Boutique Staff Sales Contest
Having a sales contest for employees can help motivate them to sell. Having a little competition between employees can improve morale, help them to avoid boredom, and also help you to identify weaknesses and strengths in your staff. Train your staff to help them be successful. Use their customer interactions as coaching moments to improve the level of customer service that your employees provide.First, get your employees interested in seeing the business succeed. Let them come up with promotional ideas, window displays, and have input in what inventory you sell. Not only will you benefit from the new ideas, but your employees will feel involved and start to see how their hand in the business is paying off.
Once they care about the business, explain how the success of the business is dependent on the customer experience. Providing customer service that exceeds expectations will ensure that the customer raves about your boutique to friends. Word of mouth is most definitely your most effective form of advertising. You can’t pay for a customer’s respect, you have to earn it. Once you have it, you could have a customer for life, plus a walking, talking, texting, advertising machine.
Teach your employees some basic ways to exceed customer’s expectations. Never point out where something is if a customer asks. Always say something to the effect of, “Let me show you where that is.” Never brush off a customer and say, “It’s over there by the shoes.” When you’re helping a customer, avoid distractions and store responsibilities. The display that you were straightening will be there when you’re done.
Give your staff selling tips or special deals to offer your customers. Once they are helping a customer, they can engage in conversation. Your staff could find out that this is the customer’s first visit and then inform them that if they provide their e-mail address at check out, they can receive 10% off of their entire purchase. When a customer feels like a deal is being made specifically for them, they are way more likely to purchase.
Reward employees for providing this type of service by incenting them. You could say that whoever accumulates the most e-mail addresses of first time customers in a month’s time wins $100 bonus. The extra sales, customers, and good customer experiences that you create in that month should far exceed the bonus money that you pay out.
Another way to improve the customer experience is to have your staff constantly move around the store. They can straighten and restock your displays and garment racks instead of looking bored at the register. Customers hesitate to “disturb” the staff if they look bored or involved in conversations with one another. Your employees should always approach customers and offer help. Moving around the store, managing clothing racks and displays, and offering help will further ensure that your customer’s every need is met.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
HOW TO DEAL WITH ISSUES IN THE CORPORATE WORLD
HOW TO DEAL WITH ISSUES IN THE CORPORATE WORLD
We often come across issues in our day- to- day lives, which are related to our professional environment and our personal lives. A practical and strategic outlook is imperative while coming up with a methodology which is best suited in resolving an issue. I have given a practical example from my work life in order to demonstrate how an issue can be resolved with minimum fuss and without pressing the panic button.
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND RESOLUTION OF AN ISSUE IN A CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT. 1. Identify the problem. 2. Brainstorm along with the departments which are directly affected by the problem. 3. Find the various processes and solutions that can help resolve the problem. 4. Which is the most effective and efficient method of resolving the problem. 5. Applying the process to the problem 6. Assessing the degree to which the problem has been resolved 7. If the problem has not been resolved, the process has to be followed again.
I used to work as a Senior Customer Service Executive for a well known vending machine in India and had to resolve an issue that was affecting the profitability of the company in Pune. I applied the scientific method of resolving the problem as inspired by the “What Makes A Great Science Project Logbook” Joanne Rebbeck, Ph.D.February 24, 2005
Identifying the Problem a.A high frequency of breakdown of vending machines in clients’ site. b.Delay in registering a complaint about the break down. c.Loss to the company as we billed our client by usage. d.Delay in the time taken by the technicians in repairing the vending machines at the clients’ site.
Consequence: The problem was eating into the profits of the company, as we suffered losses on the volume of sales and our reputation also suffered because of the frequency of break down and our competitors were trying to lure our clients, who had been with our company for decades.
A national conference was immediately conducted, when I reported the issue to my immediate superior in India. The concerned departments had a brainstorming session, and various hypotheses were investigated.
Hypothesis i)The quality of the spare parts being used was not of standard quality. ii)Lack of skilled manpower had caused the delay in repair work. iii)Sabotage - by client canteen employees or our own technicians
Investigation on Various Hypotheses i)The quality of spare parts :Our national technical manager decided to conduct a surprise check on various client sites’ all over India.
ii)Lack of skilled manpower:The HR department decided to investigate on the number of site coffee boys present at one time on site and the frequency of servicing done on each department. iii)Sabotage :Number of times a vending machines broke down, against the average breakdown of machines after it has had its scheduled servicing and replacement of parts.
Conclusion of Investigations a)The National Technical Manager reported that the spare parts were of the standard quality being used our company. He also the tested the present technicians on the skill and knowledge for repairing the machines. b)An investigation by our HR departments reported that the clients were not happy about the servicing done by our coffee boys, as one coffee boy was allotted per station, by our company. There were frequent absentees and negligence in scheduled servicing. c)Vending Machine break down was 200 percent higher than the average break down as calculated by our technical department for a properly serviced machine.
I decided to investigate further into the complaints of absenteeism among the coffee boys as reported by the HR department, and the possibility of sabotage.
Further Investigations conducted on the Clients’ Site in order to gather evidence. i)I personally interviewed the sites’ canteen manager and found out that, though the sheets were filled on a timely basis, the machines were not being properly serviced and the coffee boys were often found to be missing from their stations. ii)I supervised the repair work on a vending machine and made sure that new parts were used and the coffee being prepared was of standard quality. iii)I also requested the clients’ management that a CCTV be used, to investigate the possibility of sabotage.
Conclusion on Personal Investigation a)The coffee boys were filling their sheets in advance b)The vending machine that had been serviced was not working properly again. c)One of the client canteen workers was seen tampering with our canteen machine after hours on the CCTV.
Action that was undertaken i)The station in-charge was ordered to conduct surprise visits on client sites as it was the coffee boys who were responsible for reporting, machine break downs to our technicians. ii)Errant coffee boys were sacked. iii)The client site where the damage had been reported was asked to compensate to the full cost of replacing our vending machines. iv)Their canteen department was overhauled completely and they conducted their own investigations into the sabotage.
Our final step was to speak with our client’s management about the conclusions of our investigations and reaffirm our relationship and continued business with them.
Please read How to Deal with a Difficult Customer, where the author explains how to deal in a situation when the client is at fault He says “Call Attention To A Customer’s Mistake Indirectly. If you think that your customer or client has made a mistake. Start with words like “Let’s look at this together.” Being willing to admit that you could be wrong, will make it easier for your customer to admit that he might be wrong, too. Even if you know for a certainty that he’s wrong, begin by using diplomacy so that your customer can ’save face’ if he’s proven wrong. If he feels humiliated, you’ve probably lost any chance for future business with him”. Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com.
This article was a true inspiration for me, on how to continue our relationship with the client. Our billing with the company has improved; we maintain a profitable business with them.
We often come across issues in our day- to- day lives, which are related to our professional environment and our personal lives. A practical and strategic outlook is imperative while coming up with a methodology which is best suited in resolving an issue. I have given a practical example from my work life in order to demonstrate how an issue can be resolved with minimum fuss and without pressing the panic button.
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND RESOLUTION OF AN ISSUE IN A CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT. 1. Identify the problem. 2. Brainstorm along with the departments which are directly affected by the problem. 3. Find the various processes and solutions that can help resolve the problem. 4. Which is the most effective and efficient method of resolving the problem. 5. Applying the process to the problem 6. Assessing the degree to which the problem has been resolved 7. If the problem has not been resolved, the process has to be followed again.
I used to work as a Senior Customer Service Executive for a well known vending machine in India and had to resolve an issue that was affecting the profitability of the company in Pune. I applied the scientific method of resolving the problem as inspired by the “What Makes A Great Science Project Logbook” Joanne Rebbeck, Ph.D.February 24, 2005
Identifying the Problem a.A high frequency of breakdown of vending machines in clients’ site. b.Delay in registering a complaint about the break down. c.Loss to the company as we billed our client by usage. d.Delay in the time taken by the technicians in repairing the vending machines at the clients’ site.
Consequence: The problem was eating into the profits of the company, as we suffered losses on the volume of sales and our reputation also suffered because of the frequency of break down and our competitors were trying to lure our clients, who had been with our company for decades.
A national conference was immediately conducted, when I reported the issue to my immediate superior in India. The concerned departments had a brainstorming session, and various hypotheses were investigated.
Hypothesis i)The quality of the spare parts being used was not of standard quality. ii)Lack of skilled manpower had caused the delay in repair work. iii)Sabotage - by client canteen employees or our own technicians
Investigation on Various Hypotheses i)The quality of spare parts :Our national technical manager decided to conduct a surprise check on various client sites’ all over India.
ii)Lack of skilled manpower:The HR department decided to investigate on the number of site coffee boys present at one time on site and the frequency of servicing done on each department. iii)Sabotage :Number of times a vending machines broke down, against the average breakdown of machines after it has had its scheduled servicing and replacement of parts.
Conclusion of Investigations a)The National Technical Manager reported that the spare parts were of the standard quality being used our company. He also the tested the present technicians on the skill and knowledge for repairing the machines. b)An investigation by our HR departments reported that the clients were not happy about the servicing done by our coffee boys, as one coffee boy was allotted per station, by our company. There were frequent absentees and negligence in scheduled servicing. c)Vending Machine break down was 200 percent higher than the average break down as calculated by our technical department for a properly serviced machine.
I decided to investigate further into the complaints of absenteeism among the coffee boys as reported by the HR department, and the possibility of sabotage.
Further Investigations conducted on the Clients’ Site in order to gather evidence. i)I personally interviewed the sites’ canteen manager and found out that, though the sheets were filled on a timely basis, the machines were not being properly serviced and the coffee boys were often found to be missing from their stations. ii)I supervised the repair work on a vending machine and made sure that new parts were used and the coffee being prepared was of standard quality. iii)I also requested the clients’ management that a CCTV be used, to investigate the possibility of sabotage.
Conclusion on Personal Investigation a)The coffee boys were filling their sheets in advance b)The vending machine that had been serviced was not working properly again. c)One of the client canteen workers was seen tampering with our canteen machine after hours on the CCTV.
Action that was undertaken i)The station in-charge was ordered to conduct surprise visits on client sites as it was the coffee boys who were responsible for reporting, machine break downs to our technicians. ii)Errant coffee boys were sacked. iii)The client site where the damage had been reported was asked to compensate to the full cost of replacing our vending machines. iv)Their canteen department was overhauled completely and they conducted their own investigations into the sabotage.
Our final step was to speak with our client’s management about the conclusions of our investigations and reaffirm our relationship and continued business with them.
Please read How to Deal with a Difficult Customer, where the author explains how to deal in a situation when the client is at fault He says “Call Attention To A Customer’s Mistake Indirectly. If you think that your customer or client has made a mistake. Start with words like “Let’s look at this together.” Being willing to admit that you could be wrong, will make it easier for your customer to admit that he might be wrong, too. Even if you know for a certainty that he’s wrong, begin by using diplomacy so that your customer can ’save face’ if he’s proven wrong. If he feels humiliated, you’ve probably lost any chance for future business with him”. Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of besuccessfulnews.com.
This article was a true inspiration for me, on how to continue our relationship with the client. Our billing with the company has improved; we maintain a profitable business with them.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
What is an IP address?
What is an IP address?
What’s my IP address?, Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address.
IP Search is IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods (also called a “dotted-quad”) and look something like 127.0.0.1.
Since these numbers are usually assigned to internet service providers within country-based blocks, an IP address can often be used to identify the country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet.
Because the numbers may be tedious to deal with, an IP address may also be assigned to a Host name, which is sometimes easier to remember. Hostnames may be looked up to find IP addresses, and vice-versa.
At one time ISPs issued one IP address to each user. These are called static IP addresses. Because there is a limited number of IP addresses and with increased usage of the internet ISPs now issue IP addresses in a dynamic fashion out of a pool of IP addresses (Using DHCP). These are referred to as dynamic IP addresses. This also limits the ability of the user to host websites, mail servers, ftp servers, and DNS servers. Dynamic DNS services can be used to provide DNS records for servers running on dynamic assigned IP addresses.
In addition to users connecting to the internet, with virtual hosting, a single machine can act like multiple machines (with multiple domain names and IP addresses).
An IP address can sometimes be used to determine the user’s general location.
Related Articles
Your IP Address
What is a private IP Address?
How to change your IP address
Can someone find me from my IP address?
What is a hostname?
Your Hostname
What is IPv6?
What is an RIR?
What is IANA?
What’s my IP address?, Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address.
IP Search is IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods (also called a “dotted-quad”) and look something like 127.0.0.1.
Since these numbers are usually assigned to internet service providers within country-based blocks, an IP address can often be used to identify the country from which a computer is connecting to the Internet.
Because the numbers may be tedious to deal with, an IP address may also be assigned to a Host name, which is sometimes easier to remember. Hostnames may be looked up to find IP addresses, and vice-versa.
At one time ISPs issued one IP address to each user. These are called static IP addresses. Because there is a limited number of IP addresses and with increased usage of the internet ISPs now issue IP addresses in a dynamic fashion out of a pool of IP addresses (Using DHCP). These are referred to as dynamic IP addresses. This also limits the ability of the user to host websites, mail servers, ftp servers, and DNS servers. Dynamic DNS services can be used to provide DNS records for servers running on dynamic assigned IP addresses.
In addition to users connecting to the internet, with virtual hosting, a single machine can act like multiple machines (with multiple domain names and IP addresses).
An IP address can sometimes be used to determine the user’s general location.
Related Articles
Your IP Address
What is a private IP Address?
How to change your IP address
Can someone find me from my IP address?
What is a hostname?
Your Hostname
What is IPv6?
What is an RIR?
What is IANA?
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