19 Aug 3 Things That Can Grow Your Business Now
If you’re a business owner and are stuck at the level you are at in business and need something to bump you up to the next level I’ve got three things I’ve used for past clients/employers that have helped elevate them to the next level in their industries.
One of the things that can hold back a business is negative reviews. Dropping the ball on customer service is a killer. It is difficult to get people to put up good reviews but piss them off and they will pop right on social media and trash you and put up bad reviews. So my solution is to fix your business so you are not disappointing them.
These first two are about how to streamline some tasks that make your business more efficient. Then I provide you a great way to expand your business with little out of pocket costs.
Ticket System
Does your business have a long turn around on the completion of a project where clients can have issues? Or do you have customers calling for support on products but not enough staff to maintain a support line? Keeping things organized in a business is really important. It will reflect in your online reviews and can hold you back or help take you to the next level. A ticket system in your company will plug the holes in the system and keep your company accountable to your customers.
I used this for a home remodeling company that has been suffering from a long period of bad online reviews because of customers not being able to get answers. They had tons of customer calls coming in every day that were just sent to voicemail. There was no accountability. No documentation. Just people sent to voicemail that there was no way to know if it was even listened to.
I installed a chat system that offered a ticket system. Now customers visit the website and use the chat window and are sent right into a customer support system that creates a ticket for a specific department. Or, if they call in a receptionists creates a ticket for a customer while on the phone with the click of a button. These are all then sent to the respective department heads and there is a dashboard for executives to see and track what issues are being resolved and where there are more serious issues.
Customer complains plummeted and it turned around the volume of negative reviews to positive ones. Taking care of your customers is the single most important thing you can do.
Client Portal
Another feature I built in the past is a client portal. Again, keeping customers informed about the progress of their project.
The problem was that the company projects took a long time to complete and there were many steps in the process. My solution was to build a customer portal that linked with the company CRM. That kept the customer up to date as it got the latest info relating to their project and put it on a landing page in a website that is specific for that customer. People didn’t need to call in to see if anything new was done on their project. They got an email notification that their account has been updated and to log in to see.
It is so successful that the person hired to deal with the issues was reassigned. People now just login and look to see where their project is and the last steps taken. There is also a communication form right there that goes directly to the project manager so that if something needs to be communicated, it can be and directly to the responsible party.
Affiliate Marketing
Once you have your business running smoothly and you’re ready to take on new business a smart way to do that with little out of pocket investment is to build an affiliate marketing program.
Affiliate marketing is when an online business contracts with people to sell their product on straight commission. In a nutshell Affiliate Marketing is like hiring multiple commission-only sales people. But what is interesting about this is that the people that are in affiliate marketing like what they do and they are happy to sell your product for a commission only. They work for themselves and if you have a product that they can make money from they will work day and night to sell your product. No whining employees, no payroll and health benefits. Just sales, sales, sales. But you have to have a product that sells and a commission structure that is appealing to the marketer.
How do you get involved in Affiliate Marketing and find these people to sell your product? First, you need a way to track it all. If you have a WordPress website there are plugins that manage the whole thing front to back. Depending on how you set it up you can create an entire store for them to use or, you can just create links they use that send a buyer to your cart and has code that credits them for the sale.
Once you have the system set up if you make your commission attractive enough once it gets into the circle of affiliate marketers they will come to you. Word gets around.