March 6, 2007

If you needed any more motivation to provide good customer service, here’s a thought : every customer is a potential competitor.

 If you’re in business there’s no doubt at some point you’ll serve someone who is coming at you as a potential competitor. They may not even know it. But if you deliver consistently poorly, treat your customers rudely, or drastically over-price for the quality of your product or service, you may trigger a few people to say ‘hang on here.. I think I could do this better.’

 So give customers the best service you possibly can. And make potential competitors think ‘these guys have great customer service. They must have such a loyal base. There’s no way I could compete.’ That’s what’s ideal. It’s impossible to stop competition to your market, especially if you are having major, and obvious success. But you don’t want to advertise for more competition, either.

 I’m currently tinkering around with a business idea where I may be able to do that. It’s a venture of one of the internet’s major business bloggers. He knows heaps about internet business but doesn’t seem to know much about how to market on the ground.  So I might be adding that to my list in the latter half of this year.

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Home Biz Notes has a post Do You know The Competition For Your Home Business that points out the value of knowing your competition.

Well I’ve tried a couple of methods in my post about marketing and they’re bombing nicely. It’s making me scared to try out the last one or two. I’ve started with what I think are the worst ones and graduating up the list.

I’m going to be offering exclusive discounts to some industry associations soon in addition to the various tall/short/big/skinny groups. I can’t wait until something works.

My word-of-mouth is good. I went to a party Friday night where four people were wearing my shirts, two more didn’t because their shirts were in the wash because they’d been wearing them, and at least five people committed to buy a shirt which in my experience means three actually will. My current customers all love their shirts, are getting compliments, they’re referring customers to me….. but it’s a small base. I want more.

My stats tell me that more than fifty people are reading my blog each day. If any of my wondrous readers can help with some ideas, come say hi and leave a comment. If I try it - and it works - I’ll give you a free shirt.

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On the topic of marketing, Teresa, a book-keeper blogging at Georgian Blues reports on how she fired all her clients who were involved in an MLM scheme called Mary Kay. They wouldn’t shut up about their MLM scheme and how much money they made. The thing is, she was their book-keeper and knew exactly how much (not much.)

I’m currently looking at adding my Tailored Shirts business to a discount scheme. I’ve been looking at a few.. if they’re good enough I’ll just add Newton Clothiers to all of them.

I’m a member of two programs - Club Lifestyle (through my energy company, very good) and Melbourne City Rewards ($24 through Melbourne City Council, is good.) A somewhat worse one - who threatened to sue me once when I criticised them on my site Jonk’s Bargains - is 22 percent off.

The advantage of being a programme member is obvious - you get free promotion of your business. Not only this, but generally people pay money for these cards, which makes them more inclined to actually get value out of them.

Once you sign your business up to a discount scheme you think it would make sense to tell your employees about it.

Well, not according to many Melbourne businesses. My City Rewards card has some great deals but it has always been a huge battle with to get my card accepted. It hasn’t been marketed very well so it’s often the case that I’m the first person to approach them for a discount. This invariably involves much discussion between the manager and customer service lackey. My card is sometimes accepted and sometimes not. Sumo Salads gives me the discount but not the free bottle of water. It’s all very confusing. Making things difficult for your customer is one of the number one sins in business. They’ve very quickly taken a good thing that has brought them a customer and turned it into a hassle.

There’s heaps of discount schemes around the place. They’re mainly sorted by industry, locality or student status. If you can do it, why not?