Quick List: 10 Ways to Increase Client & Staff Retention
Here’s a two for one special!
Ten ways to boost morale and productivity so that you hang on to that great team you have assembled. AND help you hang on to those precious clients that can be so hard to get.
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1. Do business with heart.
2. Repeat #1.
3. Repeat #1.
4. Repeat #1.
5. Repeat #1.
6. Repeat #1
7. Repeat #1.
8. Repeat #1.
9. Repeat #1.
10. Repeat #1 every single day – forever.
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If you aren’t sure how to do #1, first go to www.doingbusinesswithheart.com and read the stories.
Next – to introduce and nurture the concept with your staff, add this Ready-2-Go Meeting – On Customer Service to your weekly staff meeting agenda.
Be sure to recognize and reinforce their efforts. We suggest the use of Heart Cards.
Other Resources:
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For a specific list of in-office behaviors that “qualify” as “doing business with heart” - go to Quick List: 10 Ways to Improve Office Atmosphere.
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For assistance with establishing or nurturing a customer driven culture, contact us about workshops, team retreats and/or coaching programs .
copyright 2010 – Business Class Inc.
Ready-2-Go Meeting – On Customer Service
Title: Doing Business with Heart
If you are trying to establish, build or nurture a customer service culture, here’s a Ready-2-Go Meeting segment using the concept of “Doing Business with Heart”. While it’s seasonally appropriate to introduce during Valentine season, it’s also appropriate to introduce and pursue all year long. By sharing heart stories in meetings, you:
- set a positive mood for the meeting and beyond.
- encourage participants to watch others who do business with heart.
- encourage participants to do business with heart – with internal and external customers.
- nurture a caring customer culture.
All of that by just sharing stories!
Here is a suggested plan for making heart stories a 5-minute agenda item for your regular staff meeting. Read more
Don’t You Love It?
In this rough, tough, seemingly heartless, bottom-line oriented world of strategizing for survival through takeovers, layoffs and budget cuts, don’t you love it when people do business with heart?
They seem to love their work. They get the job done. They really care. They make you feel good. They warm your heart doing business with heart.
Below are a few classic stories about doing business with heart. I share them with 3 hopes.
Hope #1 is that you will read and share them with co-workers, family members and friends.
Hope #2 is that you will share some stories of your own - and encourage others to do the same.
By the way – if you hold a regular meetings of any kind - sharing heart stories can be a great addition to your agenda. It sets a positive mood for the meeting and beyond. Get details for Ready-2-Go Meeting segment.
Hope #3 is that you will join me in thanking people around you who do business with heart. You can do this verbally or with a handwritten note or with one of our Heart Cards.
Spreading the word and spreading appreciation for doing business with heart is so very important now more than ever. Because the more people do business with heart….the more people will do business with heart. And as more people do business with heart…even more people will do business with heart.
Warming hearts everywhere by doing business with heart.
Okay – it’s story time. Here are a few classic examples of people doing business with heart. Read more
Handling Rejection: Tips from Mick Mixon
It’s hard not to get hot when you get rejected. But for those who want to be better managers, for those who are serious about service, for those who wanna get to goal…staying cool and focused is critical.
Here’s a cool approach that Mick Mixon, Voice of the Carolina Panthers, shared with us during a Business Class interview.
You can listen to it (2 1/2 minutes) or read it or both.
Mick told us that early in his career, Read more
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Team retreats can be a stupid waste of time.
Team retreats can be a stupid waste of time.
They can also be powerfully productive tools for managers and business owners who care about morale and productivity.
Like the one this person attended:
“It strengthened the work of all departments
by unifying and reinforcing company-wide goals.”
Learn more about how to have the kind of team retreat this person attended.
Sales & Service Secrets from Santa That Will Help You Get 2 Goal
Santa’s Way: Sales & Service Lessons from Santa
1. He spends lots of one-on-one time with his customers.
2. As each customer comes to visit, he first breaks the ice, then builds rapport, then determines needs. With this info, he knows what kind of delivery will make the customer happy.
3. For those he can’t see in person, he reads their wish list by mail. Read more
Santa’s Way: Sales & Service Lessons from Santa
Whether you believe in him or not….
…watch this if you want to Get 2 Goal and if you are Serious About Service.
To enlarge screen, click button above (second from right).
Here is a printable version of “Santa’s Way”.
Holiday Gift Ideas for Business
Trying to figure out how to handle gift giving this year?
Here is a list of ideas that cost from zero on up. It’s separated into four categories - food related items, non-food items, donations and other.
For many of the items, we’ve also provided links for browsing and/or shopping. Yes – you could even get your shopping done right here!
BUT – we are big supporters of buying things locally and encourage you to do the same. Read more
Beat the Heat – A Lesson Learned in Mississippi
Did I tell you about the time Mack was ready to fire us because of a missing truck in Mississippi?
It’s a great customer loyalty story – about the value of beating the heat by taking responsibility and quick corrective action.
Here’s the story.
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We printed 15,000 books in North Carolina and sent them to Mack on a truck headed for Mississippi. The truck was due to arrive there in 3 days….a week ahead of our delivery deadline.
Three days later, it hadn’t arrived. The trucking company said there had been traffic issues and it would arrive the next day.
It didn’t. The trucking company said there were mechanical issues and that it would arrive the next day. It didn’t.
Mack was getting hot. We were too.
On the third day, Mack got so aggravated that he said to us, “If the books aren’t here in 24 hours, you’ll have to reprint them. And then, I’m going to cancel my contract!”
It’s Not Our Fault
They were quite clear about it, weren’t they? IT’S NOT OUR FAULT!
So — whose fault was it?
And – what would you guess about the customer loyalty, productivity and morale ratings at this shop?
On a 10 point scale (10 highest), I think most of us would put them at a zero. Let me know if you disagree.
I had the good fortune to spend my early business years in a company that strived for a 10 in all three of these areas. Sometimes we made it. Sometimes we didn’t. But we were always trying.
You may have heard me tell about the time we delivered 15,000 copies of a 300 page telephone book to a school in West Virginia. A few days after delivery, Stan (our client) called to report a problem. He had sent advance copies of the directory to several faculty members and a number of them had called to report that the pages were out of order.
The books had been printed and bound by one of our sub-contractors. Knowing that the books we had in our office were just fine and knowing how a bindery works (much like the collator on your copier) and how easy it is for some pages to mis-feed, we felt certain that these faculty members had just received a “bad box”. But Stan was worried and had stopped distribution. He said he thought we needed to re-print the books.
Oh my!
There was no choice. One of us needed to go to West Virginia. FAST!
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