Tips for Growing Your Business

Tips for Growing Your Business

The best ways to enhance your business growth depend on the type of business you own, your available resources, as well as how much you are willing to invest. For example, choosing the best business growth strategy largely depends on what stage of growth your business is currently in. Even though you need to choose a plan that best suits your business needs, here are some basic tips for helping your new business blossom.

Open another location.
Like many business owners, you may be tempted to open a new location if your current business is doing well. This can be a great option if you are confident in the level of control in your current location. However, it is crucial that your current location is running smoothly with the right staff before you begin opening in a new spot. If you don’t want to personally manage the new location, you may want to consider franchising. This allows you to grow your core business while maximizing your time spent improving your business in other ways.

License your product.
Licensing is an effective, minimum cost growth option, especially if your product or service is branded. Compared to starting your own company or business, licensing allows you to minimize your risks while still profiting from your brand or product. If you are interested in licensing, you should first find a licensing partner by researching types of companies that provide services similar to yours.

Diversify.
Diversifying allows you to acquire multiple income streams, which leads to increased sales and profit margins. Common ways to diversify include selling other products that complement your core product or service and importing or exporting your products. If you found success in your current market, you can also begin looking toward other markets that might use your product.

Contact One Call Center provides businesses with answering, live chat, and other customer services. Our technology links to yours, so you can conduct business at the speed of the current marketplace. For more information about answering services and after hours support systems, please call 1-800-278-3347.

Retaining Your Hardworking Team

Retaining Your Hardworking Team

Blog/ Customer Service

Keeping your best employees requires ongoing, two-way communication based on trust. Not only should you discuss assignments and deliverables with your employees, but you should also learn about their career goals and aspirations. Otherwise, you won’t be able to tailor opportunities at your company to their professional growth goals.

Focus on communication.
Communication is an equal combination of the words you say as well as how you say them. This means your tone of voice, eye contact, hand gestures, and body positioning play a crucial role in shaping your communication. Your employees will gather meaning from what you say by assessing your non-verbal cues. As a result, much of your communication message may be lost if you only meet virtually with the team. Even if it’s difficult to secure face time, it’s very important for establishing trust with your employees. You should try to schedule in person meetings with those who work in remote locations at least two to three times a year.

Use performance reviews to discuss growth opportunities.
Performance reviews aren’t just an opportunity to discuss your expectations for your employees. They are also a great time to discuss your individual employees’ career goals. This input can help you create new opportunities for them to succeed, in their current job positions as well as in new company roles.

Provide something tangible with positive feedback.
Rewarding employees for superior performance doesn’t always require bonuses, raises, or promotions. Your employees will also appreciate small gestures of appreciation such as dinner on the company or performance awards. You can also emphasize how much your employees mean to you by recognizing their start-date anniversaries. These tangible signs of appreciation are better ways to enhance employee loyalty and commitment than verbal feedback alone. Creating a work environment where people feel valued is an important step in retaining your hardworking employee base.

With Contact One Call Center, our technology links to yours, so you can keep up with the speed of the marketplace. Call 866-692-3670 to learn about our nationwide answering service and call center services. We also specialize in bilingual services.

Improving Your Customers’ Experiences

Improving Your Customers’ Experiences

Blog/ Customer Service

Your final product may be highly impressive and your staff may be incredibly skilled, but this becomes meaningless if your business lacks good customer service. It may seem obvious, but many managers overlook the importance of improving or maintaining high quality customer service. Meanwhile, your customer service team is the face of your company and your customers will define their experience with your product based on their interactions with your customer support systems.

Manage your customers’ needs.
The first step in any customer service plan is to ensure your team has the right skills for your customer base. For example, you need to secure services that provide empathy, patience, and consistency. Some people who call will be very irritable while others will have a multitude of questions. Your customer service center needs to be equipped to handle all types of personalities.

Ensure clear communication.
When it comes to customer communication, you need to make sure your customers completely understand your message. You don’t want your customers to be mistaken about the price or product they are receiving because of ambiguity in communication. However, your customer service representatives should use authentically positive language and maintain a positive attitude in every interaction. Most importantly, your representative should never leave a conversation without understanding your customer’s needs.

Prioritize good time management.
Even though customer service representatives should work through each problem, they also need to be able to manage time spent with each customer. Failing to allocate time appropriately will lead to customers waiting while only one customer’s needs are met. What your customers are ultimately searching for is knowledge of your product or service. Make sure your representatives are equipped to field the most common questions about your product. However, if questions become too technical, your representatives need to be honest about their extent of knowledge.

Call 1-800-278-3347 to learn about the answering services available through Contact One Call Center. Even though we are based in Tucson, we provide after hours support and customer service to businesses across the country. In addition, each one of our representatives is bilingual.

How to Make Your Business More Efficient

How to Make Your Business More Efficient

Blog

As a small business owner, you are likely always struggling to find more time. From keeping the daily aspects of your business running to finding the right support staff and clients, you could always use more time to simply get everything done. While you can’t add more hours to the day, you can always strategize to make your time more efficient.

Use Google Docs
Integrated with Gmail, Google Docs can help you create, store, and share documents online. The application features a word processing application, spreadsheet, database, and presentation function. This gives you the functionality of Microsoft Word combined with online storage. When your business team is working with large client files, Google Docs can help you keep documents moving between your team members.

Use Producteev
No matter the size of your work team, task management software is crucial for managing team members and workflow. Finding a system like Producteev can help you manage different team members on a project, break down the work, and assign tasks to each member. The software also provides tracking features to help you determine who is on target and who needs follow-up.

Answering Services
Customer contact is a very complex part of any business. Whether you would like to interact with customers by phone, person, or live web chat, you need to offer the highest quality service to stay competitive. Outsourcing your customer service through answering services is a great way to maintain your customer base, while you focus on running your business. However, in order for this to be successful, you need to secure an answering service that provides grace, efficiency, and accuracy when interacting with your clients. It can also be helpful to work with an answering service that features bilingual contact.

Based in Tucson, Contact One Call Center offers answering services and after hours support to businesses throughout the United States. We specialize in bi-lingual services, from our call center to our live chat features. For more information about our answering services, please call 1-800-278-3347.

How Small Businesses Support Local Economies

How Small Businesses Support Local Economies

Blog/ Small Business

Small businesses may not earn the same revenue as large corporations, but they play a crucial role in their local communities. While small businesses provide employment in their local towns and cities, they simultaneously act as the building blocks for the larger corporations across the country. Defined as a business with 500 or fewer employees, small businesses enhance their local economies by providing jobs and services their communities need.

Providing Local Jobs
A small business creates jobs in the community where it is established. Not only does this help stimulate local economic growth, but it also provides employment opportunities to those unable to work for larger corporations. Additionally, small business environments tend to attract talented employees who will create new products or discover solutions for specific problems the business faces. Larger businesses in the community also depend on outsourcing to smaller businesses in the community for specific job functions.

Responding to Economic Climate
Small businesses tend to be very customer oriented, so they are better able to respond to changing economic climates than big corporations. Local customers are very loyal to their favorite small businesses during times of economic crisis. In bad economic times, this loyalty helps small businesses stay afloat. In turn, this loyalty helps strengthen the local community during times of financial hardship.

Encouraging Future Growth
Many large corporations, including Nike and Ben and Jerry’s, began as small businesses in the United States. Over time, they became major players in the national and international marketplace. Even though these small businesses grew internationally, they still maintained their contacts in the communities where they were first established. By becoming a large corporation headquartered in the local community, these businesses could even further provide employment opportunities and help stimulate their original local communities.

Whether you are looking for answering services or after hours support systems for your business, call Contact One Call Center at 1-800-278-3347. We specialize in bilingual services, including live chat and customer service solutions. We are here to help make life more convenient for your customers while helping you become more efficient.

Serving Your Customers: The Basics

Serving Your Customers: The Basics

Blog/ Customer Service/ Professional Services/ Small Business

A good product is not enough to attract customers and keep them interested. Customer service is also essential for maintaining a strong and successful business. Give your small business the boost it needs by following these customer service basics:

Be Patient
Patience isn’t just a virtue; it is essential when it comes to quality customer service! Customers often feel confused or frustrated when they contact a company to ask a question or voice a complaint. Being patient is important for helping customers feel comfortable and making sure they can express their thoughts thoroughly. If you are patient when dealing with customer service interactions, customers will see you as professional and courteous.

Be Friendly
Friendliness and patience tend to go hand-in-hand, which is great because both are very important for providing good service to your customers. Training employees to stay friendly during every customer interaction will help your company maintain a kind and professional reputation. Being friendly will encourage customers to keep coming back and can even change customers’ minds if they have had a negative experience.

Be Understanding
Customers want to know that the companies they buy from care about them and not just their money. Being understanding during customer interactions is one of the best ways to ensure customers that you care about their opinions and want them to be happy with your product or service. If customers are frustrated or annoyed when they contact you, try to understand their point of view so you can provide the right solution.

Be Informative
It is important to be able to provide answers to your customers’ questions. Even with the other basics, your customers will not be satisfied unless you can help them get the information they need. Make sure your employees are knowledgeable and can find the information that your customers request.

Contact One Call Center can help you provide the best customer service possible! Let us handle secure messaging and after-hours support so your team can focus on the business. Learn more by calling us at 1-800-278-3347.

Small Business Success Story: Zane’s Cycles

Small Business Success Story: Zane’s Cycles

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A great business model, wonderful products, and excellent customer service create the perfect combination for a successful small business. Read on to see how this combination worked for Chris Zane and Zane’s Cycles in Connecticut.

What is Zane’s Cycles?
Zane’s Cycles is an incredibly popular bicycle store located in Branford, Connecticut. Opened in 1981, Zane’s Cycles has transformed from a small and simple hobby shop to one of the area’s most impressive and inspiring bicycle distribution stores. Today, Zane’s Cycles offers everything needed for bikers of all ages and skill levels. Inventory includes clothing, shoes, accessories, and bicycle parts. Zane’s also offers bike fittings and hosts group rides and special events.

Who Started Zane’s Cycles?
Every small business success story has a beginning. This one began when 12-year-old Chris Zane started working on bikes in his parents’ garage. Just 4 years later, Chris convinced his family to help him finance the purchase of a failing bike shop. The family worked together to bring a new life and personality to the shop, transforming it into Zane’s Cycles.

How Did It Become Successful?
Chris Zane was not the average 16-year-old when he decided to start his own business. That is a big part of how this store became so successful. With his family’s help, Chris was able to turn his beloved hobby into a successful profession. During his days at school, Chris’ mom would watch over the shop. Once the school day ended, Chris would appear and put in the hard work required to attract customers and provide excellent service.

How Can This Story Help Your Business?
Zane’s Cycles is now a million dollar business. You can take inspiration from this story to help your own small business find success! Working hard and finding the right support system is essential for maintaining a strong business and gaining success in the future.

Get the help you need to find success from Contact One Call Center! Give us a call at 1-800-278-3347 to learn about our call center, customer service, disaster preparedness, and other great services for your small business.

Small Business Success Story: Hillcrest Media Group

Small Business Success Story: Hillcrest Media Group

Blog/ Customer Service/ Small Business

Some businesses go with the flow. Others create their own flow. If your small business is looking for new ways to obtain success, you can look to today’s successful small businesses for guidance. Read about Hillcrest Media Group to get started.

What is Hillcrest Media Group?
Hillcrest Media Group is a publishing company that offers an assortment of helpful services to authors and collaborators. Unlike other publishers that take more than their fair share of profits, Hillcrest Media Group puts the author first to ensure a smooth and successful publishing process. This company also helps authors find the right marketing strategies to attract buyers and get their books out there to the readers!

Who Started Hillcrest Media Group?
Mark Levine gained interest in the publishing world after publishing his own book about self-publishing! After seeing the success and realizing there was a spot in the market for a publisher that cares more about authors than making money, Levine started Mill City Press back in 2006. Eventually, Mill City Press became the starting point for a larger company known as Hillcrest Media Group.

How Did It Become Successful?
By offering something totally different from the competition, Hillcrest Media Group was able to become a pioneer of a totally new style of service! Authors no longer had to pay a fee just to get their book published only to share profits with their publishers—now they could work with Hillcrest Media Group and get the profits they deserved.

How Can This Story Help Your Business?
Excellent customer service is part of the reason why Hillcrest Media Group is so successful. Keeping your customer in mind and making sure they get what they need and want can help your business become more successful! Contact One Call Center can help you handle your customer service responsibilities so you can focus on other elements of success. We specialize in call center services as well as secure messaging, chats, and more. Take a look at our website or call us at 1-800-278-3347 to learn more.

Customer Service Don’ts for E-Commerce

Customer Service Don’ts for E-Commerce

Blog/ Customer Service/ Small Business

E-commerce makes it easy for customers to get what they want, when they want it! This technology also helps businesses reach out to more customers in more places. Make the most of your e-commerce by learning about these customer service don’ts:

Not Keeping Your Promises
It is easy to attract customers with promises of free shipping, easy returns, and other important elements. Unfortunately, a lot of companies take advantage of the level of ease by making false promises to customers. If you offer certain perks and do not follow through, customers will not return and will likely make others aware of their negative experiences. Do not make any e-commerce promises that you cannot keep!

Only Offering Phone Service
Phone calls are a great away to get in contact with a business, but they are not the only way! Today’s customers are constantly busy and constantly on-the-go. That is why they want a variety of ways contact your business when they have questions or concerns. It is important to offer answering services as well as online chat services to make it as easy as possible for customers to get in contact with you.

Taking Too Much Time to Respond
How long does it typically take you to respond to customer questions or concerns? If you are not responding as quickly as possible, you might be losing customers! With mobile sites and online services, timeliness is more important than ever. Customers make decisions and purchases quickly, so responding quickly will make you more appealing and give you a better chance of success.

Using Generic Responses
Your customers want to feel heard and respected. They do not want to feel like they are talking to a robot. But that is exactly how they will feel if you keep offering generic responses for each question or concern. Take the time to carefully read comments from customers so you can respond appropriately and show that their voices are being heard.

Contact One Call Center can help you avoid these don’ts with our excellent customer service help! Call us at 1-800-278-3347 for more information about our after-hours support and call center services.

Keeping Customers Happy During the Holidays

Keeping Customers Happy During the Holidays

Blog/ Marketing and Sales/ Small Business

The holiday season is coming up! Your customers are shopping for gifts, making this season one of the busiest of the entire year. If your business is not prepared for this season, you can miss out on sales and possibly drive customers away. Follow these tips to keep customers happy during the upcoming holiday season.

Plan for the Season
The holiday season is extremely busy for all businesses. This can put a strain on customer service responsibilities, making it difficult for your customers to find what they need in time. Schedule a meeting as soon as possible to discuss the upcoming season with your employees and come up with strategies for handling the extra work. Hiring a call center is a great way to handle customer service responsibilities without taking away time and energy from other responsibilities.

Check Your Website
A lot of today’s customers research companies online before visiting stores in-person. Many of these customers also purchase online instead of going to stores. A slow or poorly designed website can mean bad news, especially during the holidays. Check your website to make sure it is working properly and is easy to navigate. You should also test the mobile version of your website as many customers will be visiting from smart phones and tablets. Take measures to ensure that your website can handle extra traffic that is likely to come through during the season.

Look at Customer Information
Loyal customers will have purchasing history you can look back at to get an edge this holiday season. This information can help you decide what types of products and services to focus on this season as well as what types of sales to offer. You can also use this data to offer customers rewards or thank you cards as a special touch for the holidays.

Get the help you need to keep customers happy this season with Contact One Call Center! We specialize in customer service, after hours support, secure messaging, and much more. Find out how our services can help you by calling us at 1-800-278-3347.

Author: Jeff Wood

Tips for Growing Your Business