Employees often claim in various surveys that they value polite communication and a fair management style more than a high payment. Similarly, customers also stick with companies that prefer a customer-based approach to work. Since it’s obvious that both customers and employees will be loyal if you treat them in an affirmative way, you should apply the following tactics to attract and retain them. It will ensure smooth communication, increased sales and a bright perspective for your business.
Talking to team leaders
Even if a business owner adopts and puts to practice various forms of polite communication with their customers and employees, team leaders might take a different course. Because of that, the other two sides will be deprived of things they appreciate in business. Therefore, business owners need to educate their problematic team leaders how to approach their employees in a civilized manner. In a nutshell, they should simply teach them some key leadership communication skills. Organizing workshops or attending courses are two efficient ways of achieving those goals.
Delegating to engage
The importance of proper project delegation and task distribution is vital for progress in every field. When employees are given tasks regularly and when they get feedback for their work, their commitment to your business will be much higher. Therefore, the goals you expect them to achieve should be set at the beginning of a project.
In addition to that, every team manager should submit estimates for their teams. Here’s where improved communication skills from the previous paragraph will come in handy. They will be useful during the assessment phase, as well. Finally, your teams and individual employees will organize their work more efficiently if you set milestones at the beginning of the process.
Fee-free returns
There are about 1.13 billion websites in the world, as well as more than 3 billion Internet users [source]. Those figures tell us only one thing – if you want to succeed in the online realm, you have to be extremely adaptable. One of the major worries that modern online consumers have is whether or not a website will accept a complaint about a product they’ve purchased. To cut to the chase – introduce a fee-free return policy and ask no further questions. In this day and age, every dissatisfied customer is a potential time bomb for your online reputation. What’s more, if you have such a flexible return policy, you’ll leave an impression of a trustworthy business and that’s something money just can’t buy.
Rewarding on merit
Although we’ve said that employees rarely put payments at the top of their priority list, it’s not a completely irrelevant feature. While it might not be the most important priority generally speaking, your employees will certainly feel neglected if their efforts aren’t properly rewarded. You should go an extra mile to nip any employee discontentment in the bud. That can be achieved through fair and impartial evaluation of their work. If your employees realize that you apply the same criteria throughout the business, they won’t object your decisions, even when they don’t benefit from them.
Nevertheless, always closely track your employee progress and dedication to work in collaboration with your team leaders. That will enable you to react properly to their extraordinary results.
Sharing positive values
It goes without saying that thinking positively and running a business with enthusiasm will have a beneficial effect on your results. However, sharing positive values should be done in practical everyday actions, not just in communication. For instance, you will keep populating your email list as new customers start rolling in. Therefore, the signup forms you prepare for new registered users should contain a field for their birthdays. Nowadays, it’s easy to set software reminders for your customers’ birthdays. The same thing should be done with your employees, as well. As the Gift Card Store creative team claims, customer and employee loyalty can be strengthened with smart presents on special dates. That way, you’ll show that you think of them as important parts of your business venture.
Business owners need to hold the steering wheel and manage the directions their ventures take. But what’s more, they should inspire their own very important people to trust them. Given the fact that there’s no business without customers and employees, entrepreneurs should always share their success with them. Such an unselfish managerial attitude will bring benefits to all the interested parties.
Emma Miller is a Sydney based writer with a degree in marketing. Interested in digital marketing, social media, start-ups and latest trends. She’s a contributor at BizzMark Blog.