SimpleBiz360™ Podcast

Why? Why? Why? In my 35 years of doing business, whenever there are problems, customers always want to know why. However, so many vendors get a failing grade when it comes to answering this simple question. If you want to make customers really happy, start telling them why there are issues with their orders…don’t just tell them there are issues. The main question on their mind is why. When will you start providing answers to the most prevalent question in business?

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Customers defect after they have endured enough doses of la-di-da service. Time is the currency of the Experience Economy. When customers sense the violation of their time, they usually say goodbye to that vendor. It is simply their way to punish bad service. Where is your company in this cause and effect equation? Is it time to revise your service mindset?

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What would customers say if you asked them what they thought of your customer service? Would they describe it as a lackadaisical approach to servicing orders, or a professional, well oiled machine? Talk to your customers. Be your customer. Find out what they think, and then throw away the Ladida approach and exchange it for a buttoned up approach. What say you?

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Business is looking and feeling too casual these days. We operate at WARP speed, cutting corners, multitasking constantly. Then, amidst all this chaos, we partially answer questions with cryptic, text abbreviations. Our associates, or customers often ask us 2,3 or 4 questions at once, and then we go on to answer in unintelligible, short-hand quips that have tons of grey area, and, we only answer one of the multiple questions. This leads to misinterpretation, mistakes ensue, customers defect, and hard-earned profitability is swept away by the mistakes. Is this you? Is this your company? Let’s all wake up and start wr...

What if we became Chief Encouraging Officers at the office? Most of us spend more time working than we do with our own families. As a result, the workplace often takes on the role of our second family. Knowing this, why don’t more leaders adopt a mindset of knowing employees by name, and knowing a little about their families? Maybe your employees are going through something, and encouragement could help their situation. We invite our audience to start knowing more about their employees. Try being a Chief Encouraging Officer!  

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Intercompany divisions, often pursue goals, and objective specific to their operational structure. However, lost in the shuffle, is tying all the divisions together, so that everyone works in a harmonized effort to satisfy the customer. Are your internal divisions pursuing divisional success over total customer satisfaction? It’s a fair question that many companies need to answer. How about your company?

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The first 30 seconds we meet potential customers is all we have to make a good first impression. When we succeed, we launch the transaction process with the wind at our back. When we don’t succeed, we dig an unnecessary hole that can often be hard to climb out of. What is happening in your company with those first 30 seconds of customer interaction?

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We often hit the business “Danger Zone” when we blindly copy and paste attractive-sounding business procedures, instead of critically thinking critically about our own business. Where are you in this click and drag world? Do you manage by shallow convenience, or by deep thought?

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The answers to improved profitability often hide deep below the way things look on the surface. Are you a detail-surfer, snorkeler or scuba diver? Maybe it’s time to do a deep dive to become more profitable.

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When it comes to faulty behavior, societal trends often suggest we adopt a blame-shifting mindset over a self-ownership model. However, in business it is quite the opposite because the orders usually stop flowing when a customer is dissatisfied. In business we have to buck the societal leanings, eat some humble pie, and then accept the fact that we need to improve to get the orders flowing again. This takes a mindset of humility. Are you will to eat some humble pie in order to serve your customer better?

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How to keep customers is not a topic often discussed in business board rooms. We spend a lot of board room time talking about getting new customers. However, we need to spend as much time discovering more ways to increase customer satisfaction so we can retain the buyers we have. What about your company? Is it time for a new mindset?

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Customers can easily tell when they are unwanted. As businesses, we like to think we put the welcome mat out for everybody. However, sometimes we send the wrong message to our inquiring customers. Is it time for your company to audit what you are projecting to customers?

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The concept of being an expert leaves little room for improvement. Do we really want put our products and services on a self-proclaimed pedestal, or do we want to come across with an air of humility? 

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Are you actually listing a phone number? Are you actually answering calls, recording voice mails, listening to these voice messages, and then acting on them? If you are not managing the phone properly, you are running the risk of creating unhappy current, and potential customers. Maybe it’s time to start treating your phone with the respect customers are looking for!

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At the end of our careers, very few of us will be able look back and say that we accomplished what we set out to do. Why? The reason is because so many of us don’t know where we are going, and instead, we opt to travel any road that takes us forward. What if you were to create, write down, a then look at your career goals often? Two things would probably happen. Number one, you would achieve many of your goals. Number two, you would feel satisfied by living out a successful career. When the sun se...

When interviewing with companies, please remember that many previous interviewees have spewed endless lies and embellishments about their workplace capabilities. So how can you separate yourself from these other liars? Easy! Bring the receipts. Prove your capabilities during your interview. Many people claim things they cannot prove. Don’t be one of those false claim artists. Prove your capabilities.

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One of the best insurance policies for a successful career, is to develop a mindset of continuous improvement. With this mindset, your career can become more lucrative. Without it, you run the risk of hitting a dead end. Is it time to take out a new career insurance policy?

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The answer should be 36 new business tools. Settle for nothing less. Imagine doing this for 5 years? Do it, and watch your career take off!

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This is a great look in the mirror type of an exercise. Some of us do business with the utmost passion, and often times our excitability can be mistaken as anger. Double check the way you talk and interact with associates, customers and executives. Are you projecting, genuine passion, or does your excitability project as anger?

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If you want a contagious business quality to help grow your business, then try your hand at displaying genuine enthusiasm. Customers crave authenticity, transparency, and truth from suppliers, and they can sense one they run into a phony. So when they run into someone who is genuinely enthusiastic, it goes a long way to creating a healthier business relationship.

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Customers want easy to understand product explanations. Brevity and clarity should be the horses pulling our product carts. Does this sound like your company? If not, we encourage you to find ways to become brief, clear, and understandable (BCU) to customers.

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New managers, new leaders, new employers, and potential job opportunities all want to know what we have done in our careers. However, so many executives have been burned by people who say they did something, but never prove it, nor can they prove it. If you want to set yourself up for success, and get the best career opportunities, then start saving your business accomplishments in hard copy format. This way, they will never disappear, and you can always prove that you’ve done what you claim you have done. Start today!

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This is all too common with face-to-face interactions. If you choose to consistently invade the personal space of a buyer, then be prepared for the possibility of losing that customer. Very few people like to feel crowded, or boxed into a corner. Above all, no one likes to smell the hot breath of someone standing too close to us while they are speaking!  

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When displeasing repetitive patterns continue without any change, aggravation grows, and customers disappear. Eventually the rubber band of customer grace breaks, and they are lost for good. It is essential for companies to determine their displeasing stress points. Promise keeping is an action that speaks to customers. Repetitive, and empty promise making becomes meaningless noise. We urge you to fix things before customers say enough is enough.

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Many products require subcontractors to play a vital role producing what has been designed. If the final product quality is compromised, we have to alert these partners, and ask for them to modify their production in order to achieve success. Is there a disconnect in product production, or is the REAL disconnect hidden in the lack of clear expectations we gave our production partners?

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Lost customers are the death of most young businesses. Finding out why customers are defecting is essential to long-term sustainability. How do you find out? Talk to your customers, and spend time thinking about things as if you were the customer. Sweeping the reason or reasons under the rug will surely send the business to the boneyard. As business owners, we MUST figure this out, and then we must change to customer-pleasing products and services.

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“SPINIPULATORS” combine spinning plus manipulating to wreak internal, and external havoc. These truth-distorters vomit false narratives designed to elevate themselves at the expense of other teammates. We can knock them off their perch with facts. Document timelines, conversations, and emails. If you persistently follow these three suggestions, you will eventually defeat most of these crafty narcissists.

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Most customers are smarter than we give them credit for. Perpetual excuse- making vendors put themselves at high risk for a short business life. Many buyers can easily detect vendor BS, and the quick penalty is a lost customer. Sadly, often times these unhappy buyers will share their frustrations with many other people. If you are a vendor/supplier, maybe it’s time to focus on results? Maybe it’s time to stop making excuses?

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Calculating all the variables that go into a establishing a standard cost is an
arduous process. Like it or not, this is where we have to put on our lab coats, and become a doctor of details. Bypassing certain cost components can be deadly to a small company. Are you being a doctor of details?

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I started a business in 1990 and it suffered from a fundamental mistake. We built our financial projections based on $69 a transaction. However, had I done my research, I would have discovered that the area market rate was $45. The company lasted for 15 years, but it limped along with moderate returns on investment. What about your company? Have you done your competitive pricing research?

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Do you charge customers for warranty, shipping and handling? If so, are you sure that’s the way you wanna do things? When customers pay for mistakes they didn’t make, they usually disappear into thin air. Think about it! Do you really want to partake in this upside down behavior?

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Customers like companies that proactively pave the way for smooth transactions.. Reactive companies do very little paving, which usually results in clunky, and troublesome transactions. Proactive companies eliminate obstacles before they occur. Reactive companies wait for obstacles. Which reputation do you want for your company?

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Employee buy-in can be much deeper, and more productive if management leads by example. The days of executives telling employees to do one thing, and then they do another are long gone. Managers who grab an order and row with the team become an inspiration to the entire organization. Is it time to row with the team at your company?

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Do you advocate for customers? How often? To what degree? Do customers bear witness to instances where you deliver on advocating for them, or do they just hear empty words? We all have inter-company directives, goals, and objectives, but the employees don’t chip in and pay invoices for the goods and services we provide to customers. So, why don’t we put the customer needs above ours? Afterall, customers pay the invoices that fuel our paychecks! Sometimes priorities can be really simple!

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“I’ll explain our price once, but I’ll never apologize for our quality.” The words of Terry McManus were defensible. So many business people operate in a “Word Salad World” where empty statements cannot be converted into provable claims. First of all, is your product or service good enough to charge a premium price? Secondly, if so, can your company prove it? Have fun defending your premium price!

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Schemes and scams are a fast track to the business boneyard! Customer are way more intelligent than scammers give them credit for. Maybe it’s time to do a full company-scrape for any unwanted schemes and scams being conducted by your personnel? If you are intentionally misleading customers, it’s just a matter of time before it all caves in on you. Maybe today is a good time to start deploying honesty, integrity and truth-telling?

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During my career I have witnessed dozens of executives avoid managing tough business situations. Why? I’m not totally certain, but most of the times it seems rooted in mistaken identity. In other words, they see their obligation to manage as an eventual path to confrontation. Not liking confrontation, the executive turns away, avoids managing altogether, and the problem festers and mushrooms. If this is your company, maybe it’s time to redefine the expectations of leadership?

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Proactivity is a wonderful business quality, but sometimes unique situations require reactions to solve an issue. Contingency plans can’t always be planned out, but many times that can. Has your company ever examined the various contingencies that can be mapped out to help mitigate future calamities? Maybe today is a good time to start planning out contingencies? Turn the mission into a fun collaboration process. The curve balls are sure to come. Why not be ready for some of them?

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“When you’re wrong, admit quickly and emphatically.” Dale Carnegie’s sage
wisdom remains as powerful today, as when he uttered them 90 years ago.
Humility is an endearing human trait that is dissolving away in modern business.
How about going a little “old school” to show customers you own your mistakes?
Your buyers will reward your honesty and humility. Why? Because you are not
blame-shifting like other vendors!

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“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Harold Geneen’s simple, yet
powerful words can be a bright light in a dark room. Company performance, and customer perception has to be convertible into metrics that can paint a factual picture. Without them, it’s like trying to navigate a path in a dark hallway!

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Using acronyms can often sound like cryptic, mumbo-jumbo to the customer ear.
Perhaps it is time to exchange unfamiliar acronyms with names, and descriptions
that customers can actually understand, and relate to?

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Imagine an Octopus with eight sucker-bearing arms, a soft body, and a strong beaklike jaw. Now transfer this image to what happens when a company lies to a customer. Each outright lie (body) ends up requiring many sub-lies (sucker-bearing arms) to support the false story (body). Here is the rub…customers detect lies more often than not. What can we do to stop this? Easy…find the crooked jaws within your company, weed them out, and then start to tell customers the truths they deserve to hear. The health of your business will get better as your company watches the...

Features, features, features. What about the benefits? Many companies fail to explain the “WHY” when it comes to listing features. in the features. What if you were to pair every feature with a benefit. “The real benefit to you” is a phrase more customers need to hear. What’s in it for the customer?

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Customer transactions travel a road of various micro-experiences (transactional components) that shape buyer’s opinions, perceptions, repeat and referral business. Collectively, these components are called Experience Events (EE). Are your identifying these events? Are you managing these events for customer-pleasing delivery? If not, you may unknowingly be waving goodbye to healthy repeat and referral business. Perhaps today can be the beginning of your Experience Event journey?

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Customer complaints can set up course corrections for companies that are going off road! The keys to getting back on track are 1) listening to the customer (not just hearing), 2) being humble enough to accept the criticism, 3) and being smart enough to fix the problems! In many cases, the complaints have a common thread that make the course correction that much easier to recognize.

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The appetite for “DIY” products and services has never been higher. What does your company do to cater to this modern mindset? Assuming no salesperson will aid potential customers, what information are you providing to assist informed decisions? Do you deploy tools of Silent Selling?

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Are you in need of some additional ‘WOW” factors in your business presentations to customers? One of the coolest ways to do this is to search your facts, features, and benefits vault for things you have never communicated to customers. Once discovered, tell and sell your customers in ways that create more compelling “AHA” moments.

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Perception and facts often compete for the truth. Perhaps it is time to start examining the perceptions customer have of your business, and the services that are delivered. Often times companies lose customers just because their bad impressions became a reality that may be void of fact!

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Some research suggests the need to create 12 positive experiences in order to negate the effects of one bad experience. 12-1 odds are a mighty hill to climb. Unreturned voice mails contribute to making that hill. Are you sure you want to let voice mails go unanswered?

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Flexibility. Creativity. Willingness. Finding solutions that solve unique issues. Going the extra mile. Never saying never. Do these descriptions sound like your company? If not, imagine what kind of repeat and referral business you could attract by becoming these descriptions. CANDO companies win more friends and influence more people then CAN’T DO companies.

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Mirrors fill a board room during an inter-company meeting. Edicts are laid down, and attendees are told to reflect what the C-level demands. Imagine what would happen if companies abandon that reflective mindset, and exchanged it with an outward-looking mindset? If customers pay the bills, then why don’t more companies look through the windows that lead to discovering what customers need and want!

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To some companies, servicing really kicks into high gear after the sale. Why then? Because those companies realize that the repeat and referral pot of gold awaits them, when their paying customers feel they are being cared for after the sale. We encourage you to inject this mindset into your business models.

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We have all witnessed companies that aren’t flexible. They defend their legacy procedures as a badge of honor, and claim they have been doing business the same way for decades. For some companies that is their hallmark. For others, it is going to allow the competition to zoom by them. Where do you stand? Do you have some stinkin thinkin that needs to get eradicated?

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Imagine if you and your team went hunting for ways to become more streamlined with customers? After all, time is the currency of the experience economy, and saving customer time converts to money saved. Have fun on your hunts! Be bright. Be brief. Be done!

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Does your management style look like this: “Your hired. Come in tomorrow at 4:00, and you can start waiting on those tables of hungry people.” Why do so many brands manage this way? Are you sure these employees know the mission, and all the mechanics that support the mission? Maybe it’s time to reprioritize the order in which we teach, train and delegate.

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Is failure always traceable to employee ineptitude or carelessness? Or, is failure the result of risk takers who stick their neck out to try something new? No company gets better unless they fail first. How will your corporate culture process future failures?

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Review. Sort. Pile. Then, when you have time, manage the task later. Or, imagine managing each task as you encounter it? Imagine how much time you would save by steam lining task management?

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This sounds like a funny question! However, the reality is sad. So many companies don’t train their associates to be greeting initiators. When we bypass the chance to greet first, we are often starting the transactional experience as thought the customer is an intruder! Why would we do that? Why do so many of us do that? Imagine if your company deliberately started saying hello first?

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Our surroundings are filled with observations and conversations that can reveal potential improvements for our businesses. All we have to do is look, listen, and think! Are you in? If not, you are possibly missing some cool, easy, and impactful change agents that are tucked inside everyday life!

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One. Just one. Today. There is low-hanging improvement opportunity fruit all around us. We invite you to grab a pen, paper, find a quiet space, and we are confident you can find an easy, customer-pleasing improvement in 30 minutes of thought. One. Just one. Today.

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Like it or not, consumers are gauging the purchasing process through the lens of experience. Every word, motion, action, or inaction, seems to be subject to an experience scorecard. If your company is not buying into this, you are most likely losing potential sales to the competition.

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Be the customer from time-to-time. Thank about how your products, and services affect the buyer. As you peer through the user lens, ask yourself what you would want to know. This periodic exercise can be fun, and beneficial to your bottom line! We encourage you to embrace this mindset. Think. Fix. Deliver. Create more repeat, and referral customers.

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Do you give customers detailed information? How often? Is it vital information? Are you bypassing the release of pertinent information the customer is wanting to receive? What formats do you use to communicate information. Is this information written with internal company-speak, or is it presented with simplicity, and clarity that customers can understand?

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Solving customer problems requires a rolling up of the sleeves, managing the details, and finding a workable solution. This can be hard work requiring patience, diligence, and research. Is this your company? If not, should it be?

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CIT units are a valuable corporate component that can offer insight to necessary changes. As many athletic coaches have said, “if we are not striving to always get better, we are getting worse.” Why? Because competitors who use CIT units will surpass stagnant mindsets. Complacency breeds mediocrity.

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Most customers like it when vendors display good listening skills. Vendors have heard plenty of customer feedback, and many times the feedback is very similar. As a result, the vendors start to finish the customer sentences in hopes of speeding things up. If this is you, maybe it’s time to slow the train down, and let the customer finish?

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Very few customers admire vendors that talk over them. Humans have two ears to listen, and only one mouth to speak. If over-talking is overtaking your customer interactions, then maybe it’s time to let listening overtake talking?

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Business writing skills are deteriorating quickly. As we drag societal norms into business, our letters and emails are filled with cryptic acronyms, incomplete sentences, and confusing messages. Where are you in this mix? Where is your team in this mix? Maybe it is time to revamp our writing skills?

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Customers rely on vendor product knowledge like a car driver depends on headlights in the dark. As vendors, we are called on to share our knowledge in a professional manner. Are you being professional, or is the art of condescending auto-correction the tenor of your conversations with customers?

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The true cost of creating unhappy customers is crippling. Let the next 60 seconds tickle your ears, and improve the ways you are servicing customers.

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Scripted, and teleprompter utterances are overwhelmingly rejected by the most recent generations of buyers. Authenticity is the desirability of modern consumers. So, what are you doing to answer the call?

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Often times, customers are much smarter than we give them credit for. In fact, customers usually know when we are shoveling them word-dung. What if you started telling customers what they deserve to hear?

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Making outlandish claims is a huge shortfall in the business world. What if you could use seven, simple tools to covert your statements into provable claims. Tune in for 60 seconds and we will share the Magnificent Seven!

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This “give and take” world needs more professionals who invest in the future of business. We spend our careers learning our crafts, and then earning the rewards. Yet, many of us stop right there. What if we were to add a RETURN chapter to our careers?

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Simply put…do you teach CSR mechanics that emphasize getting to the customer, before they get to you? Imagine the depth of customer satisfaction if your company aimed at this target?

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Red Zone Tugging (RZT) is one of the largest contributors to customer defections. Perhaps today is the right time to investigate if your business is infected with RZT?

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Continuous Improvement can be fun and lucrative. All it takes is a mindset that hinges on asking, thinking, identifying, researching, listening, observing, trying, applying, or frying.

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This mindset personifies a customer-centric culture that delivers excellent satisfaction. Buyers reward vendors who deliver customer-first service. Want more repeat and referral business? If so, then start reshaping your service model today!

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Does your company culture contain a mindset that values vendor relationships. Today might be the perfect day to turn your purchasing team into a Vendor Relations Team!

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Putting customers on a service merry-go-round sews seeds of discontent, and many times leads to permanent customer defections. Maybe it’s time to stop the gamers in exchange for instant servicing?

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Technology now provides tools that allow us to read, respond and react to customer issues with lightening speed. However, so many companies have leaders who cannot answer a simple question for 2 weeks. Why? Because they are traveling. How lame! If this describes your business, maybe it’s time for some changes, and some Technology Tool Training!!!

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Does your customer know where to turn to get an answer? Maybe it is time to consider ways to stop keeping customers in the dark!

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Sometimes we make doing business harder than it needs to be for our customers. Maybe this is a good time to pick up a shovel, and streamline the tasks we require from our customers.

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Random audits are a great way to discover, and fix mistakes you don’t want to keep passing onto customers. The bottom line…never allow your deliverables to look like wilted mint in a mojito!

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What if something “OLD SCHOOL” could be considered “FRESH” by our customers? Maybe it’s time to take a trip to the post office!

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Well over 50% of our customers expect less service than our businesses advertise. Today could be the perfect time to start exceeding those customer expectations?

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Tough situations deserve leaders that don’t shy away from managerial duties. Maybe it’s time to take inventory on which managers avoid management duties because they fear confrontations!

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Societal trends are rapidly removing phone conversations from daily life. However, the phone is still important to the operation of many businesses. If you are one of these companies, maybe it’s time for some phone role-playing!

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Are your customers receiving stewardship service without having to ask for it? Is it time to reexamine your CSR mindset?

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When was the last time you actually asked a customer what they think of your products and services? The digital age is pushing us away from talking, or visiting with customer. Maybe it’s time for a REBOOT!

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Imagine rarely measuring your actual production costs against the estimated costs on paper? Far too many businesses suffer from this lack of detail management. Don’t wait until year end to find out. We invite you to start measuring and managing today!

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Getting into the weeds of business details is not sexy, or fun. However, customers love vendors that do the gardening to ensure seamless transactions. What say you?

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As we do life, continuous improvement ideas are all around us. How often do you dissect a situational observation, and then relate it to improving your business practices?

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Not sending invoices is a spotty illness that affects many small, medium, and large businesses. Maybe this is the perfect time to do an invoice audit at your company. You might be surprised with the results!

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Calculated profitability is usually much different than what actually hits the bottom line. Is it time for your company to investigate, and correct costly variances?

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Customers get sick of the same old…same old. Price…quality…delivery…blah…blah…blah! Consumers want differentiation, and they will pay for uniqueness. What attributes separate your company from the pack of competitors?

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Many customers see through false, and exaggerated claims. Becoming a truth detective is a common practice for consumers who have been burned too often. How does your company prove claims?

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Bad transactional experiences often result with customer defections. Are potential repeat customers never coming back for seconds? If so, how are you going to fix it?

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Humility is a trait that customers don’t often see from companies. How often do you eat some humble pie, and actually apologize to a customer when you made a mistake?

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The epicenter of the Experience Economy is how well we respect customer time. To be good stewards of customer time, we must be doctors of detail, and we need to put customer needs above our own. How do customers score your level of care?

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