If you’re an entrepreneur who sells a product, you’re beginning to gear up for the holidays. Those who sell services are kicking it into high gear to make up for a slower summer season when clients took vacations and put off projects until now. And many of us are juggling increasingly busy school and family schedules on top of our business commitments! Many of us are so crazy busy, we’ve checked out and are running on autopilot trying to get our lists and goals accomplished on time.
Now is a great time to take a two hour break to check in with your business. Take a deep breath. Get another cup of coffee. Look at your business from your customer’s point of view. Last time I talked about my professional crush on Sandra Martini and her great article on implementation fails. Now is the time to check in and check up on your own implementation.
Are your customers or clients happy? Are you meeting their needs and expectations? If you’re not sure, take a few minutes to place some calls or have a chat over the counter. Nothing tells a consumer how important they are like personal attention from you. This is the time to ensure that those valuable people who pay you for your product or service are happy, trust you, are loyal to you, and will return to do more business with you!
If anything big or complicated is amiss, schedule additional time to research, discuss, and implement fixes. There are systems and processes that can help you and your team prevent most implementation failures. A clear customer service policy with protocols for issues both big and small can give you and your team a way to make things right when mistakes happen. If you hear that you have a small consistent issue, address it right away. No other customer should have this negative experience.
Before you finish that coffee, and your brief autumn check in…schedule another one for after the holidays. You don’t have a business without customers. Take the time to check in and make sure they’re happy once in awhile!
