First Impression of Your Business

Make it easy for your customers to shop at your business.

The layout of your business should provide customers with a good first impression.

You don’t want customers to be confused when visiting your business, because if it becomes too hard for them they will go elsewhere.

When customers first see your business it must be easy for them to:

- Find what they are looking for
- Move around
- Find assistance
- Pay for the product
- and ‘feel right’

You can best identify ways to improve the layout of your business by listening to the questions your customers ask.

If you are being asked the same questions regularly about the points listed above, it’s time to change your layout.

You can access further information to help you run your business through my websites:
www.personal-customer-service-tips.com
www.success-in-business-tips.com
www.effective-marketing-advice.com

Monitor Customer Complaints and Feedback Daily, and Fix the Problems

It is very easy to improve your customers’ experience quickly, simply by listening and recording customer complaints and feedback.

Create a simple process for you or your staff to record complaints and feedback.

At the end of each day you can quickly scan these to identify if there is a change you can make to your business to improve your customers’ experience, your products, or the way you run your business.

Don’t just leave it there.

At the end of each month review the complaints and feedback you received for that month and see if there was a common theme or themes. This will give you a great insight into how your business is running and the things you can do to improve your business.

You can access further information to help you run your business through my websites:
www.personal-customer-service-tips.com
www.success-in-business-tips.com
www.effective-marketing-advice.com

Get Ideas From Other Businesses

By observing other businesses you can get ideas for what works well and what doesn’t work well.

What works for other businesses:

- Copy these for your business
- Adapt them to suit your business

What doesn’t work for other businesses:

- You will know what to avoid
- You can do the opposite in your business

Make sure you observe all aspects of other businesses, for example:

- First impressions
- Marketing activities
- Use and test their website
- Customer service skills
- Sales skills
- Cleanliness of their business/store
- Appearance of staff
- Systems and technology

Further information to help you run your business is provided by my websites:

http://www.personal-customer-service-tips.com/
http://www.success-in-business-tips.com/
http://www.effective-marketing-advice.com/

Name Your Business so it’s Memorable

Does your business name stand out?

Does it tell people what you do?

- Pet Store

Does it include your name to give it a friendly feel?

- Jenny’s Pet Store

Does it give your location if you want to target a particular area?

- Jenny’s Sydney Pet Store

Do you specialize?

- Jenny’s Sydney Pet Rabbit Store

If you have a small marketing budget your business name becomes another marketing tool and an image for customers to remember.

www.personal-customer-service-tips.com
www.success-in-business-tips.com
www.effective-marketing-advice.com

Genuine Interest in the Customer

Why is it that 20 people can attend the same training session to learn customer service skills, and each person still provides a different level of service?

Why is it that organisations can spend substantial amounts of money training staff, and when you call that organisation you feel you have been subjected to scripting and unnatural conversation, with little confidence you received the information you were after, or that your request will be actioned?

The reason is that people talk to people, not organisations. People represent the organisation. The organisation can provide tools like training and scripting, however no amount of customer service training and scripting will substitute a person’s genuine interest in the customer, and the desire to help them.

If you have a genuine interest in the customer, conversation will flow naturally. The customer will feel comfortable talking with you and confident you have answered their enquiry or actioned their request.

If you have the desire to help them, you will instinctively listen to what customers say and pick up on important words that help you identify what their needs are.

You will then be able to provide information to the customer in a logical manner and order, based on the importance to the customer.


After your interaction with the customer, you will be able check the customer understands the information you provided, and that will give the customer the confidence that their enquiry was dealt with to their satisfaction.

www.personal-customer-service-tips.com
www.success-in-business-tips.com
www.effective-marketing-advice.com