The following Bergen County Business Blog features helpful advice from John Aramini, owner, and president of Aramini Management in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. Aramini Management provides hands-on, industry-focused solutions to business owners and senior management.
Bergen County Business Blog: 10 Questions to Ask Your Staff
Your staff will have valuable insights and examples on service gaps and improvement opportunities. It may require some courage and thick skin to question your staff for their input on service. I do not suggest this unless you are really open-minded to what you will hear and are prepared to effectively respond with action. Staff members are closest to the customers and the organizational practices that link to the customer.
And of course, do go directly to the customer for their input. Surveying your customers is an essential step to obtain quality assurance and satisfaction measures. This can be post-customer service call questions, customer relationship surveys conducted periodically, and simply a confidential postcard for mailing after they visit your location.
Who is the customer? Anyone you provide a service to can be included in the concept of customer. This includes your internal customers. Management, supervisory and co-worker interactions are as equally important as communications, programs, and services with your external business customers, community representatives, clients, students, and all stakeholders.
While you may be excellent in serving your direct clients, you should be just as exceptional in providing a service to each other. This is whether you are a private corporation, not-for-profit or educational institution. An organization’s staff image outside the organization is reflected in their internal working relationships. Your employees are the face of the organization. Ask them the following:
10 Questions to Ask Your Staff
1. What are examples of our organization providing exceptional service to our customers?
2. What are examples of our organization providing poor service to our customers?
3. What causes poor customer service at our organization and within your department?
4. What do you think our customers think of our organization’s service to them?
5. What do you think our organization and your department can do to better service our customers to build their loyalty?
6. How would you rate our service to each other – that is, our internal customers?
7. What improvement opportunities exist within our internal customer interactions?
8. What do you think, that I as your manager, can do to improve customer service?
9. What do you think you can do to improve your own customer service effectiveness?
10. What do you see as the benefits of an improvement?
Bergen County Business Blog: Your Board Membership and Evaluating Performance
While it is a worthwhile experience for the opportunity to give back and make a difference as a member of a board, there can be equal amounts of frustration when progress is stalled in meeting your mission. This can be remedied by conducting a self-evaluation of your board’s practices and productivity.
Self-evaluation is a standard practice recommended by many experienced board advocates. This can be readily achieved through a questionnaire completed by each member with follow-up discussion among the group on what they see as effective practices as well as needed areas for improvement.
I like to break the performance criteria into two areas: “Board Structure & Practices”, and “Board Behaviors & Relationships”. Aspects of “Structure” focus on descriptors such as board mission, meeting management, and member training. Individual board member behaviors and the relationships and interactions among all board members comprise “Behavior” performance criteria. Examples include communications, accountability, and problem-solving.
Here is a sample questionnaire to get you started in evaluating your board.
Would you agree or disagree with the following performance criteria as they pertain to your board experience?
Board Structure & Practices
1. Strategic Plan: Board members clearly understand their organization’s strategic plan. Their work reflects the organization’s mission statement and strategic objectives.
2. Board Policies & Procedures: All members have copies of the board’s policies and procedures, member responsibilities, and committee roles. New board members receive an orientation on their accountabilities toward becoming an effective board member.
3. Meeting Management: Board meetings have established agendas and related materials are provided to board members in time for their review. Meeting agenda items are addressed and action taken. There are limited occurrences of unresolved items continually carried over from meeting to meeting.
4. Board Composition: Board members possess the qualifications, experience, and diversity to meet their objectives, and address organizational and community needs.
5. Board Leadership: Meetings are well facilitated, focused on priorities, and refocused if discussion diverges off agenda items. The board chair supports the board and effectively represents the board and organization to its stakeholders.
Board Behaviors & Relationships
1. Working Environment: The board working environment is generally tension-free with communication open, everyone participating, not holding back on their ideas or opinions. Board members treat each other with respect and listen to and value all input for consideration.
2. Interpersonal Communications: Criticism is openly expressed to address issues and without personal attacks directed at board members. Disagreements and conflict do occur as part of the process to constructively problem solve and work through issues. They do not prohibit progress but are managed effectively.
3. Decision Making: Board members gather information to make evidence-based decisions to arrive at a group consensus in which everyone goes along to complete the job.
4. Member Accountability & Commitment: Board members are accountable for completing their assigned tasks and committed to board-driven decisions even if they do not agree with the action decided on.
5. Member Leadership: Based on the board’s need for a member’s expertise, board members regularly step-up to lead discussions and committees to address issues. Members act as goodwill ambassadors positively representing the organization as its advocate to the public.
Bergen County Business Blog: Incentive Plans to Get What You Paid For
“Senior management’s job is to pay people…If they &#%!@?!” a hundred guys out of a hundred grand each, that’s ten million more for them. They have four categories: happy, satisfied, dissatisfied, disgusted. If they hit happy, they’ve screwed up: They never want you happy. On the other hand, they don’t want you so disgusted you quit. The sweet spot is somewhere between dissatisfied and disgusted.” Quote from the book The Big Short.
That quote hit home for me. Like many of us, I have been on the receiving end of some interesting incentive goal-setting rationale. In one case, the payout started once I was 10% above last year’s numbers, while the organization’s projected annual sales growth was set at 3%. A real disconnect in goal setting. I didn’t see a dime until I made my case to my boss’s boss for a plan modification. One of my clients was planning to offer a commission they couldn’t afford: the payout was higher than projected revenue growth.
Consider the following suggestions when setting up a plan for your staff:
Start with your organization’s strategy and what your want to achieve and link sales efforts to established strategic objectives.
Develop sales goals in the context of the projected revenue growth for your business to sync sales performance.
Do homework to determine what your production has been. Sales goals set without any historical analysis is like “shooting in in the dark” with goals too high or too low based on past results.
Make goals realistic and attainable with a performance stretch. If you desire higher production, set additional performance tiers and pay accordingly. Unrealistic expectations demotivate, while easy goals won’t allow you to attain the growth you want.
Put the incentive expense in the context of the financial benefit to your business. Yeah, you paid some big bonuses but how does your bottom-line look.
Run the program for a test period to learn where you may need modifications.
Start with a fair payout that you can always increase as you gather more data. You want to avoid reducing an amount in the future. That will hang over your salespeople like a dark cloud; a real motivation and trust killer.
Bergen County Business Blog: Improve First Contact Resolution to Keep Your Customers
How can you prevent your customers from switching to the competition? Accenture’s “Customer 2020” research of consumer trends over the past 10 years found that:
80% of the consumers surveyed indicated that they could have been retained primarily if their issue had been resolved on their first contact with their provider. Even so, first contact resolution remains a major frustration factor.
Aramini Management recommends the following to improve first call resolution practices:
1. Develop and track first contact metrics.
2. Incorporate call-handling quality and service resolution standards among all employees.
3. Define service incidents and track the number of occurrences.
4. Establish service escalation procedures when issues cannot be resolved at the first contact level.
5. Track escalation rates: which service issues are being escalated to the next level and why?
6. Institute a resolution follow-up time period for those concerns that cannot be resolved at that time and advise the customer when they will be contacted.
7. Measure customer quality assurance allowing customers to confidentially rate their service resolution experience.
8. Establish business etiquette standards for telephone and email ensuring everyone adopts the proper way to take a message, hold and transfer a call, and frame an email.
Bergen County Business Blog: What We Learned Over the Last Decade
Aramini Management is celebrating its 10th year in business. It has been an interesting, and valued life journey. I say that because while I learned firsthand what it means to run a business, it was also an opportunity to expand my universe of experiences and relationships.
Learning is life-long and the biggest thing I’ve learned is that staying static can fail as you are constantly moved out of your comfort zone to engage new people, industries, technological change, and business trends.
The following are some critical learning points that we would like to share with you to hopefully add to your insights in managing and building your business:
1. Stay alert
Know what is happening in the marketplace and developing trends. The internet impacted all industries, one way or another. Banking, for example, has experienced a significant drop in branch traffic as people bank online. That means that banking staff, who were uncomfortable selling or did not sell previously, must now possess effective cross-selling and interpersonal skills to maximize the contact time for those customers who do walk into the branch or contact call centers. In response, we developed a sales training program for the non-seller to assist banks in transitioning their branch and call center staff to become comfortable in selling.
2. Keep antenna up
When people are speaking “listen”, as they could be telling you in the most casual conversation what their challenges are. A music distribution company was having a challenge integrating sales management software into their organization’s routine, I offered to walk them through the applications at no charge, which eventually developed into a six-month project to build their strategic plan and reorganization.
3. Be patient
I learned early on that my sense of urgency was not necessarily aligned with the prospective client’s timeframe. This was the case with a very successful law practice. It took nearly two years for us to begin their branding and advertising project. A potential customer could be genuinely interested in your service but are busy meeting their own customer needs.
4. Handle rejection, make no assumptions, and take nothing personally
You and your business are essentially the same. It is very easy to take it personally when a prospect decides not to buy your product or service. The likelihood the rejection is just a business decision. Stay objective The same people who reject you could be your next referral source. After not using our services at his former company, a vice president of sales who moved to another company, contracted us to assess their call center business practices.
5. Assess the probability
Assess the probability that the project will move forward by gauging the prospect’s level of commitment. Determine who the decision-makers are and what the decision-making process is. Are they talking to anyone else? We overlooked the competition being in the mix and were surprised when an advertising agency selected another consulting practice to assist them in developing criteria to evaluate projects based on improved ROI.
6. Know the budget
Get to the pricing discussion early on by providing a fee range upfront once you have a framework of what the project entails. I would provide detailed proposals only to learn the “it is not the cost we thought it would be” argument after spending the time scoping the project. Always be sure to convey your valued solutions to the client. Getting a sense of budget early may save you time while also assisting in assessing project viability.
7. Perhaps they don’t like your proposal
Sometimes it is just that simple. They have heard a better idea or they have picked your brain and now will attempt it on their own. In some cases, I have often found that my passion and need to provide a solution – to be genuinely helpful – is not as strong as the prospect’s preference to maintain the status quo. That’s an easier decision for them than fighting the uphill battle to make changes in their organization.
8. See roadblocks
Try to determine where the hidden roadblocks are to close the deal. Ask them what it would take to move the relationship along and if there is anything that they anticipate based on their present situation and company knowledge. This is your chance to either know or not if you can address their concern.
9. Old relationships, new relationships
When we started 10 years ago, we did what most new businesses do- reach out to the contacts we knew, some long-term associates and friends. Your intent is to generate business and perhaps an introduction to the contacts in their network. Your old network may give you the time. Talk about old times, wish you luck with the 80/20 rule in play – a few will open doors for you. I learned quickly that you need to move beyond that support network and develop a new network of relationships and be relentless in expanding on that since it is where the work will come from. What I found most gratifying, along with the work itself, were the new people and friendships that developed.
10. Same fight for everyone
We have worked with clients in a variety of industries and helped them with what we see are three core management practices that they must do effectively: champion & lead their business, acquire new customers and then keep them. In a broad narrative: The Champion is the organization’s advocate and role model; Acquiring new customers means sales and marketing; Customer retention means effective customer service and relationships and living the brand promise. That is our fight and yours as well.
Bergen County Business Blog: Perfection Comes Little by Little Through Many Numbers
“Perfection comes little by little through many numbers”. Greek sculptor Polykletis the Elder wrote that 2500 years ago in 450 BC. It captures an essential management practice for today. Collect data in a patient and disciplined way, building on earlier information, to achieve incremental improvements.
It implies having key performance indicators (KPIs) and the measurement tools to track results to tell you if your business practices are leading to sustained growth. Some guidelines:
1. Ensure KPIs, performance goals, and measurement tools exist for all phases of your business and sub-departments.
2. Incorporate KPIs into the staff performance management system to create performance reviews custom-tailored by position to reinforce expected behavior and results linked to your business mission.
3. Institute a disciplined process of regular review and reporting of performance data down to the sub-department level.
4. Design KPIs and measurement tools specific to new business initiatives. Ask yourself: “What are we attempting to achieve? Will the organization and customer value the service?”
5. Implement planning and follow-up procedures to track progress against established milestones for new business initiatives.
6. Performance data should be valid, reliable, and verifiable. It measures what it is supposed to measure.
7. Instill being performance data-driven as a way of operating for all staff.
Bergen County Business Blog: Don’t Confuse Social Media with Social-Selling
You are on Facebook and Linkedin. You spent money on print and digital advertising, website design, and search engine optimization to drive web traffic and sales leads. But will your people turn that lead into a sale or an appointment when they have direct social contact with the prospect whether on the telephone, retail floor, front counter, or in the field?
Effective selling involves the social skills to build a relationship combined with the sales skills to close the deal. Don’t overlook the importance of the following social-selling skills:
1. Gain the prospect’s trust through your demonstrated confidence. Know your product’s value, benefits, and uniqueness. Know your prospect’s business and industry. Know your competition.
2. Be credible. Accurately and honestly respond to the prospect’s questions and provide requested information. If you don’t know, admit it and get an answer.
3. Listen. Focus on what they are saying. Being just single-minded about making the sale can diminish your awareness of their true needs and cues.
4. Strive for collaboration and rapport. Create a solution with the prospect.
5. Don’t fight objections. Understand and respect their concern. Consider this a valuable opportunity to truly understand their needs.
6. Don’t get defensive. Hearing a “no” and rejection are typical parts of the process. Stay objective and control your emotions.
7. Don’t forget them. Solidify the relationship by keeping promises, following up, and with periodic communications.
8. Don’t burn a bridge. You may close them in the future. Recommendations can come from where you least expect them.
9. Be professional and a class act. More doesn’t need to be said.
Bergen County Business Blog: Wal-Mart’s Plans Are About Customer Engagement. Are Yours?
Your first reaction when Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon announced pay raises was probably the belief that negative publicity forced Wal-Mart’s hands to make the changes. No one would argue that bad press could be a contributing factor. The wage increase would also better position them to compete with other retailers such as Target, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls for qualified workers in a tightening labor market.
A closer look suggests their primary mission is to overcome disappointing sales results by growing sales through improved customer engagement and the overall customer experience. Changing compensation was one tactic within what McMillon called a “package of changes” that included training, onboarding of new employees, and work schedules. Training will include people leadership skills, teamwork, merchandising, retail fundamentals, and communications. The plan can reduce turnover costs through improved employee retention.
Does customer engagement matter? Gallup’s John Fleming and Jim Asplund say yes in their book Human Sigma. They provide extensive research documenting the relationship of employee and customer engagement in benefitting an organization’s financial outcomes. They state that “companies whose products, processes and people deliver excellence at every customer touchpoint are less vulnerable in the marketplace” and “more resilient” during difficult economic times.
What’s the takeaway? I recommend the following critical business practices:
1. Live customer engagement: make it a core value for your organization – not a program – but a way of behaving involving personal choice and ownership.
2. When developing social media and digital channels, don’t overlook the continued importance of your employee’s customer service, sales, and interpersonal skills in successfully engaging the customer.
3. Ensure employees possess a depth of product knowledge. Your customers may have already done research online about your products and services. Don’t put yourself in a position jeopardizing customer confidence by knowing less than them.
4. Measure customer quality assurance and satisfaction by providing customers with the opportunity to rate their experience with your products, interactions with your people, and when accessing customer service and support.
5. Reinforce a culture where employees are neither territorial nor work in a silo- they know the organization’s structure, total picture, and product processes to ensure knowledgeable referrals or to expedite problem resolution.
6. Hire the right people and reward employees that value teamwork and demonstrate positive customer-centered relationships with each other.
The previous mybergen.com Bergen Business Blogs were written by John Aramini, owner, and president of Aramini Management. Aramini Management provides hands-on, industry-focused solutions to business owners and senior management. To learn more about Aramini Management or to contact John Aramini, visit araminimanagement.com.
