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How to Create an Impressive Office

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
 
A potential client or employee will make their mind up within a few seconds of laying eyes on your office. If you want to prove you are a professional business with a great company culture, you should find out how to create an impressive office.

Eye-Catching Wall Wraps

Give your office the wow factor by adding striking wall wraps, which will add a little color and personality into the space, and will exude professionalism and a great company culture. Pick a design that complements both your branding and office layout, so your guests will remember a visit long after a meeting or interview is over.

Branded Sweets

Clients want to work with companies that have exceptional attention to detail – and branded sweets can prove just that. It’s a fun, welcoming and professional treat for guests to enjoy when they visit, so they’re bound to be impressed by the effort you have made to create a warm welcome, while reinforcing your brand recognition.

A Friendly Welcome

A receptionist will provide a first impression of your staff and company culture. Only hire friendly, warm and welcoming receptionists, who are willing to go above and beyond to make guests feel welcome. For instance, they should smile at every guest, offer them a seat and a drink, and keep them updated on their meeting to avoid frustration. You should also ensure the phone is not left ringing, as a client will believe your company will ignore their call, too.

Welcome Natural Lighting

Exposure to natural lighting will not only make your staff feel both happier and healthier, but it can also make a space appear more open. As a result, it can increase your employees’ morale and productivity levels, which can help your business to both flourish and grow.

24-Hour News on TV

24-hour news on TV will not only allow your team to stay up-to-date on the latest happenings from across the world, but it will also prove to your guests that you’re keeping updated with the latest trends. As a result, they’ll view your brand as a forward-thinking business that is worthy of their time and money.

Display Artwork

Artwork can add a burst of color to your office space, and it can also convey intelligence and professionalism. Choose a work of art that not only adds a pop of color into a room, but complements your company’s image.

Big & Bold Potted Plants

There are many reasons to incorporate big and bold potted plants into your office. Not only are they a beautiful addition to an interior design, but they can also reportedly increase employee happiness and reduce stress levels. It will also provide a natural contrast to your décor and can prove you can take care of multiple things across the business with ease.

Offer Branded Pens

Branded pens are an ideal stationery item for your business, as you can hand them to guests during a meeting. You should then encourage them to take the pen with them, so they’ll have a subtle reminder of your brand once they leave your office. As a result, you’ll remain firmly in their minds, and a client might be more likely to hire your services.

How to Avoid a Business Bankruptcy

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleThe number of small businesses filing for bankruptcy increases every year, and while bankruptcies don’t always lead to the full closure of the company, in a lot of cases they do. If your dream business is currently on the verge of bankruptcy, don’t panic. There are some steps you can take that may help you to turn things around. Try to think as positively as you can and put the following steps into action.

1. Look at the Figures

The first thing you need to do is work out how much you need to make each month to survive. This includes both the money you need to actually live, and the money you need to repay your creditors. Add 20% to this figure to give yourself a cushion. Finally, add in the costs of running your business. This includes everything from your bills to your payroll to the cost of inventory. With this information at hand, you need to work out how much your business is earning each month. If you are facing bankruptcy, it’s likely you have a deficit between the two numbers. The next steps are going to focus on decreasing costs and increasing profit to give you enough to cover everything you need to pay.

2. Cut Costs

Okay this sounds simple, but there is sure to be some ways that you can lower your expenses to meet your spending goals. Consider getting rid of your traditional phone plan and switching to VoIP, look into cheaper packaging options, and look into obtaining new quotes for any services you receive that aren’t under contract. The aim here is to look for redundant costs that your business can do without and either eliminate them entirely or reduce the amount you are spending.

3. Renegotiate with Your Creditors

Phone your creditors and let them know you are considering bankruptcy. The majority will be happy to come up with a payment plan that works for you so long as it means they will still receive what they are owed (with bankruptcy there is no guarantee they will be paid). Some may be willing to waive the interest, while others will extend the terms of your debt so that you have longer to repay it. You could also file a consumer proposal with your creditors if you don’t want to speak to them directly.

4. Look at Short Term Cashflow Options

We’re not necessarily suggesting that you take out loans to cover your cash flow. Instead, speak to your vendors and ask them for more lenient payment terms. If they can extend their terms, you will free up more cash in the short term. Another option is to ask your clients to pay you quicker. You could offer them a small percentage off their invoice if they are willing to pay faster. Both of these options will provide a boost in the short term.

Sometimes filing for bankruptcy is the only option. However, it is worth giving the above a try first if it could mean saving your business.

How to Improve the Customer Experience Throughout Their Journey

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article

There’s no getting around it; the customer is king. Without them, your business will be going nowhere fast. They have the power to make or break your business, and your aim should be to do everything in your power to make their experience a good one. Once upon a time, it would have been the quality of your product or service that made you stand out from the competition. Nowadays, however, the focus has shifted to the experience a brand is able to offer the customer throughout their journey. Improving the customer experience is not the easiest thing to deal with. There are certain things your customers will expect. These include being able to interact with your company, however they decide to do it. It’s also important that their experience is a personalized, rewarding and effortless one. Above all, they want this to be provided in an efficient amount of time. Here are some things you can do today.

The Customer Experience vs. Customer Service

You might think that they’re one and the same, but they’re actually quite different. Customer service focuses more on the way a service is delivered, before, during, and after a purchase. Customer experience, on the other hand, is the sum of all the experiences and interactions the customers have from your business relationship. The two work closely together, and you can’t have one without the other.

10 Steps to Improving Your Customer Experience

The first contact your customers will have with your business will be via the phone, email or one-to-one interaction, and this is where you can start making improvements.

Create a Customer-Focused Culture

There is little point in trying to make improvements if the whole of your workforce are not behind the changes. From the bottom to the top, everyone has to be focused on customer satisfaction. A good way to do this is to create a list of statements that can be used to guide company principles and focus your staff. Principles can include delivering an excellent service, to show humility and welcome change. Take steps to introduce a staff training program and focus on etiquette, how best to address customer complaints, and the standard responses to use.

Know Your Customers

If you don’t know who your customers are, how can you address their needs to improve your customer experience. The beauty of humans is that we are all so different. We don’t have the same needs, desires or expectations. As well as understanding demographics such as age, race, and residence you need to consider several other things. For example, how will they use your products and services, what are their expectations, and how will they prefer to interact with you.

Understanding who your customers are will result in a deeper understanding. Your employees will be able to empathize with them and look at the service they’re providing from their point of view.

Live Chat

Providing your customers with a live chat option is crucial to improving the customer experience. If your audience is within the 18-34 age bracket, you might do well to appreciate that more than half of them prefer this option over phone interactions. It is particularly popular among online retailers. However, there’s more to providing live chat than just having a person to answer customer questions. It can include co-browsing, which is where an agent takes control of a user’s browser to provide technical support or to direct them to pages where they will find what they want. Audio/video chat services, integrated knowledge bases, and Chatbot services are also being added to the list.

Mobile Customer Support

More than 91% of adults in the US own a mobile phone, and more than 63% of them use their phones several times a month to search for products and customer support. Providing a mobile interface for your customers is vital. Unfortunately, many are poorly designed and cumbersome to use, even if there is an optimized website. The result of these poor designs is that customers are forced to contact a business directly for simple queries. Contact centers are then flooded with queries. Allowing customers to solve their problems using their mobile phone will improve the customer experience.

Social Media Support

It’s possible to use social media to communicate with customers in a customer-centric way. Many large companies use it very effectively. Using a variety of social media platforms, companies can share content and answer questions from customers. The marketing department can also ask interesting questions and gain a better understanding of the customer base.

Self-Service Portals

There are two ways self-service portals can help a company. Firstly, they improve the customer experience. Secondly, they reduce workload and thereby increase company capacity. A self-service portal provides customers with instant access to information. A series of self-help functions are open to the customer and accessible through a company’s website. Features include:

  • Self-resolution of issues through the use of a knowledge base
  • Password reset
  • Self-logging of incidents
  • Service request
  • Collaborative spaces
  • Chat services

Empowering customers to find information, request services, and resolve their own issues is a great way of improving the customer experience.

If you think outside of the box a little, you can probably work out some pretty ingenious ways that you can help people to improve their own experience with these kinds of portals. You might have a visitor sign-in app, for instance, so that you know who is in the building. However you approach it, the fact is that these kinds of portals are growing in popularity with good reason, and they are some of the best ways to make sure that the customer’s experience is so much better throughout the journey.

Provide a Range of Communication Channels

Not so very long ago, customers would have been more than happy to call customer care to get assistance. Those days are long gone, and today’s customers want to have access to more options. These should include text, email, and social media, depending on which your customer is most comfortable with.

Younger age groups may prefer to use social media while those over 40 might prefer to call customer care. The industry you’re working in can also influence the channels you choose to use. In a more professional industry, phone calls or post might be more appropriate. There is no one size fits all, and some experimentation will be required to find which fits best.

Customer Experience Manager

This is a relatively new role and has come about because customer experience requires effort from across a company, which means someone needs to be managing it. A customer experience manager will look across a range of departments such as customer service, sales, market, production and more. They will act as the link between customer and company, coordinating work across all the different departments.

Researching and Gathering Data

A crucial part of the customer experience is conducting research and gathering data. Customers expect a certain quality of service when calling your company. The service you deliver has to be above average. If the service received is excellent, it is more likely they will pay more for your products or services and return time and time again. To provide exemplary customer service, you first have to do some research and gather feedback from your customers. Asking customer testimonial questions will help you to establish their needs, wants, and expectation. It will also help you to grow your company with the help of customer reviews.

Benchmarking and Evaluating

There is no point in implementing any changes if you aren’t going to spend time evaluating whether the processes, teamwork, and technology are paying off. It’s important to measure the return on investment of customer experience. Finding the best strategy will be much easier if you’re able to try different things. Collecting data to ensure you know what works and what doesn’t. A good question to ask customers that will gauge the effectiveness of a strategy is “Would you recommend this service to a friend or relative?”. Provide a point-scale to measure how happy or unhappy they were.

The Benefits of Optimizing the Customer Experience

Companies who invest time and effort in improving the customer experience will reap the rewards, both in terms of revenue and financial health. There are many benefits of providing an excellent customer experience including increased customer loyalty and higher customer retention. It’s also interesting to learn that a high percentage of customers will pay more for a better customer experience.

There’s no way you can anticipate every customer issue, but you can anticipate there being an issue and making it easy for customers to contact you. Being reactive and proactive will pay off. Customers want to be treated well, respected, understood, and get what they want. They want a good experience when dealing with your company and an assurance that every time they get in touch, the experience will be equally good. The modern consumer has an immense amount of power, and they can choose to wield it as they see fit. Providing an excellent customer experience will instill trust and boost revenue.

Providing the best customer experience can help you to build meaningful relationships with your customers. The experience you provide is a reflection of your business. Your brand image depends on more than just a single moment when a purchase is made. It is a culmination of every interaction they have with your company. Provide a superior customer experience, and you will have a competitive advantage, build customer loyalty, encourage positive word-of-mouth, personalize relationships, and provide customer satisfaction.

Five Key Aspects You May Miss Out When Starting Your Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleStarting a new business can be simultaneously exciting and terrifying. You have this idea in your head, and now it’s time to make it into reality. But it can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of starting something new and wholly yours that you might neglect some parts of the process. And as the saying goes, “the journey is far more important than the destination.”

Here are five things you may miss out as part of your business endeavor that proves to be essential in the long run:

Make sure you have a detailed and well-researched business plan

This is the foundation of your business idea. Without a business plan, you might as well be grasping in the dark and may even jeopardize the running of your business in the long term. It’s easy to make mistakes when it comes to business plans, and you may miss out on certain things so do your research, and you’ll thank yourself later.

Customers, products or services, operations, sales and marketing strategies, management and competitors – these are the absolute minimum, and when writing up your business plan, you must include all of these key areas. Show that you have done your research and that you did not just run into the business industry with an idea and no plan by including industry trends and market analysis. As well as this, your plan must include a detailed financial flow, from month cash flow to income statements.

That being said, don’t get caught up in the details. This can be common with technology-based start-ups where technical jargon is thrown around, without taking into account the reader. But if you must include such keywords, make sure to include an appendix to increase accessibility. A business plan must be easy to read and understand so lay down your idea and your plans as succinctly as possible. Take into consideration that you may be required to submit a business plan when asking a bank for a loan or applying for business grants to further grow your business. Without strategies set in place, whether this is for sales and marketing or otherwise, you cannot persuade a bank to lend you what you need.

A business plan is not only useful when applying for loans or grants, but also acts as a guide to grow your business. This helps you identify and pursue goals and objectives that lead to the growth of your company and details the steps that will need to be taken to accomplish this.

Invest in reliable security

Whether you are starting an e-commerce or are venturing into opening a physical store, investing in reliable security is one of the most important steps you can take.

This is particularly relevant to data security. Chances are, your business will use electronic systems and these use data to operate. From information regarding your employees to your customers, these are all data.

With such sensitive and confidential data in your company’s system, you must put into place to keep these as secure as possible. Your customers, particularly, are trusting you with their sensitive information, whether these be bank details or home addresses, whenever they buy your product or use your service. When there is a breach in security, it is not only revenue that is at stake but your customer’s trust – and as a result, your company’s reputation. It is important that you invest in reliable security to keep sensitive and confidential data as safe as possible.

Likewise, keeping your home office or store safe is also a priority. There are many security technologies that allow you to monitor the location through real-time updates and notification systems and you can find out more from this website about the options available.

By increasing the security for your business and ensuring your customers know that you take their data protection and safety as a priority, you can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty and increase your business’s reputation.

Check if you are legally allowed to use your business name

Make sure you check if your business name is taken by another company before you start printing this on business cards, social media and other marketing and sales related areas. A simple search can let you know if the name you have chosen for your business is already taken or if you are free to use it. If the name is already trademarked and you have used it, then this can land you in legal trouble.

Don’t forget to set up a business bank account

Combining your personal and business finances leads to confusion – and it can create suspicion if ever your local or state tax bureaus or the IRS start asking questions. You’re far better off keeping personal and business monies separate for those reasons – and certain legal structures require you to do it that way. As a bonus, you’ll appear more professional and credible when writing checks from your business versus your personal account.

Know your competitors

You may think that your new product or service has no competition, is novel and above existing products – you’re wrong. Most often than not, it’s extremely rare to not have any competitors in an increasingly saturated business industry. But this doesn’t have to be a weakness; instead, do your research. Find out who your competitors are and how your business can be better.

How can you differentiate your business from an existing one? By researching your competitors, you can not only find ways on how you can improve your own business but also learn more about your own business as a whole, your customers and their habits.

By constantly improving and adapting to a constantly changing business industry and customer base, you can ensure your business stays on top and beat out competitors when the tides change.
Making your business idea, a reality can be exciting. With these few things in mind, you can ensure that even if the road towards your business goals and objectives is rocky, that you will know exactly where to go for success.

Restaurant Design – Why It’s About More Than Aesthetics

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship ArticleWhilst restaurant design is about aesthetics, there is far more to it than that! It is about the atmosphere, the comfort, and the functionality just as much as it is the aesthetics – with a restaurant, there are so many parts and processes that it is important to consider every possible angle when you are designing something. There are a lot of logistics involved, too.
So, if you are choosing to take on the task of re-designing your restaurant on your own then carry on reading. This and so many other resources cover the things that you need to know.

#1: Choosing the Right Furniture

One of the most important aspects of restaurant design is the furniture that you choose. After all, your furniture can make or break the entire look, feel, and atmosphere of your restaurant and it is what all your guests are going to use. Finding a suitable restaurant furniture supply company can be difficult to get right, but it is important that you settle on the right supplier for the job. Look for one that supplies furniture to fit your budget and aesthetic.

For restaurants, the best furniture design and arrangement is always going to be one which maximizes the number of covers without making things look overly crowded. It’s not just about how the tables look; it’s about mixing shapes, sizes, and types of table, and possibly even materials.

#2: Restaurant Acoustics

Acoustics should match the overall style of your restaurant. If you have a quieter restaurant then your acoustics shouldn’t be too loud or echoey. Don’t be afraid of installing acoustical ceilings or using larger and taller ceilings (if possible) if you want a louder and more open space.

Tiles, accent walls, and banquettes are ways that you can use different textures and styles which aid with the acoustic aspects and provide a stylistic effect.

In addition to the ceiling, the material used on the floor can either help to dampen or heighten acoustic noise. We’re not talking about thick carpets either – these are massively outdated. There are plenty of specialist materials which can get the desired look, feel, and effect.

#3: Lighting Creates a Vibe

Lighting can either create a great vibe or completely destroy one. It’s not just about ceiling lights and making the room brighter, lighting is about lighting up art and accents, interesting design pieces, and it helps to set the overall atmosphere.

A restaurant that carefully thinks about its lighting fixtures and places them properly helps to make the place more theatrical by highlighting not only the guests’ tables but by making everybody look good and setting the overall ambiance.

When you are designing your restaurant, it comes down to far more than the aesthetics of the furniture that you use. You can have the best-looking furniture and design in the world, but if you can’t set the right ambiance and overall atmosphere by properly working with lighting and noise in addition to other important factors, then you are unlikely to impress your diners and achieve the desired impact.