SimpleBiz360™ Podcast

Each touchpoint creates an opportunity for a customer impression. However, very few owners, or executives, have ever counted the number of touchpoints in an average transaction. With that said, it’s hard to manage customer satisfaction if you can’t identify and measure satisfaction. Impressions are good and bad, and research shows it takes about 10-12 positive impressions to erase one bad impressi...

Perpetual procrastination can literally send your company to the boneyard. How? As proprietors, we constantly see opportunities for improvement, but we rarely act on them. In many cases, these missed opportunities might be costly enough to sink your company. I know because I have lived out this scenario in one of my business failures. If you’re constantly procrastinating, why don’t you try waking...

One of the biggest time wasters in business, and a large contributor to margin erosion, is being in the habit of touching the same thing multiple times. Streamlined businesses, mega-profitable businesses, and many well-run manufacturers realize the significance of touching things one time only. If you want to decrease touches, then we have a great place to start. We suggest you begin your improvem...

This is a classic contributor to broken promises. So many customers get upset at vendors who dropped the ball. Customers often chalk this up to a vendor that they think is inept and incapable, when in fact, the vendor is overcommitted. Are you overcommitted? Do you suffer from FOMO when it comes to taking on jobs? If so, we encourage you to think about taking on what you can handle. Support the sh...

Sounds like a silly question, but you would be shocked at how many of us vendors miss the mark time, and time again. Most of our customers are given the name, “Hey”, when we could easily address them by their name. Maybe it’s time to take a good hard look at how many times you call a customer “Hey”, when you could call them by name? Always remember, to that person, their name is the sweetest sound...

Have you ever examined your business through the lens of identifying pain points in your business? It’s a great exercise, and can be very fruitful. Every once in while assemble your team for a story-telling session. Encourage them to share their stories that illustrate customer pain points with your business. Once identified, get rid of them and replace them with customer-pleasing methods of handl...

Sounds like a funny question right? Well I just ran into a very strange situation a few months ago, and I feel compelled to share it. I was leaving a voice message for a vendor when I heard a bunch of F-bombs coming from him as I was leaving my message. Apparently, the vendor never stopped recording, and it eventually captured an inter-office business conversation laced with vendor F-bombs. The F-...

In today’s world, so many buyers have one eyebrow up when they meet with vendors. A classic, and easily detectable mistake is when vendors rely on assertions instead of claims. What’s the difference? A claim is a statement that can be backed up with evidence, and an assertion is a baseless statement with little, to no evidence as back up. Where do you and your customer facing teams fall? Maybe it’...

I learned a valuable, and painful lesson years ago. I met three customers for important lunch, and for the second time, I was 15 minutes late. Little did I know that the leader of the customer group was an ex-marine, and punctuality was a standard operating procedure for him. As I greeted everyone and sat down… I got my head handed to me. From that day on, I have worked diligently on trying to be...

This concept may get a chuckle or two. However, this operating tenant is often times skimmed over in the board rooms and training rooms. The customer experience is set on the right axis if the vendor displays genuine politeness. This is especially important in the first 30 seconds of a business relationship. Starting the transaction, and continuing the transaction with the common thread of politen...

Customers find great comfort when their vendors operate in patterns that are consistent, and good for the customer. Inconsistency is one of the most common occurrences in business today. The companies that flourish are those that operate with a set of standard operating procedures that becomes an insurance policy for consistency. Support the show

Successful businesses don’t live on the extremes where people either really like you, or really dislike you. Successful businesses, learn how to win the middle staying away from the exterior. Utilizing the tenants of professionalism is the best way to avoid the traps of being on the outer edges. Winning the middle acts is like an insurance policy that leads to healthy repeat and referral customers...

Business streakers are fast operators who vanish just before they get the project ball across the finish line. These enthusiastic beginners magically disappear at critical times. As a result, customer projects yawn past expected completion dates, and the streaker fails to answer crucial phone calls, emails, text messages, or knocks on the door. Poof! Gone! Nowhere to be found! Then all of a sudden...

We are going to flip the tables and talk about customers for one minute. As vendors attempt to provide quality services, questions may arise that need customer input, or direction. The customers can be both invoice-paying customers, or internal associates. Regardless, I have watched many transactions travel through time-wasting, and money-wasting rapids that could have been avoided with expedient,...

This can be a fun, simple and productive exercise. Start by asking yourself for the top three things that irritate you when you purchase something? Then, hunt within your own company to see if these pain points exist within your operational structure. Once found, eradicate them and replace them with customer-pleasing services. Do this exercise periodically, and turn your lemons into saleable lemon...

Design well. Manufacture to exceed expectations. Take no shortcuts. Audit properly. Audit regularly. Be the customer. Constantly improve. Imagine if you were to run your company with these seven principals? The result could be a premium price that you explain once, and that is defended by exceptional deliverables. Support the show

Do you want to deliver a pleasant surprise to your customers? Do you want to look fresh and exciting to customers? If so, all you have to do is take ownership of you actions, and retire the societal trend of blame-shifting. Novel. Humble. Endearing. Lucrative. Make action ownership a hallmark of your company, and watch your business grow! Support the show

Many companies put the cart before the horse by expecting customers to trust them first, rather than earning trust through action. Has your company inverted the trust relationship? Repeat and referral business grows for companies that consistently demonstrate trustworthiness. Do your actions back up your marketing and sales claims? Are you expecting and demanding trust from customers, or are you w...

We live in a feature driven product world. Buttons, modes, settings and codes accompany so many products we buy. But what benefits do all these features serve? If you are not in the habit of explaining what the features do for customers, now would be a great time to start generating effective ways to explain the benefits of all these buttons, modes, settings, and codes. Support the show

This is a classic example of putting yourself in the customer shoes. If you want to make customers happy, do your very best to eliminate mysteries. The best place to start is to voluntarily provide information that addresses the questions of why. If you can prevent your customers from asking unnecessary questions, they will love you for a long time, and refer your company to other people. Support...

The majority of our business correspondence is quickly embracing minimalistic content over comprehensiveness. In other words, we are leaning into communications that look like texts instead of letters. If this is you, are you confusing customers more than assisting them? Is your communication becoming too abbreviated and cryptic? Are you creating a cache of customer defections? If so, maybe it’s t...

Changing customer expectations mid-transaction is usually a dangerous proposition. If you want to increase repeat and referral business, make sure that your deliverables meet the expectations that you advertise. Support the show

Most customers like vendors that employ sales and service personnel who make things happen. There is nothing more frustrating to customers than to watch their orders handled sluggishly. In addition, customers love vendors that can solve problems quickly, efficiently, creatively, and with tenacity. If your customer facing employees lack these inherent qualities, it’s probably time to move to Plan B...

Business issues that have no immediate solutions are rather common. What’s uncommon are vendors that meet problems with multiple solutions that are ready to plug and play. No one likes to hear about problems unless they can also hear about remedies. We encourage you to find ways to be a remedy centric company who focuses on creative problem-solving. Support the show

Often times we overlook the significance of providing customers with voluntary updates. Information is KING. Information is powerful. The value of putting customers at ease is hard to quantify, because it is almost priceless! Demonstrating good order stewardship is proving that you care about the customer’s money. If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, then information given away, keeps your cus...