Does your lack of standards - cost you repeat & referral business?

Hi everyone and welcome to Talking Points with me, your host, Jason S. Bradshaw. It's great that you're taking the time to watch live or to watch on the replays. As always, every fortnight my newsletter is due to come out Talking Points with me. This Friday is the next edition dropping and you can sign up on my website, Jason S. Bradshaw.com or on LinkedIn, whichever platform you prefer. Now, today's topic is all about standards and how they could be costing you repeat and referral business. I'm specifically talking about the standards of the product you deliver and how you go about delivering it. Just recently my mother went into a shop and made a purchase and just 10 minutes later I went into the same shop and made I purchased for basically the same item. It was a food shop and as we were eating lunch, my mother explained to me how rude and disgusting she found the service, while at the same time I explained to her that there was some good and bad bits. But overall it was probably the best experience I've had there in a while because I'm used to it being bad at that store and it's pure convenience that I chose to continue to shop there. But it got me wondering, what standards are they teaching their team members, their employees? Or do they just teach them the skill of fulfilling the order, in this case, a food order? Are you and your business guilty of just teaching people the skills they need to fulfill the order or to fulfill to complete the task? See, if that's all we're doing, then we're missing a huge opportunity to create lifetime loyal raving fans, people that buy from us again and tell their friends and family to buy from us. Now, this particular business, as I mentioned, it was a food business. So we already know their margins are low compared to some other industries out there. Which makes my mind baffled for a whole other reason why you would want to put at chance the ability for repeating referral business. But anyway, just like your business, this business, regardless of their small margins, has competition. In fact, within 10 meters, 20ft, whatever measurement you want to use, within minutes you could be at a competitor's shop. So why would they leave standards to chance? It really does baffle me, I guess though, that they just haven't defined what great looks like. They haven't taken the time to teach their team members beyond the task, beyond the skill of fulfilling completing the task to that next step of what delivering that task to the consumer looks like when it's done great. From the presentation of the product itself to the assembly of the product itself. To of course how they interact with customers. Now in call centers, every call center team leader out there and manager out there will say smile. People can hear it in your voice. And I've even been in call centers where we've had mirrors on people's desks so they can see themselves if they were frowning and you know, hopefully prompt them to smile again. But enough in this setting I can physically see the employee. So there are lots of little steps that you have to reinforce. And of course you have to create an environment where your employees actually are happy to be there. But I come back to this earlier statement. Hey, I guess they haven't taken the time to define what great looks like and as a result every time they fail to deliver a half decent a good experience, let alone a great experience, they're missing an opportunity to get repeat business and importantly, free marketing through referrals. The best form of marketing is free marketing and you get free marketing from creating great experiences that your customers are want to talk about. Now in this example, if I hadn't been to the shop, all I would have to go by is the feedback that I had from a shopper from just 10 minutes ago which could have instantly turned me off from going there another time. So if you want your business to have breakthrough business success, then here are three things that you need to do. You need to define what great looks like, what does great look like in terms of your product, what does great look like in terms of how you interact with your customers, and what does great look like Post the purchase. You then need to train and equip your team members to deliver on what great looks like. There's no good telling them what great is, but they're not giving them the tools or the education to be able to deliver on it. And third, you need to leverage feedback to continually improve. Now many businesses will do some of those steps, but not all of those steps. And if you want breakthrough success in your business, then you need to do all three steps consistently and importantly. Remember, leverage the feedback so that you can evolve what great looks like and your team members ability to deliver on the evolving standards. Until next time we speak, if there is anything I can do to assist you and your business have breakthrough success, please feel free to reach out as I'm on all social networks at Jason S. Bradshaw and of course you can contact me through my website. Jason S. Bradshaw have a great day and have a fantastic successful business.