Starting a business is always exciting but making it successful is where it becomes exhilarating. As a small business owner, I always think about cutting my operational costs to maximize profit.
Like most big companies, I don’t instantly think about cutting costs by minimizing the workforce, instead, I prefer to explore options that can keep my business and employees happy. Currently, our team is 30 people strong, which means while looking for my next policy, I have to think about their work, maximizing profit without compromising their mental health.
This is a combination that is too good to be true and, in most cases, big companies will never prioritize this. On the contrary, this lethal combination is helping me to maximize my profit and minimize my operational costs.
Step By Step Method to Improve Customer Service and Minimize Operational Cost
If you are a business owner, who is struggling with profit, operational cost, and customer service, this blog will help you step towards a successful business.
1. Train Your Customer Service for Retention
Employee training sits at the core of any business. If your employee is able to work independently, this means you have prepared a solid system for your brand.
Big brands like Spectrum are famous for detailed training that does not just cover theory but also extends to situational practices. To make sure their customers never feel excluded, they have also established a dedicated team for Spanish customers. Spectrum customers can easily call Spectrum servicio al cliente 24 horas en español and seek answers to their queries in their language.
As a small business, you can also use a similar policy for your brand and build inclusive customer service to retain your customers.
2. Empower Your Team with Mobility
Your employees need freedom and as a business owner, their freedom will benefit you more. You might be wondering how that is possible.
Well, the pandemic has proved that nearly 80% of tech jobs can easily be converted into remote work. Moreover, remote working will instantly help you cut your operational costs by nearly 40%. Don’t believe me? Here is how you can benefit from it.
When you offer remote work to your employees, they will instantly feel the freedom. They will think about setting up their home office according to their own needs. This means, you no longer have to offer them internet, electricity, refreshments or even machine maintenance costs.
These steps are simple but they will instantly help you save money and keep your customers as well as employees happy.
3. Track the Performance but Keep It Unnoticeable
Performance tracking is one of the most daunting tasks. When you track the performance of your employees, they generally see it as micromanagement and the overall performance drops. Experts believe that micromanagement only builds pressure and in most cases, it has detrimental effects on the business performance.
On the contrary, if you do not manage your team properly, the quality of calls and the experience of the customers cannot be monitored. In this case, most business owners feel like they are stuck between the devil and the deep sea.
Well, there is nothing to worry about because a good performance-tracking tool will help you with that. Most of the performance tracking tools will not just help you track the time of the call, and record and feedback of the call but also you will be able to present the call in case of legal issues.
4. Make Customer Service Accessible
Most businesses endorse their customer service as a way to complain about their experience with the brand. As a result, you will see their toll-free number at the end of the page somewhere as a disclaimer.
This gives the impression that you do not want to hear what your customers have to say. A simple solution to this issue is to build a solid Omnichannel experience for your customers. Regardless of what your customers expect from you or the channel they prefer, be there first.
Start with getting a dedicated customer service number, and then make sure to focus on catering multiple channels. According to a recent study, more than 40% of customers are introverts and they prefer texting to calls or other means of communication. Make sure, your brand does not restrict the users to one channel instead, let them choose their preferred medium of communication.
5. Embrace New Technology Fearlessly
Embracing new technology is one of the easiest ways to bring down your operational costs while improving your productivity. Within big brands, giving new technology a chance means vigorous changes that can disturb the work for some time.
However, with small businesses, taking risks, executing changes, and embracing new technology is quite easy. From switching to AI to getting used to the new tools, each step of introducing new technology can instantly give you leverage over any established brand within your industry.
As AI is becoming popular, actively seek advanced technology and train your employee accordingly, so, you can easily boost their performance, make their work easy and maximize profit.
Bottom Line
Simply put, while budget can be a limiting factor for small businesses, there are so many other avenues where they can take the lead. The above-mentioned steps can easily help small businesses to explore those avenues and maximize their profit.
