Let’s Take Customer Relationships Back to the Basics...

Blake Warren

We recently talked about tips for successfully utilizing a CRM (Read it here), something you’re probably already using as a business owner. A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is typically a software that helps your business keep track of… what exactly? Well, obviously things like phone numbers, addresses, lead status, purchase history, etc. But what do these things embody? It’s in the name; a CRM is a Management tool for Customer Relationships. So let’s discuss Customer Relationships, that you can better understand how to foster and keep those very things you need a CRM for. Google the words “customer relationships” and you’ll be met with a dizzying amount of articles, books, DVD’s, Podcasts and videos promising the newest techniques, software and guides to CRM. It can be daunting to say the least. Let’s take a step back and look at the basics of customer relationships.

Stay Relatable

As a consumer, would you rather do business with a personable company than the corporate machine of a big business? Of course you would. Having personality disarms your customers, they will be more likely to trust your recommendations. Don’t try to deceive your customers, are you a small company trying to get your foot in the door? Show it. Working out of your moms garage? Show it. Customers will be further compelled to give you their business if they can see you as a peer.

Understand what makes your product or service desirable.

It’s impossible to be relatable if you don’t have a true understanding of what drives your customers. It’s easy to think about your business concept from the wrong shoes. As a business owner you may have no problem coming up with reasons for making your product or offering your service. But you need to spend a lot of time looking at it from the perspective of potential customers. What are the real reasons they might be purchasing your product? What real-life circumstances lead them to booking your service? This is an easy exercise to shrug off, “Of course I know why people want what i’m selling”. But the more you explore this practice, the more you discover about your customers and how to serve them.

Take a look at the customer experience from start to finish.

Even if you simply sell an online product, what is the experience of the purchasing process like for your customers? How do you handle inquiries, returns, confirmations, packaging? Everything, no matter how small adds to the customer experience. Obviously this entails much more for a service-based business and should be treated as such. Every aspect of the process should be scrutinized until the customer experience is perfected.

Be Honest

The biggest downside of the countless books, products and techniques that you’ll find when researching this subject is that through all the fluff, we’ve been taught to do anything but be honest with our customers. We’re told to follow a call sheet, distract our customers with special offers, or avoid gripes they may have with our product or service using fancy techniques. The reality is, your customers will appreciate your honesty more than you may know. Calling up a customer and asking for feedback, apologizing for a mistake or simply telling them how much you appreciate their business can take you farther than any call-sheet or internet technique.

5 Platforms to Increase Efficiency for Your Small Business

We get it, entrepreneurs! Time is like gold to you. It’s hard to manage it efficiently when there’s a constant flow of incoming emails, phone dings, and alert beepings, on top of just having to simply work. It’s also hard to let loose the reigns of your business and trust a platform that will better your productivity, instead of sucking away the little time you already have. We’ve compiled a short and sweet list of platforms that we can first-hand say, is f@#$ing awesome. Here we go:

Start with the core of the business. You and your team members need to know what to do. Here’s two of our favorite task management tools.

Trello

We like Trello because it’s a visually-focused way of organizing a project. You can assign different boards for different topics and build a list of things that need to be done within that topic. Trello allows you to assign responsibilities and set deadlines for when they need to be completed by. The interface also allows users to click and drag boards in different orders to prioritize.

Asana

Asana’s approach to task management is a user-friendly list view of projects and tasks. Create tasks, assign them to one or more people, and set a deadline for the job. You can leave notes on each job, attach files and start a discussion. The fun thing about Asana is that it triggers this endorphin kick to get things checked off your list - when things are checked off, you might just see a flying rainbow unicorn - really. Lastly, they are on top of sending you reminders via email so you don’t forget.

Keeping an open line of communication between members of your business makes for a more streamlined, efficient team. One word, Slack.

Slack

We are in love with Slack. It’s a versatile team communication platform that allows you to do more than just that. Create different topics of discussion, (called channels) and invite people to join it. Slack supports a long list of different file types that you can send and allows users to privately message other teammates. Integrate other apps into Slack such as Twitter and Lyft even, and send a tweet or order a ride via commands.

Here are two of our top email management tools to help stay in touch with your leads and existing customers.

MailChimp

MailChimp simply said, is a great email management platform that allows you to easily design engagement templates, and is versatile for all business types, small or big. You can run reports and see how successful your emails are. MailChimp lets you send better emails to the right people by filtering through different targeting options.

Active Campaign

It’s a great tool for creating different email templates. Do you find yourself sending out the same email and drafting it a million times already? Create a beautiful template as you need it, save it, and send it out when you need it. Staying in contact with your leads is the lifeline of your business and Active Campaign makes it simple.

Social media management is often overlooked to maintain when there's more pressing matters to tend to - especially when there's so many avenues to maintain and track. Here's two platforms that make it simple.

Hootsuite and Spredfast

Both of these platforms lets you schedule social media posts so that you don’t waste your time having to log in and post across all your different channels. Hootsuite allows you to use their service for free with up to three different platforms before you need to upgrade. These both work in similar fashion as you can see analytics and insights of your posts so you can better communicate with your audience.

How much time are you wasting creating schedules, collecting payment, and marketing your business? Our all-in-one business management platform saves countless hours in your work week.

Handlr

How nice would it be to wake up, sit back, and see your business run on its own? Handlr lets you do just that. Handlr is a mobile business management software specifically designed for small businesses to become bigger businesses. Upload your list of services, create open availability, and watch customers schedule themselves with you. Handlr lets business owners and their team members chat directly and share photos with customers. Team Members can check-in to services and you get paid instantly upon check out. That’s just the tip of the iceberg!