December X5 Crops Report: Best tips of 2013

Guest blog by Nicolle Germain, MBA.

This month we are pleased to re-cap the Best Tips & Food for Thought from our monthly 2013 CROPS Reports!

Customer Satisfaction

• Consistent customer connection can be the quickest way to create rapport and a sense of mutual respect and trust.  This may be as simple as picking up the phone and making a 1 – 2 minute call.
• Processes that help alleviate service disruption in case of emergencies will ensure your customers are satisfied and confident in your service or product delivery.
• Your customers’ satisfaction rests on the shoulders of many important aspects of your business, but most importantly on the shoulders of your employees. How you attract, retain and develop your workforce has a huge impact on your business success.

Risk Management

• Is your company at risk of losing sales due to an unexpected loss on an employee? What kind of an impact would that have on your bottom line? Ensure you have well-documented processes and job responsibilities in order to prepare your business for a sudden personnel loss.
• With the increased velocity of communication, poor customer service is a greater risk to businesses than ever before. Mitigate the risk by being pro-active, create positive momentum for your business online. It can spread just as quickly.
• You can run a huge risk as a business if you live only in the present. Effectively developing systems and processes that set your business up for success is imperative. Forward-thinking leaders plan for tomorrow by training your up and coming employees for tomorrow’s management and leadership roles.

Operational Efficiencies

• Developing processes to effectively manage customer experiences will ensure you are capable of operating efficiently and will reduce customer mismanagement.
• Customers focus on the tangibles, whether you are a service or product based company, they want to see results. Without efficient systems and processes that focus on presentation, deliverables and keeping the customer in the loop, you are rolling the dice on whether the customer will be satisfied by your service.
• Building in regular reviews of your current systems and processes will ensure you are consistently improving your business, mitigating risk and monitoring overall corporate performance.

People

• People! People! People! That is what makes your business operate and grow. Developing programs for attraction and retention to keep your employees engaged will enable your business to succeed.
• Employees offer a wealth of information related to process improvement especially in knowledge and job sharing – the key is to engage them in the right way.
• A lack of role clarity and general misunderstanding of responsibilities can threaten an employee’s productivity and ability to contribute to the bottom line.

Sales

• If your team doesn’t understand where they are struggling it is almost impossible for them to figure out why they are struggling, and how to improve. A sales management process that is well defined and monitored with specific KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) is much more consistent and responsive.
• Your sales are greatly affected by the engagement levels in your organization. When employees love what they do, they love the company they work for, which positively contributes to their level of success in generating revenue.
• Set your people up for success by having the right people in your sales-related positions with the right support systems and operational guidelines.

Thanks for reading and for your support! We hope 2013 was a great year that brought a lot of business success to you. All the best in 2014 from the team at X5.