Freshen up your offers – are your offers and incentives looking stale and out of date? Are they the same as what everybody else is offering? ‘10% off’ really isn’t attractive to anyone anymore so at least put some thought and effort into your offers. There are events, holidays and celebrations all the time so theme your offers to tie in with what’s going on around you and with things your customers can relate to, with the festive season approaching you are spoilt for choice. By revisiting your offers to boost sales you also present yourself with the opportunity to re-communicate with customers and prospects to shout about the great new incentives you are running.
Follow up new leads within the hour – the best time to speak to a potential customer is as soon as they make an inquiry into your business. If they go onto your website and leave their details for more information then you are much more likely to convert this new lead into a sale if you speak to them within an hour of enquiry. Not only does this make you look like a professional and well organised business that goes out of its way to help and respond to customers quickly, it also is the time when the customer is most engaged and you are freshest in their mind. If you don’t respond in a timely manner then your competitors might just beat you to the sale.
Use a CRM – when your potential customers go onto your website and ask for more information wouldn’t it be great if when they filled in the enquiry form they were automatically sent an email with the required information. At the same time you also received a notification that a new lead had come in and you could give them a call (within the hour!) to see if you could be of further assistance. Then over the following days, weeks and months you could automate ongoing email and sms communication. Well it’s easier than you think but you will need a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) programme to help you out – ask your local thebestof Owner about ‘thebestof CRM’ and how it could help increase your sales.
Listen to your customers – what are you doing to monitor customer feedback and then act on it to improve your product, offers and sales process? Do you have a process to capture feedback at point of sale and beyond? Social media makes this even easier now as you can monitor the buzz about your business online. But don’t just listen make sure you implement what you learn.
Diversify your offering – what else do your customers need that you could provide them with? I don’t mean you need to come up with a new product or service but if you are trusted and have a good relationship with your customers then you have a big opportunity to recommend other peoples products or services and benefit from the introduction. Partner up with other local businesses and recommend relevant services that you know will benefit your customers. It’s a win-win!
For information on thebestofexeter can help you with this please call us 01392 248 263
