This article will show you the elements of a business growth plan. Not just any business growth plan. It’s an interactive business growth challenge that will help you focus on your business growth.
Table of Contents
Ask customer for feedback
In order for your business to grow, you need to understand its strengths. It can be difficult to make an objective assessment yourself. By talking to your customers and getting their feedback, you can find out why they like you and your business so much.
A strength might be something like your wide product range. It could be your careful attention or speed in dealing with customer service issues. The fact that you respond in real time to inquiries through chat or email might be an aspect of your business that your customers love.
There’s a good chance that your customers know things about your business you don’t know. Your assumptions about your strong points might be totally wrong. This could be an eye-opening process.
There are many ways you can obtain this feedback. You can conduct surveys online. Gathering this information can be worked into your usual sales process with an automated email at a key point. You might reach out personally to your biggest buyers or brand advocates. Keep in regular communication with your market and they’ll tell you how they feel about you.
Once you know your strong points, you can leverage them to grow.
Actions
Your first activity is to message your last 5 customers and ask them the following feedback questions:
- What did you like the most about the product/service?
- What about it brought you the most joy?
- Would you recommend the product or service to others?
And that’s it!
When you gain your feedback pop the information into a document or spreadsheet. Make a note to follow up with anyone who answered question 3 positively.
See! All it takes is 20 minutes to contact your last 5 customers and gain their feedback on your product and service.
Recap
I shared with you how to understand your business’ strengths. We talked about how important it is to get feedback from your customers and how to go about it. Now let’s move on to the next step.
As you grow, you’ll need new products and services. Your existing customers, who know your business well, can help you come up with ideas for offers they’d like to see.
A great way to do this is to set up a group on social media where your customers can discuss with you and with each other. You can also use other methods mentioned in the last module for getting feedback on your strengths. Ask them what they’d like to see you offer.
Ask customer for new idea
At the time of writing, the most popular social media platform is Facebook, which allows you to easily set up groups and invite your current followers. One advantage of Facebook is that it has so many users worldwide, so it’s likely that your customers are already there. Also consider any other social media sites your customers are using. If you’re a B2B company, you may have an audience on the professional social media networking site LinkedIn.
Through the Internet, you can set up focus groups and hold discussions with your audience. While you’re discussing ideas, you can also ask for feedback on changes you could make that would improve your services. You might find that your customers would like to see you on Instagram, or that they wish you could offer faster shipping time.
Once you have some ideas, take them back to your team and discuss what you can or can’t do, and what would lead to profits or business growth.
Actions
Now you’re going to:
- Contact your favorite 5 customers and ask them for a new product or service idea. Make sure they’re different from the 6 people you contacted.
- When you have your responses add them to your community as a poll. If you don’t have a community to ask the questions, ask on your personal Facebook wall or LinkedIn.
All done and dusted in 20 minutes!
Over the last chapters, you’ve discovered how to understand your business’ strengths and how to be proactive in getting feedback from your customers.
Now, let’s look at the next step…
You can fuel your business growth by going the extra mile for your current customers. If you improve how you handle them, you’ll retain your customers, get referrals from them, and increase overall satisfaction. There are many different ways to make improvements.
Pick up Speed. If you can respond or deliver slightly faster, this can really help improve your customers’ experience. Explore other delivery options to see if you can find something that’s quicker. Use real-time chat so that you know the moment someone is trying to reach you. Respond immediately even if you don’t have an answer, saying something like, “Let me check and I’ll get back to you.”
Take an Individual Approach. Interact with customers and respond to issues personally. Don’t automate. Learn about your customers on a personal level. For example, chat with them on social media. You’ll create a better experience for them and also find out more about them so that you understand how to make them happy.
Win People Back. When there is a problem or negative comment, do your best to help the person solve their problem and give them something extra to win them back and assure their satisfaction. People who have had a negative experience and seen your stellar response can become your biggest brand advocates.
Know Your Customers Well. Learn everything you can about your customers. Use marketing data as well as personal interactions, and tailor your customer service to their tastes and preferences.
Be Consistent. Handle all issues in the same way and establish protocols to make sure everyone on your team offers consistent customer service. This makes your customers comfortable and sets expectations. Make sure your team is on the same page and everyone knows how to handle any potential issue that might arise.
Put Customers First. When you make any changes in your business processes or products, always put your customers first. Consider how the change will affect them, and make sure it’s in their best interests.
Actions
Share a story of how you helped a customer by going the extra mile. You do not have to name the customer or tag them, unless you ask them permission too. They may not want confidential business strategy to be publicly shared.
- Story elements
- Before – What was your customer experiencing? Why were they unhappy?
- During – How did they discover you? How did you understand their pain?
- After – What happened after the purchase? Where did you go the extra mile?
- Call to action – If you’d like some help with (enter your niche here) then send me a message and I’ll see how I can go the extra mile for you.
- Add a photo of a happy person.
- Share on social media.
And you’re done in 20 minutes!
Building strong and long lasting relationships with customer
I have an important question for you: Are you ready to engage your audience?
It’s not enough to just offer great customer service. You need to work towards building strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers.
Email Marketing. Email marketing is a very direct way to interact with your audience. Build an email list and send your subscribers regular messages with helpful exclusive content they can use to solve their problems.
Social Media Challenges. Give your audience a challenge on social media and see what they come up with. Give them a creative task that’s fun for them. You can offer an incentive to participate or create a system of rewards and prizes for the best entry. Increase engagement even further by getting other audience members to decide who is the winner.
Hold Webinars and Hangouts. Give your customers a chance to interact with you and each other through webinars and online hangouts. The content of these events could be Q&A sessions, presentations, or focus group feedback sessions.
Entertain Your Audience. Although your main purpose with online content is to help your audience solve their problems, you can nurture a relationship with them by also entertaining them. If you know your audience well, you’ll understand what they like and what they find interesting. Share content sometimes that’s just for fun.
Develop a Simple App. Create an app that solves a simple problem or helps your customers accomplish something. This is a great way to build relationships because it gets them to interact with you through their mobile device.
Create a VIP List. Identify VIPs who are the most engaged with your business or have the greatest influence over others. Offer them special promotions or a special type of membership. Build a strong connection with them and they’ll help you nurture your relationship with others.
Interact Offline. Host offline events or join local community events where your customers are. Offline interactions are more authentic and personal.
Actions
Now you’re going to set up a VIP list:
- Remember those 10 customers that you contacted earlier this week? Add them to your VIP list.
- Send a quick message and welcome them to your VIP list. Let them know how cherished they are and give them a coupon code of some kind that’s exclusive to your VIP list.
Offering rewards to customers in return for referrals
I’ve talked about several ways to boost your business growth. Now we are going to look at offering rewards to your customers in return for referrals.
Referrals are the best marketing for any business. When someone tells their friends how much they love your company, you’re nearly assured new customers. People might organically tell others about you, but it’s more effective to have a system in place to ensure these referrals happen. The way to do this is to create a customer referral program.
The key to a successful referral program is to figure out the best timing. There are certain times that are best to ask for referrals, for example:
- Right after a customer makes a purchase.
- When someone sends you a personal message thanking you or praising you.
- At the conclusion of helping someone solve a particular problem, you can ask them to tell others if they were happy with your service.
You can get people to refer you by offering a small incentive or reward for doing it. It could be something that doesn’t cost your business anything, like exclusive high-value content or free access to a premium service.
Publicize your referral program so that everyone in your audience knows about it. Feature it prominently in your marketing and make it easy for people to refer you. You can put a link on your site that says “tell a friend” or add social media buttons. Remove any obstacles or steps that might stand in a customer’s way.
You can also reach out to reviewers, bloggers, and others who have a large audience and get them to talk about you. Give them an incentive or do something for them in return for the favor.
Actions
Remember when you asked people for their feedback and if they’d recommend you?
- Now you’ll contact anyone who said yes, they’d recommend you.
- If you have an affiliate program already set up invite them to join. Arrange to do a special discount exclusive to your customer’s community.
- If you don’t have an affiliate program, look at other ways you can partner up together. Schedule a call with customers if you don’t have an affiliate program. They may have ideas on how you can work together.
Conclusion
Look how far you’ve come in! You’ve..
- Discovered your strengths
- Gained new ideas
- Went the extra mile
- Created a VIP list
- Started partnership conversations.
You can see how easily you can achieve business growth in 20 minutes a day. Now let’s see how quickly you can continue to grow your business in the next few weeks.