Is your business experiencing high turnover? Are your sales are down? How well does that bode with your current staff?
According to Gallup research, the top reasons an organization experiences high turnover is because of:
Has this happened to you? SCENARIO: Joe, a customer, is furious and screaming at your employee for causing his business to incur expenses due to the late delivery of his product. The purchase order clearly indicates that the agreed upon date and it is also clear that Joe is wrong. Joe’s anger prevents him from seeing/hearing the facts until at last, he takes a closer look at the order and his face now is red from embarrassment instead of anger.
While it is tempting to relish in the idea of getting even with the customer and making him acknowledge his obvious mistake, there is no value in doing so. It is not a good look for the customer, your business, your brand or to you as an individual.
Okay, let’s get right to it !
What do customers want in their experience with businesses? They want frontline employees to be empowered with decision making authority and to be thoroughly familiar with products, services and company policies.
Customers expect and are entitled to being treated with respect. They want businesses to LISTEN to their questions without any anticipation of what they will say. Customers do NOT want to repeat themselves.
1) Personalization – Customers value their “space” but also don’t appreciate being ignored. They expect you to know when to be personable and know when to “back off”. They expect companies to put information in spaces that are easy to find (online, on packages, on store shelves…). Research shows that about half of online shoppers will “dump” their cart if they cannot find easy answers to their questions.
If you have talked to young people or entered the world of social media, you have probably heard the phrase “Bye Felicia”. It comes from a line in the 1995 movie, “Friday” when Felicia (Angela Means-Kaaya), who always wants to borrow from the neighbors, asks to borrow Smokey’s car (Chris Tucker). He says no but she persists. To dismiss her, Jones (Ice Cube) interjects “Bye Felicia” and she understands that any further persistence will NOT be tolerated so she walks away.
When you fall short of meeting client expectations, you must shift your paradigm, face your fear, anxiety and insecurity and tell all of that negativity “Bye Felicia, you have no place in my world”. You become what you believe about yourself. If you believe yourself to be a thought leader, draw on social media communications to connect and engage with consumers and peers and turn ideas into reality. You will find that your actions will generate enthusiasm and serve as a springboard to improve company services and products.
More and more consumers are buying online–globally !!
The number of shoppers across the globe using the internet to purchase goods and services is increasing daily. They have determined that they want to save time, money, and energy. They want to avoid the crowds and enjoy the convenience of making purchase via their tablet, smart phone and laptop computers. If your business has not made provision for quality service to this demographic, you have set yourself up to be usurped by the competition.
The proof is in the numbers:
In 2010, e-commerce sales in the United States grew 12.6% totaling $176 billion. In 2015, the total was more than $280 billion. The first quarter of 2016, e-commerce increased 15.2%. The trend clearly indicates that the momentum for online shopping is full steam ahead.
