£1000 to help you grow

Grants from the Government are available to help you sort out your strategy, get more profitable, streamline your systems and much more.

You can get up to £1000 quite easily and quickly for short term projects that can really make a difference to your business.

The signs are such that we are now expecting a downturn in the economy in 2012, so it’s wise to get everything working at its optimum level now to protect your business as much as possible.

We have helped clients with:

•          Strategy
•          Growth
•          Profitability
•          Cash flow
•          Systems streamlining

We’ve also used the same techniques to create a succession plan to hand over to the next generation,  changed a company’s manufacturing base and created more sales focus, groomed a business for eventual sale,  and found better ways of paying  the owners so that the company’s cash flow is improved.

This grant will be available potentially until March 2012, but it has to be used by then, so apply soon to ensure your business gets the help it needs.

Give me a call to discuss it on 01202 520010 or email nick@hixsons.co.uk

The 7 P's of marketing services

The 4Ps’s of marketing plus People, Process and Physical Evidence- these all relate to the marketing mix of a service.

People

If you are offering a service, you need the appropriate staff to deliver it. Customers are not just buying a product, they are buying into an experience. Proper recruitment, proper training, and imbuing the staff with a customer service ethos are essential if you want a competitive advantage. Customers make judgements on the service based on the people they interact with. Good products can be assumed to be bad if the customer service is bad. Treat people as you would want to be treated. Walk the customer journey (see Process below as well), to ensure that your customers get the right impression right through the service cycle.

Process

The systems and processes that deliver the service. If you go into MacDonald’s and get your meal in 2 minutes, someone has designed exactly how that has to happen – every time. Someone has thought out what the customers’ experience should be from entering the premises to leaving them – every step, every possible interaction. Work out what enables you to deliver your service effectively every time, so your customer is delighted. Walk the customer journey! Write it down - teach your people, so that they (and new employees) do it the right way every time. That way it gets to develop your brand.

Physical evidence

What is the service being delivered? This element enables the customer to make judgements abut your business. Do you expect a restaurant to have a clean, welcoming, friendly environment? Do you know the old Coffee Stain Survey results? On an airline’s drop down tables, if there was a coffee stain, travellers assumed that if the airline couldn’t clean the tables, they wouldn’t take care of the engines! Make sure that whatever your customers take away reminds them favourably about your service.

And download my e-book Customer Service – Why Bother? Free at www.hixsons.co.uk