is customer service so important?
The way we treat our customers is indicative of the way we look at things in life!
Provide expertise.
How Blockchain strengthen your relationship with OUR customers
“We have a mission to help people through guidance, which goes beyond just product. With [our cookware brand] Equal Parts, we offer a texting service that allows customers to have a conversation with a professional cook. Customers can ask for a fresh grocery list, recipe recommendations, or even how to make simple scrambled eggs. This type of interaction creates a deeper relationship, and the customer feels like they’re gaining value beyond a tangible product.”
We can use an advisory board to weather current challenges and opportunities. For example, a chef entrepreneur about to open a new restaurant may decide to form an advisory board to gain expertise in marketing, human resources and construction and design — skills that a culinary type would not necessarily possess. In forming the advisory board, the entrepreneur should carefully consider his or her critical knowledge gaps so as to identify appropriate advisors.
These individuals are familiar with the owner and likely would be willing to serve as advisors. To the extent a particular need cannot be met by someone in the entrepreneur’s network, referrals can sought. The final option is making old-fashioned cold calls.
Advisors should not only have the technical knowledge but also a desire to help the entrepreneur. Plus there should be good chemistry between a potential advisor and the entrepreneur.
While advisory boards are generally less formal than governing boards, the entrepreneur should protect his or business. Advisors will be privy to highly confidential information about business plans, intellectual property and trade secrets. Each advisor should initially complete nondisclosure and conflict of interest agreements. Also the entrepreneur would be wise to spell out in writing the advisor’s role, responsibilities and other expectations.
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett
Advisory board members are not contributing their valuable time for money. They become involved as a result of their desire to help the entrepreneur — and perhaps feel good about mentoring someone in need of their expertise. It is good form to provide some form of compensation. Depending on the venture’s financial ability, compensation could include meals, travel expenses or a small stipend. Advisors who feel appreciated will put forth their best effort.
Keep it intimate. The value of an advisory board is determined by its members not its size. Entrepreneurs should seek out three to five advisors with the necessary skills to meet the current challenges. Over time the venture’s critical business issues may change. Then the entrepreneur can seek new advisors with the needed skills.
Company should treat advisory board meetings as a vital company asset. Advisors can provide valuable feedback and recommendations — if they are prepared before meetings. All relevant information such as business plans, financial statements and other reports should go to advisors well in advance of board meetings. All details should be planned out ahead of time, including the agenda, meeting location and time, the meal and any audiovisual needs.
Advisory boards tend to meet infrequently, perhaps once per quarter. Periodic or infrequent meetings can result in business matters slipping from top of mind. If the entrepreneur provides advisors interim information such as monthly financial and other reports, however, board members can remain informed.
Direct-to-consumer
is a question that weighs heavily on every inventor’s mind. In the product space, you have multiple
options to choose from and one is inevitably going to be more suited for your business than others.
- Strategizing digital marketing and website development
- Supporting customers in the direct-to-consumer space
- Developing real-time reporting to manage and grow your business
With everything available all the time, service is key to success. On-demand services need to be easy and enjoyable. User Interface (UI) is crucial to creating a successful on-demand business. A company’s app or website is the customer’s first glimpse into the service they will receive It should be thought of as a storefront — neat and clean, with clear signage to aisles of interest. It should be easy for the customer to see when the service provider will be arriving at their location, as well as the price that they will be paying, with no surprises.
The same level of attention should be given to the back end of the app, streamlining the interaction for your employees to make things like customer location and job specs crystal clear while simplifying communication between both ends. Service providers should have to spend minimum time searching for consumer details and job requirements, and maximum time servicing the customer’s needs.
Ultimately, ease of use will attract more customers and more high-quality service providers, which is a critical to any company’s growth.
To the customer
The Highest Quality
Customer Service is also crucial because if done properly, it can help you transform your customers to evangelists who will help spread the word about your brand. The customer service process begins when people are enquiring about your products and it extends to long after they complete a purchase. At every one of those touchpoints, there should be a highly trained member of staff who will deliver a great experience to the customer and help build their customer loyalty that way. It’s important to select people with great temperaments and who have the requisite experience, to make sure that even when interactions go sour (and they will), you are able to handle the situation effectively to calm the situation and reach a positive outcome.
Blockchain, the revolutionary technology that has recently taken the advertising industry by storm, allows information to be stored and distributed, but not to be changed or copied.
With companies building closer bonds with their customers by getting to know them more intimately, they are investing in processes that talk directly to their customers. As some experts predict, the brand that understands and communicates more closely with its customers is going to win.