Building Blocks to Success: Does the Image of Your Business Attract Customers or Motivate Employees?

EXAMINING OPPORTUNITIES

How successful is your business? What do you consider success? Do you keep your clients and employees for extended periods of time or do they lose interest? Does your business draw new customers continually? Is your business prepared to make changes in order to expand at a faster rate? Is expansion what you really need or want? Is customer/client or employee retention important? What is the main purpose for your business? Are you consistently making strides toward your mission and your goals? Are customers excited and encouraged by your products and services? Do employees see the viability of your products or services? Answering these questions is the secret to image building, customer and employee development, and growth.

Clear and consistent communication is crucial—telling others what they need to know and what you want to accomplish. You should strive for clarity and simplicity in your communication methods as well. For example, website should contain links of exactly what your business does.

Any business wishing to add or retain clients as well as employees needs to be willing to make some improvements as your situation warrants. If the image of your business already portrays a positive message, you should be able to draw a significant amount of outside interest. Drastic changes may not be necessary but some of your current practices and services may need some modification to promote substantial growth.

Essentially, all customer development and retention is based on your image. In other words, how do outsiders view your business? If your image is appealing, any marketing techniques you use will probably be successful. If your image is not perceived very well, you will have to adjust that perception. Once you feel your image is positive and easily understood, you can market your business more effectively.

Employees’ attitudes will probably have to be evaluated for any changes to occur at all. Your current employees may not even be aware that they may be causing your business problems. The same products, the same services, the same public relation efforts, and the same tried and true ways of handling employees and customer services might not compete well with other businesses in the neighborhood. Times change and each business needs to adjust as well.

Making improvements is not always difficult. Long-range plans should be contemplated continually. Tracking where you have been is necessary to see what you still want to implement in the future.

The way you sell your business differentiates it and establishes how it is viewed. Traditional marketing may work for some businesses but more contemporary relationship related techniques might be necessary for others to be successful. If you truly want to expand, you need to watch the current trends as well as the demographics of your community.

Many neighborhoods are becoming multi cultural. Since all cultures look at products and services differently, some surveys of your community might even be helpful. Also, many businesses are more global in their reach.

Brainstorming might be warranted. Sometimes it is better to have an outside facilitator lead vital employees in some goal setting or brainstorming. Focus groups may work as well. An unbiased facilitator usually collects better results and offers more insight in any brainstorming process. Since ideas must be flushed out as much as possible, all the participants in this process must feel that their comments will be accepted as credible and valuable.

A facilitator usually asks each person to state any thoughts that come to mind when thinking critically about your current business activities. Once initial topics are listed, all participants should decide on the best five or six choices. After making this determination, each person should share various aspects and strategies to make any alternatives work. All the possibilities from participants should be accumulated and used later when you are planning your goals and objectives for the future.

Everyone wants to be a participant in the process of any major changes. Brain storming with as many employees as possible will make innovations seem less intrusive to them. Focus groups (gathering individuals from a specific population to ask questions about products, services, or just getting input) are also a common means of assembling opinions.

Enough employees need to understand why your business wants to try some new strategies. The more employees willing to look at your business in a newer positive light, the more quickly and easily these transitions will occur. The impact of possible

improvements will not immediately be seen. Positive and negatives of any changes may be subtle at first. This is why it is very important to be thinking and acting in a productive but sensitive manner.

Dramas or skits of inappropriate behavior may be an innovative part of staff meetings. Inclusive and participatory methods in staff training will create more openness. If all employees cannot work together for positive change, rifts can take place that are difficult to heal. If the disagreements between some employees are strong enough, it may even cause a business to lose valuable employees and ultimately customers who prefer those employees’ assistance. It is a much wiser plan to try to carefully iron out any areas in which contention may exist.

Another side effect of major change may be the loss of long-time employees who do not feel comfortable with your new initiatives. Even though this may happen regardless of how careful and thoughtful you are, as much effort as practical should be undertaken to bridge the gap between the various opinions of your employees. Customers will need to be advised of any discontinued products or services and persuaded how new ones will ultimately be more valuable to them. The transition time is the most difficult to overcome, but once you have dealt with the initial uncertainties, both your customers and employees will start to feel more comfortable with the new plans. I encourage you to be open to new possibilities and to explore what benefits your business could gain from new initiatives.

POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITIES

*       Evaluating attitude toward customers

*       Improving customer follow-up

                     *       Developing and promoting your purpose

                     *       Developing excellent customer service

*       Using more publicity

*       Trying new activities

*       Promoting customer resources

*       Publicizing newsletters, list servs, and website

*       Becoming involved in the community

*       Offering scholarships, contests, or awards

*       Providing inspiring retreats or conferences

*       setting positive and realistic goals for the future

In the following chapters, I will identify and review some valuable ideas used by various businesses. This will help you to explore your current practices and investigate possible improvements. Of course, you need to examine your business as if you were an outsider to truly evaluate how you compare with others. Comparing and contrasting your business is beneficial and critical to expanding your opportunities in the future.

ATTITUDE EVALUATION

Have you ever visited a business where you were either ignored or treated rudely? How do your employees react to new customers? Each time I visit new businesses or functions, I receive different types of welcomes. Even though most of the time, there is someone available to assist me, I often can sense the apprehension in the air. Since I am blind, I am not the norm.

If you put yourself in the place of someone who is a bit different from your average customer, you might realize that you or your employees may not always treat everyone with respect and friendliness. Does each employee expect someone else to welcome the customers they don’t feel comfortable greeting? Most people don’t even realize they are acting in an unfriendly manner but customers can tell if they are truly welcome in your business.

One of the most important rules of good customer relations is the openness or attitude of the business toward new customers. Prospective customers like to feel welcomed. Employees need to realize how important it is to make customers comfortable enough to want to come back. If too many employees are unfriendly toward one another, a customer may feel the friction and may leave.

New employees need to be welcomed by current employees as well. If clicks or inside groups of employees do not reach out, a new employee may not develop a good attitude. Listening to each other’s views respectfully is also a sign of acceptance.

Is staff always paying attention to their work responsibilities or talking to other employees rather than concentrating on assisting a customer? If all employees are focusing on their own priorities, prospective customers may leave before purchasing anything. Assigning an employee to greet customers at the doors and escort them to the proper area in the business may make them feel welcome and more at ease.

Consideration, compromise, and communication are important tools. Positive communication and feedback are necessary since negativity can prevent a relationship from starting. Anything you can do to make customers feel more comfortable is worth the effort. Nametags make it easier for customers to call employees and management by name. Recycled tags will eliminate too much extra cost.

Some mixers or starters should be initiated at the beginning of any seminars your business sponsors. Door prizes would also give any setting a more festive atmosphere. After seminars or classes, coffee and juice could be available so customers may feel comfortable enough to network and chat. This encourages employees and management to exchange more than just a greeting with customers and to meet more potential ones. The owner or manager of the business should welcome everyone attending any class, seminar, or conference and introduce the major employees handling the event.

Everyone likes to be greeted and invited to participate. The managers need to help employees understand the importance of being open and inviting to anyone new. Sometimes people feel less inclined to be open and inviting with people with a disability, people of other ethnic backgrounds, or even people of other generations, i.e. twenty years older or younger than themselves. However, in our global society, it is more and more likely that the customers and other employees will be more diverse than in the past. Sometimes, employees are afraid to offend anyone. However, giving a friendly smile and hello are accepted as universal signs of greeting and openness. Diversity training is important for all key employees today. If employees realize the importance of understanding any customer or new employee, relationships will flourish.

Most people respond well to simple friendly greetings. It is essential for businesses to give clients as well as new employees a sense of acceptance and warmth. New employees want to be greeted and invited to participate in any activity the others attend.

Does your management treat all employees the same? Each person attending any given meeting needs to be treated with respect. Any employee’s suggestions and comments need to be accepted as equally important. Obviously, managers cannot always adjust every program or service to suit everyone, but they need to listen to everyone’s opinions. If someone is treated condescendingly or as if a remark was inappropriate, he/she will feel offended. A manager does not need to tolerate behavior that is disruptive, but the person can be asked to refrain from commenting at an inappropriate time. An opportunity can be given later in any situation (seminar, class, or meeting for participants to express an opinion.

Awards or special treatment should not be given to people simply because they are friends. All awards must be given to those who have actually accomplished valued work or special projects. Award specifications might be helpful in controlling possible favoritism. A little reflection on how presentations will be perceived by others must be considered in all activities. Your business wants to be known for its honesty and integrity.

Whenever your business holds a seminar for customers, a special greeter should be assigned to introduce people to other participants. Also, if your meetings have a meal or snack time, everyone will have a chance to network with each other. If there is coffee and cookies or dessert afterwards, guests and employees can mingle.

Why not try different mixers for luncheons or dinners on special occasions? Centerpieces or other gifts can be given as door prizes. Winners could be the person with the closest birthday to the date of the festivity. To create a sharing atmosphere, all guests at a table could huddle to find answers to a quiz. For guessing the total number, varied sizes of containers could be filled with M and Ms, pennies, or macaroni. If you choose M and M’s or chocolate kisses, the table guests could share the candies when winning the prize.

ATTITUDE QUESTIONAIRE

1 .   Do you routinely welcome all visitors?

2.   Do you welcome only prospective customers that seem to be more likely to buy or only those similar to you?

3.   Do you invite window shoppers to come again?

4.   Do you usually talk with many participants to network with them at activities or other meetings you attend?

5.   Do you try to get to most activities or meetings early so you can mingle and network with participants?

6.   Do you leave meetings or activities quickly