Are you delivering great customer experiences time and time again?
July 9th, 2011 // 4:25 pm @ John D. Laslavic
By John D. Laslavic, LPBC, Business Coach / President, ThistleSea Business Development, LLC
Common sense tells us that every business needs customers. The service your customers expect from you, your employees and your company in providing a consistent product or service that meets their requirements and fulfills their needs will determine if you gain repeat business and garner more referrals, right. Well almost right!
Your customer service might be underperforming if you answer YES to any of these questions:
- Are your employees underperforming and cast in the wrong jobs?
- Do your managers and employees have little or no feeling of real success?
- Does your team feel underappreciated?
- Is your training inconsistent or non-existent?
- Is your company void of industry or the adoption of business best practices?
Sad to say, customer service is not enough today to win a customer’s repeat business or their referrals for your business. For you and your business to earn a customer’s repeat business today, you must look beyond just delivering great products and services. Today, you must provide customers with a great customer experience.
According to the recent studies, 60% to 80% of customers who say they are satisfied with a company’s product or service find that alone is not enough to get them to return and to obtain their repeat business. So, in addition to offering a great product or service, you must build experiences that create loyal customers and that gain you loyal raving fans.
Where does it start? It starts with your leadership. Your leadership as an owner in creating a culture and the environment by setting a strong example that your employees can follow and your customers can understand. It starts with you, the leader, communicating a strong, compelling and exciting vision that serves all employees, stakeholders and customers. It involves you as the leader serving your employees well and each of them serving each other well. That’s right; it starts with employees serving each other well.
If you’re a manufacturer, professional firm, service company, not-for-profit, retailer or any other type of business, consider this carefully. Below is an article that was recently prepared for the Western PA Hospital News. This article talks about a customer experience of a recent, actual example of one medical practice with one patient.
Check out this article:
Is Good “CARE” Still Good Business?
Could this type of situation happen in your company? Could you or your team drop the ball and lose focus on actually why you are there? If so, what actions are you taking to prevent these types of situations from happening? Do you know where to start?
A customer base that builds and returns is build through great customer experiences. To have those experiences, you must be intentional. Have you established the environment and are you building the systems that will lead you to inspire and astound your customers time and time again?
If you want to work on or learn more about building a business system that delivers a great customer experience time and time again, we are here to assist you. Give ThistleSea Business Development, LLC a call at (724) 935-1930 or email us at info@thistlesea.com.
Throwing A Wrench In The Gears of Your Business
June 14th, 2010 // 5:29 pm @ John D. Laslavic
CASE STUDY
I recently was referred to a business owner by one of my clients. At my first meeting with this business owner, he expressed how absolutely fed up he was with his business. The dream of a successful business had vanished for him. He informed me that he had already gone back to a full-time job with his former employer working for this airline on the graveyard shift as a mechanic. Not a job he wanted, but it paid the bills.
Throwing of the Wrench
What transpired was an accident by a subcontractor who did not have insurance while working for him. This subcontractor threatened to hold this business owner liable for the accident. Medical bills, pain, suffering, attorney’s costs, and the insurance issues all lead up to him being overwhelmed. After struggling with the business for 8 years, this event was the final wrench that was thrown in the gears of his business and his dreams of having a successful business,
On the advice of his legal counsel, he was advised that his subcontractor agreements did not meet the IRS guidelines for a subcontractor relationship and he would be held liable. On this advice, he should make a settlement payment. Fortunately, the subcontractor released the business owner from this liability with a financial settlement.
Under this pressure, he decided to get small again. The business owner continues to serve his existing customers himself after releasing all other subcontractors. He works this business in the day and the full-time job with the airline as a mechanic at night.
He has stopped answering the phone for the business while his current customers continue to refer new clients to him. In his words: “I just can’t take it anymore. I want out. I want to sell.” The fear of continuing to run the business has overwhelmed him.
Decisions of the Business Owner
Did his dreams of a better life and a great business have to end up this way? What drove him to not seek help and to continue to defend what he really didn’t know? Was it fear, pride, greed, inability to communicate, pressure, lack of knowledge, thinking that it cost too much to seek help? Most likely was some or a combination of all these factors? He revealed he did have an informal coach, which was actually another business owner with a similar business, running that business the same way. Not too successfully either, he mentioned.
This business, as with all small businesses for that matter, is the sum of all of the decisions of the owner. 10 examples of the decisions he made includes:
- Having actual employees is a bad thing!
- Hiring good employees is impossible!
- Not ever wanting to have a payroll!
- Paying worker’s compensation insurance would never work for his business!
- His pricing could not be changed!
- He could never put together a budget for his business; it’s just not for him!
- Planning just would not work!
- Legal services are to be used only when you’re in trouble!
- I know what I am doing and if I work hard producing for my customers, everything will work out!
- I just can’t find good people!
- I can always trust the advise from another business owner!
- Just to name a few!
Selling the Business?
Naturally, this business owner wants to sell his business for the highest amount he can get for it. “So how much is it worth,” he asked me? How much will the market (buyer) be willing to pay him for this business?
Some quick research revealed that most businesses in his market space are selling and in some demand. This business owner made a small profit for 8 years, but in retrospect did he really have a business? What does he have to sell?
After our discussion, he realized that all he has to sell is some equipment and a list of clients / prospects. Not much after 8 years of hard work. If he is very, very lucky he might get a buyer to pay him a small amount for the equipment and some goodwill. This ending was not at all what he had dreamed. How unfortunate.
Was he disappointed? YES. Did it have to end-up this way? Absolutely NOT.
Leading your Company
It was too late for the business owner to save the business in this actual situation above. He had already given up. However, if you’re under some pressure from your business you still have the opportunity to build a great business and the life a great business creates for you and your family.
There are many lessons that can be learned from this unfortunate situation. Could this business owner have changed this outcome? Would this outcome be different if some of the decisions made by the owner had been different? Is the business a reflection of the owner’s thinking? The answer to all the above is YES.
ThistleSea’s business coaches’ work with business owner’s everyday to help them to improve the performance of their businesses and the business’s value. We offer a Business Effectiveness Evaluation that can help pinpoint your business’s strengths and weaknesses in order to develop an action plan for improvement. This plan provides a road map of small steps you can take each day to help you achieve your dreams for your business, leading to a great life.
Isn’t it time you sat down with ThistleSea Business Development. Invite us in for a discussion. Call (724) 935-1930 to set-up your free meeting with a ThistleSea Licensed Professional Business Coach. I encourage you take action today!
By John D. Laslavic, LPBC , Business Coach / President, ThistleSea Business Development, LLC
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