By Tim Peniston-Bird, from a loyalty agency – Orangutan
There is no doubt 2020 has been a tough year for business, but out of it, SME’s have shown a better ability to adapt and grow than the multi-nationals, and have also benefited from a trend for customers who want to support local businesses. According to customer acquisition and retention specialist, Tim Peniston-Bird, this is a trend that business owners should ride.
In good times, multi nationals and big business has the advantage – they have the ability to enjoy economies of scale in marketing, administration, logistics and procurement. In a constantly evolving situation like we are experiencing, their size is their Achilles heal, decision-making processes are designed around avoiding errors rather than taking advantage of opportunities, it can take months for changes in customer behaviour to be fed back from the front line to head office, and even longer for a new strategy to be devised and rolled out again – often too late to enjoy an advantage.
Conversely, a small business owner will tend to be very close to their customers, will be able to react quickly to changes in needs, and will be able to flex to constantly improve customer experience.
That doesn’t mean that SME’s cannot learn a thing or two from their larger competitors and create a best of breed model. Here Tim shares his list of 8 things every small business should be looking to deliver.
Flexible ways to buy
We all like to buy in different ways, and actually enjoy varying the way we buy from a preferred supplier – research shows that the broader the relationship in terms of how a customer buys, communicates and the range they buy is directly proportional to how loyal they will be – which has exponential results on your profits as they spend more, cost less to service and refer more customers. This doesn’t have to be expensive with systems for e-commerce like woocommerce offering free options for online shopping – but greater delivery options – home delivery, click and collect, kerbside and digital delivery. Increasingly, time-strapped people want to pre-reserve (whether it’s a meal, a dress or a meeting so that they know it’s ready when they arrive. Finally, consider if your products or services can be built into a subscription plan to make it easier for the customer to afford?
Create a consistent level of feedback
Gut feelings are great, but it is even better if you can get quality research from your customers. What is important here is to create a system so that you are getting something throughout the year. Research has shown that just one question has the greatest correlation between its answer and profitability – how likely are you to recommend us to family / friends/colleagues etc? By asking this question – with an opportunity for customers to add free text. This means you will get a higher response as it is only one question AND you get the answer to the only question that matters. By aligning change to create higher levels of high recommendation then your overall customer satisfaction will grow and with it profits.
Omnichannel communication
You keep in contact with friends in more than one way so why wouldn’t you do the same with customers. Try to collect email addresses and mobile numbers from customers and their agreement on what you can use each for. Build a presence on social media and use this as another channel to build relationships.
Involve customers in continuous improvement
Why not ask a cross section of customers to take part in an occasional feedback session – in an ideal world, get 5-10 customers together over refreshments (or for now via Zoom) and ask them simple questions like: what do you like, what could we do better, what else would you like us to offer, what else would you like us to do – and have each as an open conversation. Make sure that at the beginning of each session, you feedback the results of the previous sessions and progress. This gives you valuable insights and by involving customers in improving your business will increase their commitment to your success.
Get a digital footprint
87% of shoppers now begin product or service searches online – particularly for local businesses – so you need a website that helps customers to find and buy from you.
This is the window to your business – it really is important that you have a site that features key information that customers will be looking for including:
- Big pictures making your business look like somewhere they would enjoy
- Description of what type of business you are
- Reviews
- Opening hours
- How to find you
- Parking facilities (yours or nearby or both)
- Facilities – free WiFi, toilets, disabled access
- Upcoming and past events
This doesn’t need to be particularly expansive – there are many companies offering low cost or easy free website creation and hosting (as we do for customers) using WordPress. This means you can then keep it up to date yourself – which is essential.
Get to the top of local search
Whilst trying to get to the top of the global search is a long and expensive task, you are only trying to come up in searches around your specific offering, in your specific area i.e. if someone enters ‘dentist near me’ – you want to be near the top of the searches in your area.
Google uses a local algorithm to work out which results they think are best, and it’s broken up into three simple elements: Proximity, relevance, and prominence.
The steps to this are relatively simple:
- Create a free Google My Business listing – reuse your website content to make it as compelling as possible. Google My Business makes up 25% of the signals. This is a free listing that Google gives you to control. If somebody searches for your business on Google, this is what will appear on the right-hand side of the page so it’s normally the first thing prospects will see when they look for you online.
- Use Google’s free keyword planner tool to discover the most frequent relevant search terms and try to use these across all media including page names and descriptions on your website and in your Google My Business listing.
- Make sure you have your site listed on as many directories as possible and in a consistent manner (exactly same name, address and telephone numbers). Links make up 16% of the Google algorithm – there are many link building services that can be found searching for Citation.
- Having more positive online reviews increase trust in your business and it also increases your chance of ranking higher in local searches on Google and other sites. This means new potential customers are more likely to find your business when they’re searching and more likely to visit. Ask current customers to add a review – maybe run a monthly competition for best review of the month?
Join together
You will never be able to stock a range of goods or services to compete with the multi nationals BUT you could offer something even better. By joining up with other independents that provide complementary products or services to yours and share similar values, you could start to create a virtuous circle where you each feed business to one another whilst improving satisfaction and loyalty with the customers.
Reward customer loyalty
A customer loyalty programme can be an excellent way to encourage and reward positive behaviours from customers like completing surveys. These could be run just for your business or using a system like our Shop Local – where points can be used across a closed group of local businesses to again keep the customer engaged with local independent businesses.
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