Entrepreneurs
Customer Service Response Time – What’s Yours?
Response time is one of the most important parts of the job for First Responders – Paramedics, Firefighters, and Police. These divisions of services for cities all over the world focus on their response time as a large part of their business planning. They have goals around it, they review it often and also analyze it looking for ways to improve. The improvement and focus is needed because for First Responders; 30 seconds can actually be the difference between life or death for their ‘clients’.
Small business owners sometimes do not realize how important response time is as well. Response time? As a Small business owner?
Your response time to inquiries for business and to service requests is vital to your success. Especially, (ESPECIALLY!!!) as a small business. You need to be certain you have a system in place to respond to customers, potential or current, if you want to grow your business. If you don’t you may simply be letting business walk out your door!
I bring this up, because over the past two weeks I have personally experienced very bad response times to two different requests. By sharing them, and one is really amazing, I hope to open your eyes to how important your own response time is.
EXAMPLE 1: Coaching Services offered via a website
After I returned from a conference in July, I made the decision to hire a business coach. I had some names in mind and set up two interviews and then a friend recommended another person; so I went to her website and did some research. It looked promising and I filled out the online coaching application form that asked for specific info from me and promised a response within 48 hours. (I was a little concerned by the mentions over and over to white list her email to make certain I got her reply).
Two days later, still no response. So back to the site I went, (after checking my spam folders) and sent an email via the online contact form. I asked how long the coaching application takes as I had sent it in 2 days earlier. Again I wondered about the excessive warnings to whitelist the email.
By the next day I had completed the other two interviews and was mulling over my choices to make a decision.
One week to the day from when I filled out the application, I received a response. And in my opinion, a sad response for what I was considering. It came from a colleague who apparently helps with the coaching, but did not really explain the relationship and why it was not the actual coach responding.
My response was very simple:
I had sent my original application and then a followup email a week ago as I had not heard back on anything sent to XXX via her website.
I already interviewed with two others and have made a decision on which coach to sign with and we have started the process.
Sorry, but your followup, or lack thereof, put XXX out of the running after 48 hours.
And that last line was true – She was absolutely out of the running when she did not respond to me by her promised time. My thoughts?
If she can’t even answer something like that in a timely way – how is her coaching process?? I also let the referrer know about this and you can bet she won’t be passing her name around anymore.
EXAMPLE 2: Local Service to fix our driveway and repair the stone wall beside it.
We wanted to make our driveway wider, which meant tearing our part of a stone wall, replacing some and also the driveway repaving and a new set of stair to the house. A BIG Job.
I had been given two names from a neighbour in a related industry. So, in early July I called them for quotes and booked appointments. “Mike” showed up exactly on time, “John” was not close to his window of time, a day late.
Both got the idea of what we wanted and said they would work up an estimate and get back to me.
Mike called to book a time and drop his off, on Monday. His estimate was done with the two additional options I asked about and was very detailed.
John never showed.
Mike got the job and we are in the process of getting permits etc to move ahead.
Response Time!
Do you see how important it was in both of these examples? 
As a follow up (and my inspiration for this post today) Yesterday, that is August 10th… Yesterday ‘John’ showed up at my door. His truck was outside the house for about 15 minutes before he knocked on the door.
He smiled and said, “I bet you thought I forgot about you?”
I honestly was dumbstruck… was he actually here to deliver his estimate??? 40 days later. That’s forty!
Indeed he was.
He handed me a piece of paper as he finished writing on it (hence the 15 minutes parked outside!!!) And there I had it in my hand. It was 3 lines, not detailed at all and missing parts of what we asked to be included.
I took the paper and said thanks. He took me by such surprise that I did not tell him what I should have, I did that by phone call today.
I let him know that I had hired and chosen someone 5 days after I saw him. Telling him that when I look to someone for business, once I am told you will send me an an estimate, I wait and don’t chase them down. You didn’t give me one.
His response was simply : “Oh…”
I took that to be a good reality check!
Response time is VERY important
This will be how your customers view you and your actions will be a determining factor in their opinion on your service. You might not be a First Responder, but your response time dictates many things to a customer.
I have a system in place on my website. The contact email goes to a special email account, and they get placed in a special folder automatically on my email system. I KNOW when I see one there that someone has contacted me via my website. My response time has a goal of 24 hours maximum, and sooner if possible. It is important to be aware of how long it takes you to respond.
Today, in fact I spoke with a business owner who was getting lost in these very emails. She was not able to respond in a timely manner to website inquiries and had realized her time management issues were costing her money and clients. She has now hired us to take care of her email and calendar management. Her forte is making beautiful cakes for weddings and special events; and making time to get to emails was difficult. So… we now are setting up a system to make it more efficient for her, and we will monitor and help her with contacts, inquiries and appointment bookings. What will she do? Simple.
Serve more clients and grow her business.
What goals do you have in place for your response time to business inquiries? Have you ever really thought about how important it is before, if not I hope this post inspires you to do so. And please, any other response time tips are most welcome in the comments section. Share your systems!
You NEED to OWN your own Domain Name
Please! I am pleading with any business owner or entrepreneur who is looking to get a website for their business.
You really need to ensure that your domain name is registered and owned by you – the business owner. I cannot stress this enough.
Yes, I know websites are not your forte, if it were you would be in the website design business. But you are not, you are a fabulous entrepreneur doing great business and with a nice website online that someone helped you setup. But, times have changed and now you need to up level and change your entire web presence, so you ask someone like me to work with you and on your website.
Trouble is… you discover really don’t have a lot of access to the site.
This following situation has happened 3 times in the last 2 weeks to people I know. PLEASE DON’T BE # 4.
We start checking into your present website setup only to discover that your other web guy (sorry boys, but 3/3 were guys) registered your domain name and nowhere in that setup is your name listed. This means that you in fact, do not own your own domain name nor have any control over it.
How bad can it be? 
Let’s see…
- The other person has access to the domain registry, not you.
- The other person controls when your domain name gets renewed (hint, no renewal= no website online, also known as “Why is the website not working?”)
- The other person controls changes and access to your Domain Name Servers (which are part of the setup on how/where your account is hosted and with a web hosting system, you will run into the same situation as in # 2 above, people asking: “Why is the website not working?”)
- Worst of all, your website is connected to this! The website that people use daily.
BUY IT YOURSELF
Please make certain when you need to setup a new domain name or website that you take 5 minutes and go to Bluehost or GoDaddy and buy your own domain name. It’s as simple as buying anything else online. Pick out what you want and put it in your shopping cart, the cart with your name on it, then pay for it with your credit card or paypal account.
Guess what – now you own that baby! No one else.
After this you can always give your web person the access in your account. You can give your webperson the technical contact in the account, something you can change anytime. Please buy the darn thing yourself. And no matter what way you do this you remain the Registrant – the person who owns the domain name.
If I now have you scared and not sure if you own your present domain name? You can go to Whois.com and look up your domain name. Be certain whose name it is under and while sill in a good working relationship, get it transferred to your name by your web person! Right now, in all three situations we are having a hard time getting contact to get access and changes made.
You NEED to own your own Domain Name, I cannot say this enough!
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So? How many of you need to have a talk with someone now?
Look on the Bright Side of Life as an Entrepreneur
Kathy with Pamela Bruner at Transform 2011
Many of you know I was away at a conference last week. I headed to Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Transform 2011, an event hosted by one of my clients, Pamela Bruner who recently crossed the threshold to earning a 7 figure income (Very exciting for her!)
It was truly an eye opening conference for me as I came to some self realizations about my business, services and where and how I want to grow my business.
I met so many other entrepreneurs who were doing much of the same, based on my conversations and observations.
Kim, Rita, Moira & Me visiting Fort Lauderdale Beach
It was definitely a good investment of my time and money to attend especially for all the people I met and the marketing and sales lessons I received from Pamela’s presentations.
One of the last lessons I learned was on my trip home, which as per the usual for me, was filled with many an adventure via my mode of travel, Delta airlines again.
Now I know many of you readers will be thinking, “Oh No, not again! Did she have to take a taxi back from Maine to Nova Scotia this time too!” (see Dec 2010 blog post for that adventure!)
No worries, this trip was not near that level of adventure…
So on to the “Bright Side” of my trip.The parts to my journey were filled with many a change, but I had just spent the week learning about changing my business, and change is good.
- The morning I was to leave, it started with a note on my phone that my flight was delayed… making me a tad nervous to get started on my journey! (ie. flashbacks to lots of delays and an $800 Taxi ride in December)
- Delta kindly rerouted me, through New York instead of Detroit because of the delays going west (lots of extra booked passengers helped as they were happy to take one off that flight to make room for someone else) and they managed to move me from that original plan to another plane, that was going to get me home about the same time. (Whoohoo)
- The new flight meant a much later departure time and more airport waiting, but things move as planned, we get in the air with only a small delay. I am happy, comfy and fall asleep.
- 50 minutes into the flight, I am woken by some noise and commotion. I can tell something is happening and soon the Captain announces that due to a medical emergency on board (!) we will be taking a small detour to Savannah, Georgia to get the passenger some help. (nothing too serious in the end as he was able to walk off with help from the paramedics)
- With a little more delay we head to New York with most everyone thinking they are probably going to miss their connecting flight if the time between was close, as was for me. (we landed 45 minutes after my next flight was to leave, and got stuck in a lineup on the tarmac.
- The Captain announces the lineup is because there had been a quick storm that passed over New York which as it happens made many connecting flights later and lots of us managed to catch them, like me!
- I catch the connecting flight, we wait again in the lineups to take off and uneventfully, I make it home. All told, I was about 4 hours later than planned, but home – which made my daughter a very happy camper! The more than two days to get home episode in December was still clear in her mind.
Now you might thinking – Bright Side, what Bright Side?
Well, here’s the thing about all the events that took place above, I gained some extra time while waiting in the airports and lineups. That time was very helpful in that I got out my notebook and refined all the ideas and notes from the conference and essentially created a new business plan, some new services and an entire new outlook on my business. All that time was a gift. I spent almost half a day writing and planning and putting the ideas on paper, refining them until I was clear on what my new vision was to be.
If all those delays had not occurred, that time would not have been available to do this. And if you are like me, once you get home from a conference there is a pile of things to take care of. Things that get in the way of finishing off your takeaways from the conferences, and making new plans that always come with new lessons.
The other parts to my Bright Side?
- I got to visit Georgia for the first time, even if only for an hour and from inside the plane!
- I met a lovely young couple from Turkey who were on their honeymoon
- Also met a businessman from Seattle (who was Tom Hanks double, Hanks must have a brother with a different name!)
- I even managed to give Bob a good lesson on using social media for his business!
As entrepreneurs we are always tackling change and when you do, looking for the bright side of these events can really give you a different outlook on life.
My advice?
Embrace the roadblocks you encounter as you never know what you will find behind them!
Get Real! Online Networking has its Rewards
Having worked with many social media clients in the past few years, it’s been interesting to note a pattern that has emerged. Clients who are more accepting of the need for them to use their social networks and post a good portion of their own tweets and updates, are the ones having more success.
Why? It comes down to being authentic and personable. Taking an real interest in listening to others and joining in the conversation. Think of it as a business networking event. Except you are not in a room at a local business, you are online. You can talk with people all over, and connections can be made. From these connections, many things can develop.
You only have a sentence or two in which to do this, so really time is not a big factor. When you read other people’s updates / tweets; think of it as the person having said the same thing to you at a networking event. How would you respond? Type it out in 140 characters or less and now you’ve started social networking – online. Initiate conversations yourself. You would never go to a networking event and never talk to anyone – Twitter and Facebook can help your business in the same way. Reach out to people and network.
What’s the point? Most times I tell clients…
“Because you never know where it can lead.”
Last year, I alerted someone that her BIO on twitter had some weird and inappropriate symbols and curse words in it. She was thankful I took the minute to send her an email to let her know. Never sure how it happened, she was nonetheless grateful and invited me to write an article on a website she owns; one geared to entrepreneurs (my target client).
Another client came to me by alerting someone to the fact that they had a link not working. When I emailed her, she saw my signature and happened to be looking for a Virtual Assistant. She replied with her thanks and also asked me about my business, soon I was looking after the project she needed done.
Mine are not the only stories out there… many people are experiencing the same things and most come from talking to others and providing value; whether a tidbit of information or a few kind words of support or noting something out of place that if not caught could have lost them connections and sales.
Be yourself and don’t be scared to connect with others just because you can’t reach out and touch them – Online friendships and business connections can be as rewarding as in-person ones. They can also lead to more business as people engage you and get to know you.
What tips do you have for ‘being real’ online? Please share your ideas in the comments below 
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