December 2014 Archives

These days it's extra challenging to satisfy and keep customers. It's even more important than ever because customer loyalty is generally considered the primary engine today to retain sales levels and gain an advantage over the competition.

It's been this way for a long time; it's just getting more attention now. We just need to do things better.

There are hundreds of ways to do better.

Here are 9 we like:

1. Know your product and services . . . inside and out.

Not being knowledgeable frustrates customers. An uneducated employee is semi-useless to a customer. Job knowledge is key in any position. If for any reason your company doesn't offer job knowledge training, make it your own priority to find out as much as you can. Job knowledge is a key ingredient to serving customers.

2. Believe in your product and services 150%.

We know of a salesperson who has never had any formal sales training. However, based on the belief in the product, services and contagious enthusiasm, this person is a top seller. People LOVE to buy from people who get excited about their product. Customer service reps are salespeople!!!

3. Walk the walk, talk the talk. Practice what you preach.

A Ford dealer would not drive a GM car. Employees need to support their company's product or services before they can expect their customers to have confidence in them.

4. Keep your word.

Companies spend thousands, sometimes millions of dollars advertising their services and products. They tell the customer they are THE BEST, THE ONLY, they are NUMBER ONE. "WE GUARANTEE OUR WORK" isn't enough. Customers need to know that you'll do what you and your advertising says you will. If you claim to provide the 'best of anything,' make sure you keep your word. And be sure all employees keep their word. Telling a customer something will be to them in 7 working days, and then having it NOT show up is a credibility buster.

5. Return all calls and emails.

It boggles my mind when a call or an email is not returned. There's not an excuse in the world I could buy when that happens. Sure, some of us get way too many calls and aren't able to return them in a timely manner. Well, then have the call returned on your behalf! Not returning an email? How much work does that take? DUH?

6. Don't ever forget "who brought you to the dance."

In other words, there are always customers who were with you from the start. They helped make your business a success. They believed in you. A nice simple note once in a while is an ego booster to them and you'll feel good about it too.

7. Make NO ULTERIOR MOTIVE CALLS or NOTES.

Every once in a while, drop a note or make a phone call to customers (and prospective customers) without trying to 'sell' them something. Telephone Doctor labels those "no ulterior motive" calls. They're "just because" calls. . . and very welcomed. When was the last time you heard from a salesperson or a company just to say HI? (See what I mean?)

8. Be in a good mood.

All the time! Be the person that when the customer leaves or hangs up the phone, they think to themselves, "That was a great call/visit." Not in a good mood? Learn how to be. Remember one of our Telephone Doctor mottos: "A phony smile is better than a real frown." Do you really think the first runner up of the Ms. America contest is as "thrilled for the winner" as she says or shows she is? Talk about a great big phony smile!

9. Participate in customer service training programs at your company.

Sure you know how to be a good CSR. But everyone could use a refresher. And if there are no programs in place on customer service, ask for them. At best, you'll be ahead of the competition, and at worst, you'll at least be even with them. Customer service is not a department. It is a philosophy. And it's for the entire company. Everyone needs to embrace it - or it doesn't work.

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Nancy Friedman, president and founder of Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training, St. Louis MO, is a speaker at association, franchise and corporate meetings. She can be reached in St. Louis at 314 291 1012. Or visit www.nancyfriedman.com.

You decided to become a newly minted franchisor.

And when that day finally arrived how exciting was that?

You were going to conquer the world with your franchise brand.

Here's what you did right.

Started with a tested business model with a verifiable proof of concept.

Hired a competent and experienced franchise attorney to develop your franchise agreement and franchise disclosure document - FDD.

Your franchise attorney strongly suggested (or insisted) since you have a strong proof of concept for your franchise model that you include an Item 19 Financial Performance Representation - FPR and you did it.

Developed an operations manual, training system and support system that is scalable as you grow your franchise system.

You had a reasonable budget to market for franchise recruitment.

But, after a while, you will hate being a franchisor. Here are your 7 biggest beefs.

1. Early franchisees you selected seemed very passionate about being franchise owner/operators but they are not living up to what they promised and you're more than disappointed.
2. Multi-unit franchisees are not current with their development objectives and they expect you to not hold them to what everyone agreed to. They want some or all of the following extensions, refunds or credits against franchise fees and in return you get nothing. Not even what you originally bargained for.
3. You have a great training program and franchisees are shortcutting what your program offers and requires.
4. Franchisee local market success depends on local store marketing, your franchisees don't make the investment in it. And they complain to you that sales are too low and your brand is not well known enough in their area.
5. Franchise owners expect you to fix their unit level problems with employees, landlords, suppliers, insurance, local municipality, their business & operating partners. You had no idea that you'd be expected to do so much hand holding and babysitting when you set out selling & opening franchises.
6. Franchise recruitment for a new franchisor is tough. However you couldn't have imagined how difficult generating and managing leads would be. And the cost per new franchise recruited is far more than you anticipated.
7. You discovered that your management team had a much greater learning curve for transitioning your business to a franchise development and operations company. And now you're faced with some tough staffing decisions as you move forward.

This is not an exhaustive list of awful franchise things and readers can feel free to add to the list.

Good news is that you had a good underlying business at the outset. And all these franchising challenges can be remedied.

If this sounds llike your franchising story & you want some help solving your problems call me at 443.502.2636 [email protected]. Lease the talents of 20+ year proven franchise executive, who has seen and solved these problems before.

The biggest feature I hear from franchise owners about mapping is: something they can use quickly, get decisions fast and have it be on the cloud for collaboration with team members and ultimately to the franchisee.

The main benefit of all that is to allow the franchisee a means to make decisions faster to buy into what the franchisor is selling.

The main "pain point" from franchisor's, depends on what your using mapping for.

Many franchisor's have told me, "Franchise territories are the most important thing to our company". The feature for territory mapping has to handle decades of old territories mixed with new ones and edits. It can be incredibly time consuming for a retailer to manage all this.

Franchisee's also have a need related to this topic. They want a starter package from mapping suppliers. Not an expensive one and one they definitely don't want to buy a full subscription too. They need minor demographics, simple site management and one or two territories. Low friction to usage is again a highly desired feature...meaning "non-technical users".

Uploading a list is still important. Usually locations of existing sites or proposed.

Routing for frachisor's is also desired but more for sales gen leads. Again, all for ultimately selling to a potential franchisee.

Lastly 'sex' appeal. It helps to make it shiny and new.

Summary of top desired mapping options from Franchisor's:

Features:

* Quick to use, they don't need to spend all day on it.

* Easy to use, so anyone in the company can use it.

* Collaborative with decisions makers, perhaps franchisee's themselves.

* Allow multiple users on the same plan

* Demographics of course, how detailed is dependent on its use, but usually not much

* Sexy product that looks cutting edge

Benefits:

* Sell franchisee's

* Allow franchisee's to have faith in the franchisor.

* Strong communication between franchisor and franchisee

* Build trust between franchisor and franchisee

* Allow franchisee's to expand and grow

* Sexy product helps sell franchisee's, shows one's being in touch with the times

* Sell franchisee's (so important I had to list it twice)

So Sell, Sell, Sell is the main benefit.

Save Time, Time, Time is the second benefit.

The map is just the means to the ends