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December, 2011 Volume 9 – Issue 12
During this Holiday Season
may you be blessed with the spirit of the season -- which is peace
the gladness of the season -- which is hope
and the heart of the season -- which is love
Blair Smith, Pirjo Swerdlyk, Ania Berezowski, Kristen Barscello Spithoff,
Karen Ristanen and Carol Daniels
Congratulations to the following SEB participants who have successfully completed, for the 2011 year, the business-planning phase of the program!
Frank Carobelli -- Wood Carving by Frank Carobelli
Richard DelBen -- Personal Support Aid and Maintenance
Sharon Irwin -- TC Properties
Ramir Magbanua -- All Brandz Appliance Repair
Derrick Irwin -- Twisted Ink
Daniel Guay -- Shercyke Industries
Scott Gale -- Ditecha
Kevin Puumala -- Lakehead Renewable Inc.
Donald Bayes -- Hide 5
Shannon Everett -- EVS Management
Susan Johnston -- Weshkaday
John Belanger -- Artisan Buildings
Jody Kozak -- Orion Contracting
Vince Ponka -- Emmerson Street Press
Daniel Makinen -- Daniel's Cedar Saw n Saunas
Tom Turkovic -- Homekeepers
Brad Sawchuk -- Mayday Car Care
Charles Clair -- Builder's Best Construction Inc.
Maria Vasquez -- The Giant Cleaners
George Pelechaty -- GP Contracting
Desmond Taylor -- Stone Reform
Tony VandeWeghe -- Bonobos
All the best to you as you begin the next stage!
Christmas Card Tips and Etiquette
Should you send business Christmas cards to clients and customers? Yes! Not only are Christmas cards a tradition, but sending a business Christmas card lets your clients and/or customers know that they are important to you. And that’s important in terms of furthering a relationship.
However, as furthering a relationship is the goal, you don’t want to endanger that relationship by offending the recipient of your business Christmas card. Here are the ins and outs of choosing and sending business Christmas cards to help you avoid embarrassing Christmas card gaffes.
What Kind of Business Christmas Cards Should I Send?
Send only business Christmas cards of high quality. Quality shows and the quality of the Christmas card reflects on the sender. Sending cheap Christmas cards will make you look cheap. Start with a good quality business greeting card to show that you value your clients and colleagues. Skimping on your selection can be interpreted in a number of ways. Your recipients might take it as a sign that business has not been good or that they aren't worth a little investment. Buy the best Christmas cards you can afford.
You should only send handmade Christmas cards if you are an artist. For the rest of us, sending handmade business Christmas cards only makes us look inept or too cheap to buy Christmas cards.
Update Your List. Make sure your list is up-to-date with correct names and addresses. If you do this on a regular basis, it does not become a dreaded holiday chore. As you gain new contacts throughout the year, take time to add them to your database for your business greeting card group. This way you won't embarrass yourself by sending the card to the old address.
Send only business Christmas cards that are tasteful. You may think the Christmas card with a naked Santa is hilarious, but this is not the time to try and find out whether your client has a sense of humour. Stick with traditional themes and messages to make the best impression.
Be aware of your clients’ religious beliefs. Not everyone celebrates Christmas. If you know that a client or customer has different religious beliefs, choose and send a holiday card appropriate to the client’s beliefs, or choose and send a holiday card with a more generic holiday theme and message, such as “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings”.
Inside the Business Christmas Card
Besides signing your name inside the business Christmas card, hand-write a brief personal message. Don't just write something such as “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas” above your signature; try to extend and personalize the message. For instance, you might write, “Hope 2012 is the best year ever for you and your family, Joe!”
Using a company stamp makes it convenient to put your business information on the inside of the business Christmas card. Place your company information below your signature.
If you don't have a company stamp, include a business card with your business Christmas card. Because your business card will quickly become separated from the Christmas card when the recipient opens it, it’s a good idea to print the name of your business below your signature as well.
Addressing the Business Christmas Card
Handwrite the address of the recipient on the card’s envelope. Using computer-generated labels is tacky and makes your business Christmas card look like a mass mailing. (If you have a lot of business Christmas cards to send out, remember that you can get someone else to address the cards for you.)
Titles should always be used when addressing your cards. Address your business Christmas cards to “Mr. and Mrs. Ken Taylor”, not “Ken Taylor” or “Ken and Sarah Taylor”. Stick to titles rather than professional initials. For instance, if Ken Taylor is a doctor, the correct address is “Dr. Ken Taylor”, not “Ken Taylor, M.D.”.
If you’re sending your business Christmas card to a couple with different last names, the form of address should be “Mr. Allen Williams and Ms. Alice Smith” if the couple is married. If the couple is not married, their names should be written alphabetically on separate lines as in:
Ms. Alice Smith
Mr. Allen Williams
(Traditionally, the man’s name always comes first in an address unless his wife outranks him (which is always the case ;o) ) or if the couple is not married, her last name precedes his alphabetically.)
Properly, business Christmas cards should be sent to the client’s business address unless you know the person socially. If you are sending a card to a person’s home address, you should include the spouse’s name in the address.
The trick to sending business Christmas cards is sending them in time to arrive during the holiday season. For cards that are being sent locally or nationally, December 15th is a convenient cut-off date for having your cards in the mail. If you’re sending business Christmas cards internationally, they’ll have to be in the mail much sooner.
These tips will further help you use business Christmas cards to build a relationship with your clients and prospects:
Don’t forget to thank your suppliers for their business over the last year. A box of chocolates for the staff in the bank, post office or supplier’s office can be greatly appreciated.
Decisions and Christmas tend not to go together, so postpone your appointments for closing sales until the New Year.
Think of your local charity by making a small donation and giving something back to your community.
Set yourself a budget for Christmas gifts. Once you have a budget and an idea of how many people you want to give gifts to, you can decide how much to spend on each gift. If you decide to send Christmas presents to individual clients, consider purchasing in bulk. A case of wine for instance will work out a lot cheaper than buying single bottles.
Buy next year's cards now and after Boxing Day, when they are at least half the price.r Success
Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business. You can offer promotions and slash prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won't be profitable for long.
Good customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy - happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.
If you're a good salesperson, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with customers – a relationship that that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue.
How do you go about forming such a relationship? By remembering the one true secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; "You will be judged by what you do, not what you say."
Providing good customer service IS a simple thing. If you truly want to have good customer service, all you have to do is ensure that your business consistently does these things:
1) Answer your phone. Get call forwarding or an answering service. But make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business. (Notice I say "someone". People who call want to talk to a live person, not a fake "recorded robot".) See Phone Answering Tips below.
2) Don't make promises unless you will keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good customer service is no exception. If you say, “Your new bedroom furniture will be delivered on Tuesday”, make sure it is delivered on Tuesday. Otherwise, don't say it. The same rule applies to client appointments, deadlines, etc. Think before you give any promise - because nothing annoys customers more than a broken one.
3) Listen to your customers. Is there anything more exasperating than telling someone what you want or what your problem is and then discovering that that person hasn't been paying attention and needs to have it explained again? From a customer's point of view, I doubt it. Can the sales pitches and the product babble. Let your customer talk and show him that you are listening by making the appropriate responses, such as suggesting how to solve the problem.
4) Deal with complaints. No one likes hearing complaints, and many of us have developed a reflex shrug, saying, "You can't please all the people all the time." Maybe not, but if you give the complaint your attention, you may be able to please this one person this one time - and position your business to reap the benefits of good customer service.
5) Be helpful - even if there's no immediate profit in it. A man popped into a local watch shop because he had lost the small piece that clips the pieces of his watch band together. When he explained the problem, the proprietor said that he thought he might have one lying around. He found it, attached it to the man’s watch band – and charged him nothing! Where do you think he'll go when he needs a new watch band or even a new watch? And how many people do you think he’s told this story to?
6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be always helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable. Train them yourself. Talk to them about good customer service and what it is (and isn't) regularly. Most importantly, give every member of your staff enough information and power to make those small customer-pleasing decisions, so he never has to say, "I don't know, but so-and-so will be back at..."
7) Take the extra step. For instance, if someone walks into your store and asks you to help them find something, don't just say, "It's in Aisle 3." Lead the customer to the item. Better yet, wait and see if he has questions about it, or further needs. Whatever the extra step may be, if you want to provide good customer service, take it. They may not say so to you, but people notice when people make an extra effort and will tell other people.
8) Throw in something extra. Whether it's a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to use the product, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. And don’t think that a gesture has to be large to be effective. Example: a local art framer attaches a package of picture hangers to every picture he frames. A small thing, but so appreciated.
If you apply these eight simple rules consistently, your business will become known for its good customer service. And the best part? The irony of good customer service is that over time it will bring in more new customers than promotions and price slashing ever did!
Phone answering skills are critical for businesses. The telephone is still most business's primary point of contact with customers. And the way you answer your company's phone will form your customer's first impression of your business. These phone answering tips will ensure that callers know they're dealing with a winning business:
1) Answer all incoming phone calls before the third ring.
2) When you answer the phone, be warm and enthusiastic. Your voice at the end of the telephone line is sometimes the only impression of your company a caller will get.
3) When answering the phone, welcome callers courteously and identify yourself and your organization. Say, for instance, "Good morning. Cypress Technologies. Jim speaking. How may I help you?" No one should ever have to ask if they've reached such and such a business.
4) Enunciate clearly, keep your voice volume moderate, and speak slowly and clearly when answering the phone, so your caller can understand you easily.
5) Control your language when answering the phone. Don't use slang or jargon. Instead of saying, "OK", or "No problem", for instance, say "Certainly", "Very well", or "All right". If you're a person who uses fillers when you speak, such as "uh huh", "um", or phrases such as "like" or "you know", train yourself carefully not to use these when you speak on the phone. You are not a valley girl!
6) Train your voice and vocabulary to be positive when phone answering, even on a "down" day. For example, rather than saying, "I don't know", say, "Let me find out about that for you."
7) Take telephone messages completely and accurately. If there's something you don't understand or can't spell, such as a person's surname, ask the caller to repeat it or spell it for you. Then make sure the message gets to the intended recipient.
8) Answer all your calls within one business day. I can't emphasize this one enough. Remember the early bird? The early caller can get the contract, the sale, the problem solved... and reinforce the favourable impression of your business that you want to circulate.
9) Always ask the caller if it's all right to put him/her on hold when answering the phone, and don't leave people on hold. Provide callers on hold with progress reports every 30 to 45 seconds. Offer them choices if possible, such as "That line is still busy. Will you continue to hold or should I have ________ call you back?"
10) Don't use a speaker phone unless absolutely necessary. Speaker phones give the caller the impression that you're not fully concentrating on his call, and make him think that his call isn't private. The only time to use a speaker phone is when you need more than one person to be in on the conversation at your end.
11) If you use an answering machine to answer calls when you can't, make sure that you have a professional message recorded, that does the same thing as tip # 3, and gives callers any other pertinent information before it records their messages. Update your answering machine message as needed. For instance, if your business is going to be closed for a holiday, update your recorded answering machine message to say so and to say when your business will reopen.
12) Train everyone else who answers the phone to answer the same way, including other family members if you're running a home-based business. Do not have your children answering your business phone or use them as part of your recorded message. Check on how your business's phone is being answered by calling in and seeing if the phone is being answered in a professional manner. If they don't pass the test, go over this telephone answering tips list with them.
This project is funded by Employment Ontario. “The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.”
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he JumpStart resource centre exists to provide meaningful, practical and personal support for entrepreneurs on the Self???Employment Benefits program in Thunder Bay, Ontario
Located at: 102-325 S. Archibald Street, Thunder Bay ON P7E 1G3 -- PH: 807-622-3813 -- FAX: 807-622-3732
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