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Archive for June, 2009

Bitter, grumpy annoyed… get over it!

Jun 24

Posted by Steve Gray in Chill out!, Excellence!, People!, Personal Development, The Customer Service Dept | 1 Comment

I have been on about good customer service for years now, and while I recognise it can take a lot to make it happen, it’s a thing, which needs to happen.

In my more recent travels I have noticed bitter, grumpy and annoyed people operating businesses. It’s one thing to have grumpy staff, but quite another to see the operator of the business in this “state”. Seriously if you want to be in business and be a grouch stay out of site of the customers…

I guess it’s in part due to the Global Financial Crisis or at least compounded by it, to the point where people are wondering about where the next customer and cash is going to come from. Okay so you may not be able to do much about that, (especially if you have spent all your marketing budget already!) So you have to sit and wait… BUT if that can’t change, what about you?

To alter being a “grump” you may have to take a stance and force yourself to be happy. try a few of these.

  • Write a sign for yourself “Be Happy!” and put it where it can be seen by you and not the customer, make a bunch of them, put them up and act on them.
  • Make a list of things that make you happy and each day “do” something on that list somehow… and DON”T give me the line of “Oh I don’t have time…”
  • Get or make a CD of a bunch of funny things, jokes etc by comedians you really like and laugh at even though you have heard them a zillion times, play it on the way to the office, and LAUGH heartily!
  • Look up, yes it’s that simple, look up and try to not feel good, hard to do eh? Note how glum people tend to look down a lot, makes sense right…
  • Tell  your staff to tell you to smarten up… Go on I dare you to.
  • Make a list of the things getting you down, now write a bunch of ways to fix them, then act on it… go on do that now! Keep adding to the solutions list.
  • Take a five minute stroll, go out of the office or store, walk briskly and get the blood pumping.
  • De stress, mediate or do whatever thing helps you to de stress (without hurting others or things…)
  • Get an unreasonable friend, one who can hold you to your promises, and chat to them about ways to work around your challenges, share a few jokes etc.
  • Kick a footy, It won’t de stress everyone, but It might work for you, heck even going to a sports shop and buying one might break your routine enough, no cash? Borrow one off a kid in your street… hey imagine going door to do and asking “Does your kid have a footy I can borrow for an hour?” Heck that kid has probably been looking for a kick to kick friend for ages.
  • Go to an Art Gallery or five for a few minutes, I used to do this when driving around in a van all over the city, I would drop in to see contemporary art, (no cost!) and I knew where heaps of them where so I could get to one fast for a break in routine. Oh and turn your mobile off for the few minutes you are there. ;) Seeing other people’s “views” on and about the “human condition” can be useful.
  • Put a picture of yourself up on the fridge at home and yell at yourself… Like that? Now think about the last time you yelled at someone else, was that good (I hope not!)
So make yourself a “grump free zone” and get out amongst the customers with a happy disposition and see if that impacts well on sales.

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Good connections

Jun 15

Posted by Steve Gray in Innovation and Creativity, People!, Planning, The Marketing Dept | 1 Comment

One of our guru lads over here is Ross Hill, on his Blog is a great piece of intriguing information I think all businesspeople and educators can learn a lot from.

He starts off talking about games and what makes them addictive… Then he goes on to show the comparison to social media (“aint” that the buzz at the moment) then I figure if you know what makes social media addictive, you could create a business that is addictive for your customers.

Imagine that people addicted to what you have, and they keep coming back to buy more… Yep the old loyal customer routine. Only now (thanks to Ross and others…) we can start to build an understanding of how that happens, so lets do it for business. Oh I mentioned educators as well, in a stale classroom, sit down, shut up, take down these notes… a fresh perspective on what engages people has got to be useful!

I’m going to cut to the chase here… The five central elements of Game Mechanics are: 

  • Collecting things.
  • Earning Points.
  • Getting/giving feedback.
  • Exchanges/Gifting.
  • User Customization.
In looking at the game mechanics and the social media link up to it there are plenty of things that make these points work, If you ever played pinball, getting the high score was way cool, in the latter day digital gamers world collecting things to give you more power, gifts, tokens etc was way cool too. then in a connected world being able to give feedback via facebook, twitter etc became a big buzz. then they allowed “games” of giving flowers, plants (virtual etc…)
Lets go across to:
Business…
  • Collecting things – Tokens in adverts.
  • Earning points – Buy five things get the sixth one free or at a discount (loyalty card ticked off.)
  • Getting/giving feedback – Hello – how are you – query form.
  • Exchanges/gifting – For every $10 you spend we give $1 to charity…
  • Customisation – if you have an online store they can personalise in some way then that’s useful.
Education…
  • Collect and bring things for show and tell.
  • Get points for good behaviour.
  • Discussing progress – giving feedback on what they liked in class.
  • Exchanges of information in group sessions
  • Customising by selecting which type of final assessment device they want to choose.
These are a few examples of possibilities, I’m sure there are plenty more, the thing is making sure you can provide enough to ensure your service is the one they are addicted to.
If you are still not sure about any of this check out Mc Donald’s and think about their happy meals for kids… you get a toy to collect, while the parent is there they probably buy something too, so even just having a single part of the formula in place can be highly valuable. Now put on your thinking caps and come up with a few ways you can use this information to your advantage.
I’m almost excited about the prospect of saying AND… lets add in our target market personality types, motivators and Drivers it would really assist us to be able truly effectively hit them between the eye’s solid targeted information they want to act on… but perhaps I better leave that for another day…

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Workplace Bullying Policy

Jun 14

Posted by Steve Gray in Health and Safety Dept, Human Resource Management, Leadership, People!, Planning, Risk Management | No Comments

Don’t turn off and stop reading because you are a small business, Don’t stop reading because you believe you have all the bases covered on this one, and just because your people in the HR department say there is no need for such a thing due to no cases of it at this point be wary of that.

Imagine you employ a bright eyed graduate or fresh faced school leaver brimming with interest and potential, then after a few weeks you see them with less of a smile, less of a pep in their step. For most people watching this person they might say, yep the realities of being in a job have kicked in, he he!

That can be the case, but what if they have found their supervisor or a co-worker has given then some grief, a few terse words, a few statements which have impacted on their esteem. This might seem like petty stuff but the impact of this sort of situation can get out of hand very quickly, the worker may feel powerless, in a bind, awkward, berated, useless and so on.

Your business has a duty of care,  you have a duty of care and this needs to be stated up front that everyone in the organisation also has a duty of care. Therefore that being the case guidelines need to be in place to clearly out line what actions are taken in situations like this and to spell out some basics as to what might constitute bullying, harassment and other situations which might impact a persons esteem.

Okay so now a bunch of  you are saying “Hey the hell do I have to care about a persons esteem? Heck I pay them to do a job, they should do it and put up with the situation, they should harden up, the world is a tough place…”

My view on that is how can you not care about a person you employ… If you are not into caring, avoid being in business. If you don’t care, your customers won’t either and then your staff will soon disappear. Yes it’s that basic, and you need to ensure you have the situation covered or you could be caught out VERY QUICKLY.

So do the right thing and have one ready to implement now, I suggest at the very least you do a search on google and see what comes up, grab one that suits and use it. for a rock solid start try the public service in your country and see what they have you can edit to make it your own. one I looked at recently had a 44 page doc you could download easily enough and it had various examples as well. http://www.apsc.gov.au/ethics/respect.pdf

To finish, imagine this, you are interviewing people for a job, on telling them about the organisation you are able to show them a copy of your bullying policy. It shows you care, it shows you will not tolerate people who don’t care, it shows you want to have happy people enjoying being part of the team, together everyone feels safe and in a organisation which values people, enough said…

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Basics are basics…

Jun 1

Posted by Steve Gray in Finance, Growth, Leadership, Risk Management, Starting out in business | No Comments

It’s June 2009 the global financial crisis is still happening. Watched a documentary on Chinese businesses going under, huge factories closed down, lots of out of region migrant workers now displaced. Sure this was one province (Guangdong) and particularly one city Dong Guan, so probably not a big cross section to measure by. The show was on SBS Australia’s Dateline (May 31) and showed a range of businesses closed and gutted out.

Here’s a quote from the show “In Guangdong province alone, 60,000 factories have now closed down and millions of migrant workers are searching for work.”

My first thought was what were they making? well it’s interesting the businesses included a printing plant, toy factories, and jewelry manufacturing… My second thought was do they make for the local market or export, export… third question, is the product a need or a want, mainly want.

So it comes down to the basics if the majority of what is produced is not for needs when a downturn comes the wants are dropped first. When an external order from overseas is pulled then the whole thing can collapse quickly. as the local economy is hanging on wants, the failure of one is felt across all.

Learn from this huge scale disaster and make sure you have a balance of income from needs based sources as well as wants based sources. If you have shares in a grocery company Co for example it seems logical that they supply the needs of people, then take your own business think about how you can supply to the needs based customers. Think carefully about this as a form of insurance to ensure you can balance your wants and needs to ensure sustainability.

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