By Ron Kustek
Even with today’s Delta variant, now is not the time to put your business “on hold.”
Yes, those who are refusing to use logic or believe facts are causing our area’s return to masks and social distancing plus influencing many to stay at home once again. If you’re hoping for a quick return to normal, keep in mind hope is not a strategy, and today is the time to establish a new connection with every customer.
One of the more overlooked areas of business is the devotion to nurturing the full range of Customer Connection Points.
When a potential new customer is considering your business, how do they find out about you? If they start with a basic online search, is your Google business listing up to date with your full hours, menu, website link, specials, services provided and current photos of what you sell?
Is your Yelp listing updated, whether you pay Yelp or not? (because customers do use Yelp, regardless of whether business owners like Yelp).
Are your additional listings up to date on directories such as TripAdvisor, SantaCruz.com, ThinkLocalSantaCruz.org, Yellowpages.com, etc.?
Is your website completely up to date with your hours, menu, specials, services provided and current photos?
Did you finally include a Chat function on your website, which will actually have a human respond to any inquiries from customers during business hours? Did you invest in a Chat service that provides after-hours help, or at least captures a customer inquiry for follow-up the next day?
Did you hire enough people so your phone is always answered by a person — not a recording but a helpful human who knows everything you sell and don’t sell, your hours, your specialties, etc?
Does the person answering your phone book a time with every person who calls, or take notes and the phone number to call back a person who is inquiring about something for a follow-up call?
Every phone call is a potential sale.
What about training?
Your employees are your most important Customer Connection point. When customers are met with disinterested employees who don’t make eye contact or who don’t know what is offered, then you’re going to eventually lose that customer.
Do you hold weekly or bi-weekly employee meetings to answer all questions, make operational improvements and listen to employee feedback? Are your employees feeling like you’re investing in them by providing sales and/or customer service training, which is readily available from the many paid business consultants or for free from the Small Business Development Center in Aptos?
And don’t overlook the Employee Satisfaction ‘formula’ which is the result of paying attention to your employees + regular training of employees + properly paying your employees.
Many businesses in town are now being perceived as “extremely greedy” by raising prices since May for every local or tourist to pay, and then falsely claiming ‘inflation’ as the only cause! Inflation doesn’t make you raise the price from $7.25 to $9.75 in 30 days for your bacon & egg croissant (we all know that, bakery)!
I’ve been a business owner and fully understand all the financial pressures on a business, especially when many of us have been used to “easy money” from customers paying our annual price increases that fund our profits, personal needs and lifestyles.
But please realize that we business owners can’t make up for lost profits from 2020 by price-gouging customers in 2021.
And don’t think anyone is fooled by your extra 4% added to customer bills for “medical costs” when that should be covered by the increased prices you’re charging for lesser amounts which are but a shadow of their former portions.
Paying meticulous attention to every Customer Connection Point is critical, especially now.
Please, don’t keep cutting your operating hours or what customers used to love pre-pandemic (such as being open on Mondays & Tuesdays, day and early evening hours). Please don’t increase your prices without increasing employee pay the same percentage. Please keep in mind customers are often your neighbors and fellow community members. And remember tourists are not expendable one-time customers who will pay anything on vacation without complaining.
So now is not the time to pull back, but to push ahead. If your competition is failing at their Customer Connection Points, then you have the opportunity to invest some of your prior- year’s profits into this year’s focus on solidifying your position as one of our great local businesses!
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Ron Kustek is a former senior marketing executive at The Cola-Cola Co., and entrepreneur who is currently teaching business at Cabrillo College. Contact him at [email protected]