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Business Karma

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Business Karma

The Dalai Lama writes:

‘The word ‘Karma’ simply means ‘action’. So when we talk about our ‘Karma’ we are talking about our intentional (and unintentional) acts of body, speech and mind. And when we talk about the fruits of our Karma, we are talking about the consequences of those acts.’

The same is true of Organisations (and teams within them). Their ‘Karma’ are their acts, and the fruits of their ‘Karma’ is their reputation in the market (and therefore their customer loyalty and referrability).

So ‘Karma’ is VITAL FOR LONG TERM SUCCESS in today’s world of informed and hyper-connected customers.

How do Organisations usually know what results their Karma are generating? There are 3 ways:

  1. Guessing (the normal way) – resulting in pain and waste
  2. Surveys (the next most normal way) – the same as guessing, but this time with the added complication of incomplete and misleading information thrown in!
  3. Genuine customer feedback and engagement (the rare way) – resulting in genuine knowledge, motivation, reputation, loyalty and referrals

The conclusions are simple and don’t need to be spelt out.

In a world where the fruits of your ‘Karma’ will determine your success, you need to obsessively listen for your ‘Karma’ and systematically work on it bit by bit, until it is consistently and predictably positive.

And then work on it some more.

Please feel free to contact us for free information on how to do this in your team or organisation: support@salesthroughservice.com

How can we make more money?

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How can we make more money?

OK, this is the question we answer for clients all the time, and I guess the 1st thing to do is to change it round:

From: How can we make more money?

To: How can we generate more demand for what we do?

After all, everything is just a market delivered by supply and demand.

And then this question will start to get the creative juices flowing with really great questions that, if answered well and delivered on, will result in a greater flow of money to you. (And this is true whether you’re the MD of a Fortune 500 Organisation or the newest employee in a small business).

  • How can we be more valuable?
  • What value is most desirable to our customer?
  • What value will they be wanting in the future?
  • What will they need to experience in order to rave about us?
  • What could we stop doing because it adds no value?
  • Where are we wasting time and resource but don’t yet know it?
  • How will we know the answers to all these questions?
  • How can we be more approachable and reliable?
  • How can we listen more closely, so they love us more?
  • How can we stand out from the crowd?
  • How can we get our message out more effectively?

And then, when we answer these questions and act on them, the question ‘How can we make more money?’ answers itself.

 

 

 

The Key Principles of Effective Customer Feedback

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The key principles of effective customer Feedback are;  Investors in Feedback Logo

  • Gathering feedback is vital … and responding to it effectively is what really matters
  • In the world of the empowered customer, not gathering feedback is suicidal
  • The method of feedback gathering must depend on the relationship you have with the customer: one size does NOT fit all!
  • Written feedback has no body language and should be used very cautiously
  • The customer isn’t interested in what YOU want to ask them: they’re interested in that THEY want to tell you: never forget that
  • The feedback process should enhance the overall customer experience: not detract from it
  • All feedback can be used to build sales and reduce costs: there is no such things as ‘bad’ feedback
  • The customer can forgive you for making a mistake: they’ll never forgive you for not engaging with them
  • In the world of the empowered customer and transparent online reputation, the winners focus on ‘return on relationship’

Want to know more? Click here to get in touch.

Your customers are talking…  Are you listening?

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In today’s hyper connected, value savvy global marketplace, your customers are becoming ever more the key and demanding.  They can talk about you behind your back to the world at the touch of a button and the speed of light.

To quote Jeff Bezos: ‘Your brand is what the customer says when you’re not in the room’

So are you listening?

Research shows, that the vast majority of businesses and organisations are either not listening at all, or listening ineffectively.

Not listening at all: the ostrich with its head in the sand syndrome.  There are plenty of feedback systems to at least help you get started with listening, even if you just monitor twitter and put google alerts on your brands.  If you are not currently listening, there must be a reason for this: either you are nervous and unsure what to do for the best, or you may be frightened as to how to react to feedback as and when it comes.  In either case we at Investors in Feedback can help you move forward in a very cost effective and easy to manage way:

Beware, there are plenty of snake oil salesman out there who will try and take a large chunk of your money for systems that work ineffectually or in an incomplete way.

Listening ineffectually: we find that the vast majority of businesses who are gathering feedback, are using ineffectual systems, these are systems that have the following issues:

  • low response rates
  • no real understanding of what the customer means
  • lack of true information to help you learn and grow
  • perceived unfairness
  • lack of consumer confidence that their review will make any difference (so, instead, they don’t bother to fill in your reviews, and, instead just gossip about you to the world behind your back)
  • and, probably the biggest issue of all, inability for the customer to feed back to you in an easy and risk free way, while they are still a customer to you (i.e. Before they have left you or completed their transaction with you)

Many of the online feedback systems that are touted so widely at the moment have all these issues attached to them: one thing that they do help you with is ‘search engine optimisation’, through publishing your feedback openly and transparently (and this is something that should genuinely be encouraged in all circumstances).

If you wish to know more about all these issues and find out how to put feedback systems in place that would genuinely build your reputation, customer loyalty and referrals, then we are the worldwide leader in feedback audit and accreditation to help you achieve these aims.