Putting your Best Foot Forward

I recently had our team watch a video by Robin Robins and discuss it as part of our weekly staff meeting (link is at the end of the article).  In it she talked about “broken windows” – those things that put your business in a negative light that we get used to as internal people.  We had a great discussion (and regularly come back to these concepts – have you noticed that our shop workspace is now cleaner?).  When I coach business owners we talk about the idea of “Moments of Truth”: every interaction with a prospective client is a moment of truth that will either increase their view of you or decrease their view of you.

Many businesses fail not because they do their core business wrong, but because they do not put enough attention to the small things.  They let the broken windows stay broken.  They allow the small annoyances to continue simply because they (the owner and staff) no longer notice them.  But your clients and prospective clients do!  And it could be costing you thousands in lost clients and revenue.

Here are 11 short ideas that put your best foot forward (or their absence is a “broken window”). I suggest that you choose two or three and see if you can make an improvement in them over the next few weeks.  To encourage you, I’m offering a $50 Copy Express voucher to one person who replys by the end of August with an example we can publish in next month’s newsletter.

The Basics (Business Hygiene)

• Answering the phone – is it answered politely and clearly?  I called a motel today to make an inquiry and the phone was answered “Hello.”  No business name, no identification of the person answering the phone.  Made me wonder if I had reached a real business.  Are calls transferred well, messages taken effectively, etc?
• Physical appearance of your premises – when we moved into our new space earlier this year we moved a sofa from the staff room to the reception area that has a few water stain marks on it – it doesn’t look disgusting, but you can see the faint outline.  We started noticing that people didn’t often sit on it, and when we asked people to take a seat they often choose to sit.  Hmm.  By the time you read this that sofa will be long gone!  We were so used to it we didn’t think it was a big deal, but our customers were obviously thinking differently.
• Signage (or lack thereof) – they (mostly sign writers) say that having no signage is a sign if no business.  But I think that having stale signage is a sign of a bad business.  When you drive past a business and see a sign that is cracked, faded, has out of date data on it (think 6 digit phone numbers) and just looks grotty, it makes it difficult to take them seriously.  Now I know that many people say that the ebest food comes from “whole in the wall” restaurants, but why take the chance?
• Your web and email address – it just baffles me when people publish xtra.co.nz, clear.net.nz, hotmail, gmail or yahoo email addresses or websites on some free server.  It makes you look cheap and ill-informed!  (sorry if I just offended you).  Its also stupid (there, I probably did it again!).  It is so cheap and easy to get your own domain name and a basic web site that there is no excuse for not doing it right.  By using your ISPs domain (xtra, clear, etc.) you are tying yourself into their services and if you ever want to change providers you will have to pay for the right to keep the email address.  Using gmail and other such services just looks cheap.  gmail will host your domained email for free so why not make it look good.  Oh – if this is you, we offer a basic website service that will get you up and running quickly.

Dealing with your Prospects

• Look professional with your correspondence – whether it’s a nice email footer, a colour letterhead, or proper business cards (printed in NZ sizes, not like those cheap ones you get from that Dutch company starting with V), it really does make a difference!  It costs very little to get these designed and printed.  We have helped clients design nice email signatures, digital letterhead templates as well as the “traditional” printed variety.
• Never leave them empty handed (and your business card doesn’t count) – I once called a pest control company over to talk about an ant problem at home.  The guy left by handing me a business card.  I had to write the quote on the back myself!  He should have had a quote book and some literature on their service that showed how professional they were and set them up as experts in the field.  It does cost a little more to get this created but it will significantly increase your sales conversions!
• Follow-up – I’m amazed at how many businesses go through the motions of collecting some information from me when I make an inquiry and then never contact me again.  You make yourself stand out from the competitors by following up.  In fact, I am reluctant to give my business to anyone who doesn’t show me that they actually want it, so a failure to follow up on my inquiry is generally a failure to get my business! (yes, I’m a harsh bugger!)

Delivering your Core Service

• Do what you say you will do – surprisingly this is still not as common as it should be.  Now no business is perfect – we all make mistakes.  But strive to deliver on your promises.  Understand what is important to your customer and then deliver that consistently well.  And if you make mistakes – learn from them!  At Copy Express we call it a “service failure” and have a place in our weekly staff meetings to talk about it.  We try to understand in what way we failed to meet the customer’s expectation, why this happened, and how we can avoid this from happening again.
• Pay attention to the small stuff – we had a DVS system installed in our home a few years ago.  It left a really sour taste in our mouth because the guys who did the installation took so many short cuts and left our house a mess.  They failed to cover the clothes in my closet and got sawdust all over my suits (not that I wear them often), and run the ducts in the most inconvenient places.  They didn’t even vacuum up!  (yes, there was a formal complaint).  Most of the time it costs no more to attend to the small things, and creates such fantastic goodwill and referrals that it can actually make you money!
• Do what you say you will do – surprisingly this is still not as common as it should be.  Now no business is perfect – we all make mistakes.  But strive to deliver on your promises.  Understand what is important to your customer and then deliver that consistently well.  And if you make mistakes – learn from them!  At Copy Express we call it a “service failure” and have a place in our weekly staff meetings to talk about it. We try to understand in what way we failed to meet the customer’s expectation, why this happened, and how we can avoid this from happening again.
• Pay attention to the small stuff – we had a DVS system installed in our home a few years ago.  It left a really sour taste in our mouth because the guys who did the installation took so many short cuts and left our house a mess.  They failed to cover the clothes in my closet and got sawdust all over my suits (not that I wear them often), and run the ducts in the most inconvenient places.  They didn’t even vacuum up!  (yes, there was a formal complaint).  Most of the time it costs no more to attend to the small things, and creates such fantastic goodwill and referrals that it can actually make you money!

After-Sales Service

• Send thank you notes and cards – yes, a little old school, but definitely still worth doing – mostly because no one else is doing it any more.  A hand-written thank you note for their business, or nice comment written on a compliment slip, or something similar goes an incredibly long way in building customer loyalty.
• Remind your customers that you are still there – send printed newsletters (better than email by a long shot; and less regulated), invitations to special events, Christmas Cards, etc.  Not only will this result in increased sales, but your customers will pass some of this on to their friends.  We’ve been doing Christmas Cards to local businesses at Copy Express for the last several years, and every year someone walks in with one of these cards because on of their friends showed it to them and they wanted some too!

I hope that you found a few areas here that you can improve upon.  It’s not about being perfect – just choose one thing and try to make a significant improvement.  Most changes don’t even cost much money.  When you’re satisfied with that – pick another and keep moving.