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Every day should be Question Time

Every day should be Question Time

Every day should be Question Time

It goes without saying that the more professionally you manage your relationships with customers, the more successful you’re likely to be as a business. You must continually come up with new ways to delight your customers by putting yourself in their shoes. That's not always easy when you're rushing around solving problems, finding new business, or dealing with the never-ending ‘to-do’ list which every owner-manager has to contend with.

Ask yourself

Try asking yourself these questions – if you can answer 'yes' to them all, you're nothing short of a miracle worker.

  • Have you spoken to all of your five best customers in the past month?
  • Can you be sure that the customer you haven't spoken to for 3 months is keeping quiet because they're busy? Or do they actually have a grievance you haven't solved?
  • Do you know what you could do better?
  • Do you know what else you could offer your customers – is there another service they are crying out for?
  • Do you know how many of your customers are thinking about buying something from you in the next month? Or three months?
  • Have you ever rung up a customer without a reason – just to say hello and see how they're doing?

Can you say yes?

Most business owners might be able to say 'yes' to a couple of these – at most. So what's the solution to shining customer service? Well, the good news is, you don't have to spend buckets of money – there are lots of affordable ways to deal with customers and make yourself look more professional in their eyes using technology you already own.

One that will help you make your customers feel particularly wanted is Business Contact Manager (BCM), which comes with the Small Business, Professional and Ultimate editions of Office Outlook 2007. It’s a versatile Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool for helping to keep you on top of your contact information by providing a constant 360 degree view of every customer and prospect - all in one place.

What’s more, BCM integrates perfectly with your existing Microsoft programs, like Outlook and Excel, so there’s no great learning curve. It’s ideal for:

  • Giving you automatic reminders to trigger specific actions, so clients don’t get overlooked
  • Keeping you in regular contact - bothering to keep in touch counts for a lot with customers
  • Tracking customer accounts on a daily basis to quickly spot problems and opportunities
  • Delivering that extra bit of personal service to increase revenue and shorten sales cycles

At the end of the day, developing stronger relationships with customers means having a strategy in place to keep learning more about their needs. BCM will help you achieve this by allowing you to build and maintain more fruitful relationships with customers. It will make you look more professional in their eyes – and let’s face it, that’s half the battle.

 
 
 
 
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