour in past roles and situations to setting a test or activity for them to complete. Setting a common activity for all of your candidates to complete can be a particularly insightful way to differentiate between the competition.

Re-framing traditional job interview questions
Most interview candidates will have rehearsed their answers to traditional job interview questions, making it hard to get an accurate reading of their abilities. If you present a question in a slightly different way to normal, you will get a more natural answer that is reflective of the candidate’s adaptability. For example, instead of asking someone what they think their weaknesses are, ask them to describe how they have resolved a situation where they lacked knowledge or experience.

Managing poor performance

Performance management comprises a significant part of a business owner’s role, however, underperformance is often avoided and can lead to an unproductive and unhealthy workplace.

Establishing effective performance management systems can significantly improve problems with poor performing employees. Whether underperformance is exhibited through unsatisfactory work performance, disruptive behaviour or non-compliance with workplace rules and policies it needs to be addressed.

Poor performance should be dealt with promptly as issues may become more serious over time and can ultimately affect the entire workplace. Here are some ways to manage underperforming employees:

Identify and assess the problem
Gaining an understanding of why the employee is underperforming is the first step to generating an effective solution. There are many reasons why an employee may be performing poorly such as vague goals and expectations, interpersonal differences, not enough feedback on performance, mismatch between employee’s capabilities and the job expected of them etc.

Assess how long the problem has existed, how serious the problem is and how wide the gap between expectations and what is being delivered is before scheduling a meeting with the employee. When arranging a meeting ensure to inform the employee of the purpose of the discussion and ensure it takes place somewhere private. Be clear, specific and relaxed when talking about the issue. Ensure the employee understands what the problem is, why it is a problem, how it impacts on the workplace and the outcomes that should result from the meeting.

Devise a solution
When working out a solution allow the employee to contribute to the solution and make sure it is easy to follow. Devising a solution requires you to explore ideas by asking the employee open ended questions, offering assistance and emphasising common ground. Create a detailed plan of action which includes:

• Performance expectations over a specific time period

• Roles and responsibilities of the employee

• Strategies for training and career advancement

• The value and worth of their role

Monitor performance
Set a date for another meeting to review performance against the agreed plan of action even if the issue has been resolved. Providing positive and negative feedback to the employee should ensure performance improvements are maintained. If more serious action is required, consider further counselling and issuing formal warnings before termination of employment.

Employers need to be aware that they cannot dismiss employees in circumstances that are “harsh, unjust or unreasonable” so it is important to be fair to employees when it comes to termination of employment.

Motivating your employees

One of the more challenging aspects of managing staff is working out how to keep them motivated. Motivated employees are not only more productive but they are less likely to want to leave your business.

Fortunately, motivating employees does not always need to involve financial incentives. Here are some tips that can help you to get the most out of your workers:

• Provide opportunities to learn

Motivate your employees by offering training that provides them with the skills to advance their career. Offering opportunities to learn and grow with your business can make staff feel highly valued and enables you to build your business’s reputation as a great place to work – attracting better applicants.

• Empower them

Asking for input and suggestions engages your staff and helps them to feel more appreciated. Giving employees more accountability and authority to make decisions demonstrates your trust in them, resulting in more committed and driven staff. It is also important to recognise and reward past achievements of individuals as it can be a great motivator for future progress.

• Regular communication

Frequent, face-to-face communication keeps your staff in the loop and provides opportunity to discuss issues and improvements that need to be addressed. Sharing non-sensitive information about their contribution and impact on your business can provide further motivation as they can attribute their work to the larger picture.

Delivering customer service

Every business has a basic obligation to provide its customers with quality goods or services. That is quality in the sense of delivering what you say or on a promise. It is the business’s responsibility to make sure they are not selling shoddy or unsafe products or services. However, whilst a business would like every customer to be fully satisfied with its products or services, the reality is that sooner or later everyone is going to have some unhappy customers.

It is sometimes reassuring to dismiss dissatisfied customers as chronic complainers, but try to think of complaints or questions as an opportunity to improve your products, services, and performance. By developing a customer feedback and complaint-handling procedure, you can turn negative situations into opportunities to build customers for life. In your complaint program, incorporate some or all of the following principles:

Acknowledge
As a first step acknowledge customers concerns. Regardless of how a problem has arisen, simple recognition of a concern will make the resolution process far more effective.

Apologise
Saying “we’re sorry” is an important first step in letting customers know you care when they have a problem.

Don’t blame the customer
When you blame a customer, they see it as a personal attack. Often misunderstandings are due to businesses creating false expectations in the minds of their customer.

Admit your errors and solve the problem
Every business makes mistakes. Be determined to get to the root of the problem, make it better for the customer, and prevent the problem occurring again.

Refrain from using the excuse “it’s company policy”
No phrase is more dismissive, making your customer feel powerless and intimidated. The first step in any resolution is to place the customer and you on equal ground.

Empower employees to solve minor problems
When you do this you will have happier staff and you could save your customers a bureaucratic nightmare.

Encourage feedback
Make it easy for customers to let you know how they feel. Providing feedback cards to customers allows them to rate your products or services. It also gives them a chance to let you know what you’re doing right.

Don’t win the battle and lose the war
Trying to save a few dollars but losing a customer is penny wise and pound foolish. There may be a small percentage of customers who will take advantage of you, but the majority will be even more loyal if they know you’ll fix problems.

Knowing your customers

A sad fact of business is that many small companies that create products simply don’t think about the customer. They think about how they can get customers to buy, but when it comes to actual product design, they focus on issues such as features, cost, and production rather than usability. What’s often overlooked is how real customers really behave.

Small business owners are even more likely to fall into that trap. After all, they are the ones who are lucky if they can get their products out the door in time to make the deadline for a big order or trade show.

However, there are processes businesses can follow to better understand how customers interact and use their products.  One such process involves creating “personas” or archetypes of customers, and then keeping those personas in mind as you design and market your products or services.

The first step of the process, ideally, is to get out of your office and meet with customers or potential customers. To make these interviews most effective:

1. Go to them: Ideally, see customers in the setting where they’ll be using your product or service. It’s preferable not to just conduct interviews over the phone or in a conference room.

2. Approach the process with a blank slate: you want to learn as much as you can, not just confirm your pre-conceived notions.

3. Ask open-ended questions: If you’re designing a new product, ask questions about how your customers currently do whatever your product or service will address.

4. Observe: Watch how your customers interact with your product (if it’s already developed) or with whatever products they currently use. What do they do first? What seems clumsy? What else is going around them at the same time? From observation, you’ll almost certainly discover ways to enhance your product or service.

Once you interview customers, you’ll have a lot of raw data. Now comes the important part: compiling that information into “personas.” Review all your notes to find the characteristics common to major types of customers. Then, create a few fictional individuals – give them names, ages, personalities, descriptions – to represent customers with those characteristics. At most, create just a handful of personas, representing the major types of customers you serve.

Realistically, as an independent entrepreneur, you may not have the resources to go out and fully implement these data-gathering methods. But even using a highly-simplified version of this process can be a huge help in bettering understanding your customers.

Improving employee attendance

Employee absenteeism can create an unhealthy business culture and burden your workplace with lost productivity and high replacement costs. It can become a sensitive issue for employers to deal with and when not managed properly can escalate into a chronic issue frustrating both employers and other staff members who do the right thing.

Here are some ways to tackle employee absenteeism in your business:

Highlight attendance expectations
To help eradicate attendance issues, employees first must be made aware of their attendance expectations and the consequences of their non-attendance on other staff members and productivity. A clear policy should be implemented with explanation of the procedures to follow when absent such as:

• Who the employee should inform of their absence, for example, their manager. It should be clear how they are expected to contact them, for example, a phone call rather than a text message.

• The employee should advise the contact person within a certain time frame of the nature of their illness and when they expect to return to work.

• If a medical certificate or statutory declaration is required, employers must keep up to date with employment laws regarding evidence requirements, as it may be considered unreasonable to request employees produce evidence in some circumstances.

Analyse records and identify trends
Keeping track of when employees are absent can help to identify patterns such as certain days of the week that employees are absent, or whether it is before or after a public holiday. Monitoring trends can assist in identifying whether there is a problem and if it is appropriate to discuss the issue.

Improve your communication
Communicating with employees is in a business’s best interest to better understand employee’s needs and situation. Effective communication can help identify root causes of excessive sick leave, such as family issues, not coping with workload, drug and alcohol problems and so forth.

Defining your target market

Knowing your target market can help to differentiate your business from competition, tailor your marketing efforts to better meet customer needs and potentially boost sales.

A broad target market that tries to appeal to “everybody” can easily get lost amongst the crowd.

Demographics alone, such as age, gender, income and occupation, do not provide enough insight into the attributes of your target customer.

When constructing a target market profile, narrow down your typical customer with consideration to geographic, psychographic, and behavioural characteristics to develop a clear and specific vision of your target market.

Geographics
Segmenting your target customer through geographics involves considering what continent, country, city or town they may live in, the size of the area, the climate and if they live in specific neighborhoods.

Psychographics
Categorising your target market through psychographics, uses personality and interests to define your target customer. Psychographics analyses variables such as lifestyle, attitude, values, personality traits, social class, activities and opinions.

Behavioural
Behavioural segmentation involves your target customer’s behaviour towards your products or services. It can include the benefits sought, how often they will use your product or service, their loyalty to your brand, their readiness to buy your products/services, or if your products/services are used for a specific occasion such as a holiday or an event.

Customer acquisition mistakes you might be making

It can be easy to waste a lot of time and money investing in the wrong marketing channels. But a business can only thrive through smart marketing. Here are five common mistakes that can emerge through the customer acquisition process you should avoid:

Assuming first-time visitors will become loyal customers
Savvy customer engagement involves retargeting. Once you have attracted a customer to your website, for example, make sure you retarget them again by including a call to action, which will provide an invitation to interact with a brand.

Getting impatient about ROI
New products need time to attract the interest of customers. When $1,000 spent in marketing doesn’t result in a $1,000 return one week later, don’t implement drastic changes.

Customer acquisition can be a lengthy process; from the moment a new customer discovers your brand until they choose to buy something, they are likely researching competitor and looking for discounts. So be patient.

Setting the financial resources bar too low
Many new businesses have unrealistic expectations about how much money it takes to bring in prospects. Entering a new market also comes with a price tag. Be prepared to pay for the learning curve. Venture into unknown business territory with caution and realistic expectations.

What does your leadership say about you?

Do you have what it takes to make sure everyone in your team makes it to the finish line? To be an accomplished leader, you need to have a certain set of skills and attributes that serve to inspire and motivate others. Leaders are driven and committed individuals who have ambition, and are willing to work hard to achieve their aspirations and goals.

Since there are many different approaches that can be taken to achieve success in a leadership position, it is important to know which approach and which skills should be utilised in different project ventures.

Start thinking about what kind of leader you want to be, by first identifying your own strengths and weaknesses. This can help to determine how you can play to your strengths and overcome your weaknesses, before taking on a team of individuals. Also, start to consider the kind of leader you would readily follow or look up to when working in a team.

Think about how you plan to motivate your team. Will you act as a role model and lead by example or find what motivates each individual and encourage that manner of thinking? Everyone is different, which means they respond to different forms of motivation.

Be prepared to try out different methods before you reach success. No matter what kind of leadership style you choose, every leader must be organised so they are prepared for anything when completing a project. Incorporating a consistent and systematic approach to the project makes it easier to delegate tasks, set deadlines, evaluate progress and meet expectations.

Lastly, just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you know everything. Having this kind of attitude can limit your ability to grow and develop as a leader. Being open to learning new things, especially from your team, can serve to improve your knowledge and skills.