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Customer Service

Customer Service: A Customer Retention Strategy

This is a little insight of how customer service has taken the front burner as a customer retention strategy post the Covid pandemic. Let us face it, COVID-19 really opened our eyes to a lot of things and has indeed changed the modus operandi for businesses. 2020 saw a gravitational shift from focusing on just the sale of the product to attending to the convenience of the customer. Two years later there is still an urgent need to use customer service as a pivot for your business and it will be so. We have witnessed the shift of businesses from the usual brick and mortar to the online space such that the cost-benefit of running your business online, so far, has made the cost of having a physical presence pale in comparison. Needless to say that managing your brick and mortar has taken on a new dimension. So have you thought about how applying great customer service can help retain your customers? Your goal should be to ensure that the entire experience of the customer while interacting with your business should be positive, commendable, and memorable. This is achievable if you have a customer-centered mindset which entails creating loyalty magnets at each interaction of the customer within your business. A Simple Customer Retention Strategy Most small businesses erroneously think that it is only when they do the “big things” that customers appreciate them. NO. It is more of a case of moving from doing the “little things right the first time to doing the great things. Whether you agree or not, the size of your business has a way of conditioning the psyche of the customers in their expectations of what your service delivery should be. Aim at getting those mundane things right. Attain the minimum expectations and you will see that it really doesn’t cost much to turn a customer into your brand advocate. The word “PLEASE” as simple as it sounds, possesses the spark to improve your customer retention. Let’s see how….. P – Pay attention to what your customers’ needs are. It could also be what they are telling you, some customers may not even speak at all but will simply act. L – Listen to your customers, your suppliers, your staff, your competitor and your business environment generally. This will help you stay updated and even help you anticipate areas of improvement before your customers tell you. E – Execute on the feedback you have received. If you ask customers for feedback and you don’t do anything with it, what’s the use then? A – Ask questions in areas where you may not be knowledgeable. As business owner, you also need training. Make it a way of life, you are setting a standard S – Serve! This is critical to the success of your business. Also bear in mind that your staff are watching. Let them see you serve not just hear you say it. E – Exceed your customers expectations.  Because customers have a minimum expectation, consistently exceeding that expectation is the magnet to increasing the number of customers who will remain with your business. The Bottom Line Using customer service as a customer retention strategy can be done in varying degrees. However, it is noteworthy that whatever scale you decide to undertake, the focus should be on ensuring that it is maximized for ROI.

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How to Leverage Networking to grow Your Startup

The idea of networking contributes to the growth and relevance of a start-up. We are familiar with the saying “no man is an island”. Running your business on a solo mode might retain the focus or vision of the business but it shuts the owner from the real experiences of other business owners. In this article, we would look at how building a solid network can maintain a start-up business. Success in business especially for a start-up trying to gain traction is not only dependent on how much the business is able to control financially, neither is it by the size of the team. There are other activities that not only boost a start-up but ensures its sustainability. Research has shown that many successful start-ups developed meaningful partnerships, which enabled them to achieve success quickly and sustainably. This is known as networking. What is Networking? Networking in business involves building relationships with potential partners for your business. It should not be mistaken for just hosting business meetings, exchanging business cards, joining business communities and organizing pitch parties. Notwithstanding, these are processes of networking that may get people to be interested in your business, trust what you do and desire to partner with you. These connections, if optimized, can boost a start-up business and expose it to more opportunities. What can networking do for your start-up business? Networking attracts excellent skills: Networking offers a large range of skills to make selections from. A start-up business with strong connections cannot lack top skills in its decisions. It cannot be limited to just the available but have the option of picking its desired. Networking helps you through competition: One can hardly talk about a business and its sustenance without recognizing the place of competitors – how they charge and what they do to stay as market leaders. Exposure through your business network gives insights to what you can do to stand out and also face competition in the industry without wearing out. In simple terms, networking breaks down the bulk of handling competitors as by others experiences, one is guided on essential approaches for effective results. Networking provides you with more negotiating power with potential investors: Investors seek to support a business that not only promises good return on their investment but will deliver rightly and on time. A strong network gives a business credibility and gives investors the assurance they need before they invest in your business. Also, your network can introduce you to other potential investors. Wider customer reach: Customers of a business are spread abroad. Networking links the business with its potential clients who in turn advocates on behalf of the business. The effect of this is a wider reach to the right customers thereby, increasing the business customer base. This connection is beyond boundaries; could be online or offline reach. Impact on business strategy: By exposure through networking, a start-up business gets to improve its strategies in communication, financing, operations and other aspects. Networking influences positively from the structure of the start-up business through its publicity even to the personal brand of the founders.

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Why You need a Functional Website

The vision of every business is to achieve its set goals, meet the demands of clients and create solutions peculiar to life challenges. Irrespective of the drive of a business, accomplishing more results with less resources is usually an approach most use in achieving these visions. Thanks to the impact of digitization in day-to-day activities, every business ranging from small-sized to large-sized get a chance to be optimized as there are many opportunities to get on with. Ecommerce enables businesses to trade goods and services over the internet in the various levels of business-to-business, business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer relationships. Why Online Visibility is Important? Is there a need to put your business online? Of course. Among many reasons, looking for the right audience is a major factor in running a business. Generally, different audiences exist, hence, the need for wider reach to find a niche in the market. Businesses put themselves up online majorly through websites, social media platforms, emailing strategies and mobile apps techniques. As much as it is important to set up a website for your business, it is imperative that you ensure the website is functional and responsive. Facts about online visibility and reputation management: 98% of the audience expect to see visual structures that are appealing. Understand that your audience/viewers have needs for which they seek solutions and would not appreciate unresponsiveness when in search of solution. Gain is the bottom line of businesses. This can be in the form of financial profit and other business support. Competition exists in business. Your business may not be solid, it doesn’t stop the presence of competitors in the market. Residing on the few facts expressed above, a functional business website can go a long way in helping your business succeed as there are many things it can do. On the business side, the cost of operating and managing a business website is minimal compared to setting up physical strategies of reaching target audience and engaging market interaction. Less operational cost with effective results generates more revenue. Why Social Media Presence is Not Enough In a bid to get your business running, creating Ads, posting on social media platforms is not sufficient to maximizing the benefits of digitization in business. These can give publicity to your business but having a website that is effective is more beneficial as it creates an online presence for your business. Having a website for your business gives your business the feel of trustworthiness. The integrity of a business is core in attributing organizational values both from the business team and clients. When a client gets introduced to your business and finds a center to get more resources on what your business entails, it creates a sense of credibility to what you do, hence, confidence to engage in your business. Furthermore, if the website is responsive, customer services available and call-to-action prompt, the impression alone gives the viewer a level of satisfaction. How a Functional Website Provides Significance Having a website that showcases your business and gives you the opportunity to reach a wider customer base. Offline operations may not offer these opportunities as there are mobility limitations and other factors. A functional website helps you identify loopholes, monitor customer interaction, track customer patronage, fetch reviews and give insights to the business. These activities help you in making business decisions in finances, publicity, operations, customer relationship, potential areas in need of your business solutions. Lastly, in a business, market augmentation is such that an expansion in target audience or product line occurs. This is very much achievable when your business is online and has a website that is functional. Effectiveness of a business component has a way of rubbing on the choices of the market audience. What is a functional business website like? A business website that is functional has good content. It is compatible across devices. The creative visual designs attract viewers and make them stay longer on the site. It displays only relevant information. The website is easy to navigate.      

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How to Structure African Startups to Go Global

Africa has recently made significant progress toward realizing its ambition of being a launching pad for most startup businesses. However, Africa’s track record of maintaining and ramping up startups is a different tale. Only few African startups with global impact exist on the continent, the most stemming from the tech industry. In comparison, the Western and Eastern part of the world have countless businesses with global reach which the African continent is a major customer to. Taking an example from the tech space, China boasts of more than 100 pillar startups, the United States can boast twice the count of China. In contrast, African startups with recognition and financial power are few and there are at most a quarter of other continent’s counts. According to Statista (2020), African startups are emerging massively with Nigeria predicted to have over 3,300 startups as at 2020, the largest number in Africa. Following that, in the same year, South Africa and Kenya recorded roughly 660 and 600 startups, respectively. It is evident the African continent is charging up for a universal value creation. Moving startups beyond Africa to meet customers on a global scale requires startup entrepreneurs to put in conscious efforts that will achieve this goal. This is necessary due to existing factors such as migration of native Africans to other continents, needs common to many irrespective of race and color and the need to put Africa at the top of productive continents. The methods to structure African startups for global takeover can be categorized in channels, value and investment strategies. Channels (Mediums) Strategy Utilize tech solutions: There is barely an impact desired lately that does not introduce the role of digitalization. Embarking on a global quest without a remote strategy will result in slow impact and oftentimes costly processes but the involvement of tech in startup activities make operations more efficient and effective from the point of showcasing its solutions to delivery of value to customers. Value Strategy Create a global product: People buy products that satisfy their needs. African startups should envisage offering solutions that go beyond its immediate region as there are demands for solutions across the globe. Bear in mind that target markets are widely spread across the globe. Potential customers could be anywhere be it the least region to the greatest region. Giving value to regions with needs peculiar to proposed value: Unique to some regions are lifestyles, fashion, beliefs people are comfortable with. Therefore, A startup that seeks to expand its customer base can create value that will meet the particular region according to their lifestyle and culture. Seek for areas in need of what a startup has to offer. Removing the “African” clause: On a global level, there is room for cultural diversity and universality. The “African” clause here is holding up to the ideology that a business must stem, build its team, grow and die in Africa alone without spreading it to the world. This way, the African potential resides only within the continent but an expansion to other continents put up African startups for a show. It is important that African startups accommodate international collaboration and publicity. Relationship Strategy Seek international support: Business networking is a powerful tool that helps spread businesses. This technique is tested and proven reliable even in the conventional pattern of running businesses. Power of “Word of Mouth” spreads businesses faster. Likewise, establishing relationships with international and united bodies gives the opportunity to sell business solutions to immediate networks who in turn share to their own network thereby, bringing more customers. Investment (Financing) Strategy Level up through the series of startup funding: In the phases of startup thriving, there are series of its funding and investment sourcing staging from Series A to Series B to Series C. Each stage has requirements peculiar to investors/sponsors, startups excelling through each process demands improved efforts as this strategy is usually competitive. Only a small percentage of African entrepreneurs make it past the Series B investment level which takes a toll on revenue generated through capital investors. African startups can sign up for global investment slots, grants and sponsorship that will expose them to a wider customer base every time they pitch solutions.

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Five Basic Customer Needs

Customers come in contact with businesses because they have a need that those businesses can cater to and make life easier for them. Their awareness of what a business does comes about through various means. It could be word of mouth, social media, newspaper, business listings and the likes so regardless of the size of your business, customers will always look out for five basic things as it plays a vital role in their purchase decision. With the pandemic, it became clear that businesses must make every effort to ensure that their activities are centered on giving customers their best if they want to remain in business. In addition, customer’s expectations are on the increase and so it is important to keep these little reminders in mind as they implement their business strategies for the year. The 5 Basic Customer Needs Value for money: Job loss is on the increase because business income lines are thinning out. This has made customers become more deliberate about how they spend their money: the focus is now on getting the essential items like food, shelter, etc. To stay topmost on the minds of your customers, you have to be a value giver at every interaction. Ensure that what they are getting measures up to the amount invested. If you exceed their expectations while at it, fantastic! Favourable pricing: In Nigeria, for instance, parting with cash is increasingly a hard thing to do. Customers are looking for businesses who will not only give them value for money spent but whose price is equally pocket friendly. Agreeably, the cost of running a business is on a daily increase so if you want to attract premium customers, it is imperative that you deliver top notch customer service and that your product is of high quality. Swift action: Customers are increasingly impatient and they want to spend as little time as possible with their transactions. This is a consequence of having within their reach ample information to inform their buying decision and a plethora of alternatives to choose from. It’s no longer enough to just be available, you’ve got to also be swift in your transactional activities. Respect: This probably ranks about 75% of the reasons why a customer would continue their patronage of a business. Remember repeat purchases is what keeps your business going. Each customer you let go is you letting money go to your competitor. Respect for customers and staff should be entrenched as one of your core values within your business. Appreciation: Customers will keep flocking to businesses who appreciate them and make them feel special. Your customer shouldn’t be just another addition to the number. Appreciate them for choosing to spend their money on your business and this can be done in various ways and may not always require you spending money. Conclusion Regardless of the size of your business or organization, all customers tend to want the same things: your attention. When customers get to receive these basic human considerations from you, it becomes easier to align with customers needs and can even raise the bar in your service delivery. If you want premium profits, you’ve got to give premium value. Found this useful? Please leave a comment.

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How to Maximize Social Media for Ecommerce

The emergence of ecommerce in Africa has seen online shoppers take advantage of the convenience it offers, as goods can now be delivered directly to their doorsteps while they also have the flexibility of selecting the payment channel either using their debit cards or payment upon delivery option. However, as ecommerce continues to evolve and shape how business is done, there are numerous challenges that has been associated with making orders online, these challenges if unresolved over a long period of time, would make the trust the customer has to completely diminish as the reputation of the businesses would also be affected which would reduce the demands and sales. Social Media for Ecommerce A major growth that ecommerce is experiencing in Africa is the transition from building enormous ecommerce sites to the use of different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and most especially Instagram to deliver products and services to online shoppers. The advantages of utilizing social media for ecommerce is numerous Social media platforms require no payment to utilize them. Building followership on social media is relatively easier compared to making a website rank well using digital marketing. Interaction between online vendors and shoppers is instant. Online vendors do not necessarily need to have the product until an order is made. No requirement of any form of maintenance for the platforms used. No formal business registration is required to become an online vendor. While the use of social media platforms for ecommerce has scaled ecommerce in Africa, a major challenge experienced by shoppers is trust. Online shoppers order for products and receive a totally different order, a damaged order or one that is totally different from what was displayed on the platform. This has been seen with items such as confectionaries, fashion, hair extensions, utensils, electronics etc. The inability of customers to get a refund or a replacement of the item ordered when it does not meet up with the specification is a big gap that is causing customers to reconsider when making a purchase on social media. Customers are well informed and are now beginning to compare prices of items in a physical retail store. Reputation Management Techniques for Online Vendors Reputation management by online vendors is very important as it can help to build a real business from scratch and not a side gig as is done by most vendors. To build reputation, it is important to do the following Create a relationship with prospective shoppers by engaging in visuals such as posting a video of the person engaged in business as an online vendor. A lot of shoppers want to relate with a person they see and the ability to have a visual can help in building reputation. Stick to your terms of order and delivery. A product that should be delivered within 3 days should not exceed the expected day of delivery, and if there are changes, the online shopper should be informed. There should be no hidden charges when engaging in ecommerce using social media platforms. Conducting Due Diligence Before Making Payment To avoid losing their monies to fraudulent vendors, shoppers are to conduct dues diligence on the vendors Read through the comment section of the vendors from 3 months, you would either find complaints or compliments. Start with an order that does not cost much in order to understand the vendor’s mode of operation. Insist on paying through an online payment platform such as Paystack or Flutterwave in order to be able to channel complaints appropriately. To ensure customers are protected, it is necessary to have a system that ensures goods are only paid for when the customer receives them and confirms they are in good condition. This way both the buyer and seller’s interest are protected.

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How to Create a Customer Journey Map

The importance of understanding the customer’s journey through your business remains an important aspect to be considered when designing processes that are aimed at enhancing the smooth running of your business. Regardless of the size of a business, one common factor is that there must be a customer journey. Determining what that journey is, depends on the aim of the business and the strategy it has adopted. It is vital that small business owners know the importance of understanding the customer’s journey as it aids the customer experience design and management. To appreciate the concept of the customer journey, let us attempt a definition. From the first contact with your business to the completion of the transaction, there is a story to be told…… the customer’s story. The customer journey simply refers to the summation of the customer’s experience in making a purchase, be it a service or product. It is a tool used to visualize what your customers’ experience is through your business. It is the assessment of your business value promised to the customer. Say you own a boutique along Adeniran Ogunsanya in Lagos and your value proposition is “your one-stop-shop”. Anyone walking into your boutique will be expecting to get everything relating to fashion there, right? Let’s draw up some questions to help us identify the possible customer touchpoints in this kind of business. 1. Is it easy to locate (brand visibility)? 2. In comparison to your competitors, how likely is your prospective customer to find you? 3. Available parking space for customers who drive-in? 4. Is it easy to park a vehicle without it being towed by the government authorities? 5. Is there available security personnel? 6. Is he or she warm, welcoming, and helpful? 7. Upon entering the boutique, is there personnel to welcome the customer? 8. Are the items displayed properly with the price tags attached? 9. Is the sales personnel knowledgeable and helpful? 10. Did the customer find what he or she was looking for to buy? 11. If not, what was the next course of action, the customer walks away? 12. If yes, was the price competitive? 13. If not, did the sales personnel cross-sell or offer an acceptable alternative, or did the customer walk away? 14. If the Customer wants the item, how was it packaged? 15. Did the salesperson thank the customer after the transaction? 16. Transaction completed, what next? With the questions above, one can pretty much draw the customer journey map for this business. When business owners have a clear picture of what their customers go through within their business, it makes it easy for them to spot a point in the journey that needs to either be removed or reviewed. It is recommended that when creating a customer journey map for your business, do it with an outside-in approach. This simply means designing it with optimizing the convenience of the customer in mind. Benefits of Having a Customer Journey Map   Having a customer journey map brings many benefits to a business including: It will help you identify ways to serve your existing customers better. It helps you identify your potential customers. It helps you identify shortcomings in your business. It helps position the business to increase productivity It gives all stakeholders in the business a bird’ eye view of the customers’ experience and guides their role in enhancing it. Tips to Note When Creating a Customer Journey Map Identify your buyer personas. Knowing who your likely buyers will be, will guide your design process. Identify and include all participants in the customer’s journey. This means that you can’t design it alone. Involve your staff. They get to interact more with the customers and can provide valuable insights to improve the customer’s experience. Build the map around measurable KPIs (key performance indicators) so that each outcome can be measured to check its impact on business profitability. Be mindful to include points for empathy. In our sample questions above, you will easily identify moments of empathy. It is a major customer experience driver in today’s business world. The above tips are not exhaustive. Your customer journey map can be designed uniquely for your business. The essential thing to note is that when your customer’s moment of truth reflects your own moment of truth about your business, it would be one of two things: you may either be doing something correctly or you need to review your business process. Hope you found this useful. Your thoughts?

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What You Need to Know About Customer Types

The lifeline of every business is enmeshed in the number of stakeholders it interacts with as well as their activities in relation to the business. These stakeholders include the suppliers of the raw materials needed for the business to manufacture its offerings, the employees or human resources who engage in the production and the customers who are the end users and the most important stakeholder in the cycle. The Customer Customers are consumers or end users that products or services are made for in order to satisfy their needs with a series of unique experiences. The customer in-turn has a unique role to play as their consistent purchase makes them become the most important stakeholder in a business. The major reason businesses collapse is for lack of customers as customers generate cash-flow for the business whenever they make purchases therefore contributing to increasing the sustainability of the business to remain afloat. The uniqueness of the customer does not trivialize the role of the supplier and employee but then without the customer, the aim of building a business without an end user is defeated. The Nigerian market is characterized with different categories of customers. The ability to understand the type of customers a business attracts through their purchasing behavior and data driven approach will support the growth of a business. This understanding helps businesses position their offerings correctly in order to attract the specific customer segment they want and also secure a reasonable market share through intentional strategies.  Here are the five customer types and what we need to know about their personality traits in order to sell to them Innovators (2.5%) Innovators are the type of customers whose buying decisions are risk driven. Innovators are the youngest in age and willing to experiment upon seeing a product or service they desire to use. The personality trait of innovators is that they are impulse buyers, their need for adopting a new product has no regards with respect to whether they have budgeted for it or not. Because they are risk takers, they easily adopt new technological solutions and while they can easily help brands to get exposure by putting these products in the presence of other potential users, they might lose their financial resources if such solutions fail based on some limitations. The Innovators account for only 2.5% of purchases made. Early Adopters (13.5%) These categories of customers are the second set of individuals to adopt an innovation after the Innovators, they are called the Early Adopters and they account for only 13.5% of purchases made. The Early adopters are also very young in age just like the Innovators and have a high social status and reasonable disposable income. They are opinionated and can be regarded as thought leaders. Because Early Adopters are judicious in their choice of adoption, they can easily maintain a central communication position, especially in giving reviews. Early Majority (34%) The Early major only adopts new solutions when a degree of time has passed after the launch of the solution into the marketplace. The time taken before they adopt any solution is usually longer than those of the Adopters and Innovators. They usually tend to be slower when it comes to the adoption of a solution and only belong to the above average income class, however their contact with Early Adopters eventually informs their decisions about eventual purchases. They also rarely hold an opinion which is a direct opposite of what the Early Adopters do. They account for 34% of all purchases. Late Majority (34%) The Late Majority only adopt any form of innovation after the average in the society has done that. Their approach of innovation is with a high degree of skepticism. They are far from being risk takers as they are low on disposable income and want to avoid mistakes when making purchases since their income is limited. They are also characterized with very little financial education, are in contact with those in the Early majority and their peers, and possess not much opinion leadership. They account for 34% of all purchases just like the Early Majority. Laggards (16%) The laggards as the name implies are the last to adopt any form of innovation. These individuals have no respect for change as they hold on to their first generation of solutions and do not consider a change of such a solution except if there is a breakdown of such a product or it no longer works again, only these circumstances makes them embrace change. They are traditionalists and are usually elderly, have very little disposable income, lowest financial education and are only in touch with family and friends All customer types make their unique contributions to grow a business; their role in the value chain supports the sustainability of a business in different dimensions. The early majority and the late majority are usually the difficult set of customers, however learning to sell to them by winning their confidence and serving them right, has the ability to increase repeat purchase as they both account for the highest percentage in overall purchases made. Customers are never the same and understanding how to serve them uniquely in a particular market, holds the key to profitability.

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Customer Retention Strategies

How Superstores Are Utilizing Superior Customer Experience To Increase Retention Rates And How SMEs Can Adopt Technique “A happy customer tells their friend, an unhappy customer tells the world” One of the major challenges Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) face is customer retention. This is the ability to make customers coming back after the first purchase. Repeat sales to the same set of customers over time encourage loyalty and as a business owner, you need loyal customers to ensure you are in business. The reason why it is important to have strategies for both customer acquisition and retention is that it takes as much as 3x effort, time, and resources to acquire a new customer than to retain them. Therefore the ability to manage an already existing customer helps a business build loyalty and profitability eventually. There are several examples of how different businesses have used customer experience to boost customer retention. A major shift in consumer’s purchasing behavior can be seen in the emergence of superstores across Africa. There have always been supermarkets within neighborhoods where residents make regular purchases, however, their inability to create a unique experience for buyers has caused customers to visit these superstores that can create the experiences they desire. As customers emerge, their needs begin to shift from just satisfaction of these needs to getting an experience that helps them create memories whenever they go shopping, and this evolution has made businesses think about how to capture these experiences in their offerings. Some variables that have seen the surge of customers to superstores from already existing supermarkets include: Ambiance Ambiance could be in the form of a serene environment with greenery or a properly lighted space where customers with their families can sit, have informal discussions and relish the memories and experiences that comes with being able to enjoy their shopping experience. An environment that creates a background for good pictures puts the shoppers in a position of wanting to experiment with different scenery. This range of experiences is a major factor that would keep customers loyal to a brand. Competitive Pricing Superstores have also learned the ability to engage their supply chain to get competitive pricing for the bulk purchases made in order for retailers to benefit from obtaining goods at what they consider reasonable and affordable. Entertainment Music playing in the background from loudspeakers across the building of these superstores helps to also create some refreshing moments in the minds of the shoppers, which makes them loosen up as they enjoy the homemade artistry of popular performing artists and musicians. Hygiene Shopping in an environment that considers hygiene a priority is one that customers consider unique in terms of experience especially as the covid-19 pandemic is yet to be completely wiped out. Seeing the janitors continuously working around the environment to ensure there is cleanliness makes shoppers become confident not just in the offerings but in the conveniences. Parking Spaces A superstore expects to get a lot of customers and there becomes a new challenge to create ease while they shop. Ease could come in the form of creating parking lots to not just accommodate their vehicles but also guarantee the security of their assets. Africa is a unique market and for a superstore to thrive, an understanding of the driving factors needs to be considered in order to create unique offerings. No matter how big or small a store is, it will never grow beyond its ability to create a unique experience for its customers.

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Entrepreneurs and Customer Service Delivery

Entrepreneurs, customer service delivery begins with You! Not every purchase will work out well!  Agree? Every business owner must accept this reality so that they can channel their energies properly. Let’s look at the possible reasons why you may not make that sale. 1. Your Customer Avatar –  Do you have one? A great number of small businesses fail to see the need to create a customer avatar. There is also the understanding that many local business owners may not understand what a customer avatar is so I ask, what customer pain is your product or service addressing? If you can answer this, you’re already building a customer avatar. Next, question – Is your product or service properly aligned to address this customer’s needs? If it is not, what are you doing to ensure it is well-aligned? It could also be that you missed a sale with an existing customer, have you taken time to find out what went wrong? According to Forbes, you not only create an ideal customer avatar but you can also discover one. 2. Response Timeline Having an online presence for your business is fantastic because COVID-19 has opened our eyes to the treasures of the online market but then it has also presented business owners with another problem – highly impatient customers!  I have been disappointed times without count by businesses with a large social media followership but with terrible response timelines. If you have a social media page for your business, how do you cater to customer inquiries made when you’re not online? You’re leaving lots of money on the table if you don’t have a strategy to address this. 3. Selling Skills Some people are born with the ability to convince others that stone can be melted to form water and that water can become a human being! Yes, this is me pushing my imagination but you get my drift? Some people are that good while some need to acquire the skill. You can’t make a sale if you cannot convince customers of how your product or service can ease their challenges. The fact that you are an entrepreneur does not mean that you do not need further education. What you would be thinking of is the magnitude. The advancement in the use of social media has opened up avenues for people to offer coaching services at an affordable price. Get a business mentor that will guide you on how to sell better. You will be amazed at how much the knowledge gained will change your business for the better. 4.  Employee Experience If you are in the habit of barking orders at your employees, you’re not doing your business any good. Do you know that your staff are the first customers to your business? Do you know that your employee experience translates into your customer experience? “When employees are happy, they are your very best ambassadors” – James Sinegal Strategies for improving customer service delivery As a business person, ensuring that your business stands out in excellent customer service delivery should be at the forefront of your business growth strategies. You might be in a market saturated with competitors but not all will serve the customer in the same way. Here’s where you should aim to stand out positively. The following tips are to serve as a guide for you to design your customer service approach: It all begins with a smile: If as a small business owner your countenance does not encourage amiability or approachability, you are sending the wrong message. There is a tendency that your staff will take it as a norm and behave the same way to your customers. The art of saying “Thank You”: It is only humane that you express gratitude to the one who makes your life easier by helping you grow your business. The gratitude shown to your staff at any given opportunity rubs off on them and indicates that you see them as co-creators a sense of respect Your poor attitude may be killing your business without you realizing it. Customers are watching your every move. How you conduct your business says a lot about who you are. No one pours from an empty cup. When you champion the cause of excellent customer service as a business owner internally through your workers, your customer will keep coming back.

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