Attracting new customers is probably one of your top priorities, but you should keep in mind that there’s a right way and a wrong way to expand your business. Growth isn’t always good. In fact, growth can hurt your business if you’re not ready for it.
If you manage a courier company, propane delivery service, or any other kind of business that requires you to send your employees out to meet with customers, then serving more customers means you’ll need to pay for more payroll hours, gas, and vehicle maintenance. You might even need to hire more employees and buy more vehicles.
Can you afford all that right now?
You must have the infrastructure you need to handle growth in place before you take on a bunch of new customers. Otherwise, your field employees will be overwhelmed by all the extra stops. They’ll struggle to show up on time consistently. Current customers will abandon you for a more reliable option, which will damage your reputation and turn potential new customers away.
Instead of focusing so much on attracting new customers to your business, pay more attention to your current customers. Do whatever’s necessary to give them the best experience possible. That’s the most sustainable growth hacking approach.
Outbound marketing takes a lot of effort, and it’s expensive. You need to create advertisements, work out a strategy for where those advertisements will be placed, and then pay for the placements.
Also, outbound marketing is often ineffective. It’s hard to connect with people when they know all you’re really trying to do is make a sale.
Inbound marketing is much more compelling. It involves offering your customers something of value – in this case, reliable service – which creates a connection and inspires customers to recommend you to their friends, family, and other people they know.
By adopting routing optimization software, your business can become an inbound organization.
Always Be On Time
To offer excellent customer experience, you must do your job well. In other words, you have to make sure your field reps arrive to each of their stops at the agreed upon time!
This can be difficult to do if you still plan your routes manually. Route planning is complicated. You need to take many factors into account, including weather, traffic, one-way streets, U-turns, and much more. When you try to do this yourself, it’s easy to make a mistake and give your field employee an inefficient or inaccurate route. That would result in your employee arriving late to some stops and hurting your business’s reputation.
You need technology to do this job right. Routing optimization software ensures that the routes you give your reps are always the most efficient. It gives them everything they need to show up on time, so you’ll be able to keep your customers happy and inspire some positive word of mouth.
Keep Your Customers Informed
We live in the Information Age. Prospects, leads, and customers won’t accept being kept in the dark. They want to be informed about everything from start to finish.
So, when you first attract them to your business, you have to provide enough information on your website about your products or services. Next, once they have been enticed, you must make it easy for them to purchase your products or use your services, whether they contact you online, over the phone, or otherwise.
Then, once they’ve purchased a product or service, you should make it easy for them to track your progress of providing it to them.
Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Boost Your Profits?
Routing optimization software can play a key role here. For example, Route4Me offers a dedicated online portal where customers can log in and see the real-time location of your field employee’s vehicle. They’ll know exactly how long they need to wait for you to arrive.
Offering a customer portal like this shows that you’re transparent with your customers and you value their time. They’re sure to appreciate that.
Assess Customer Feedback Fairly
Sometimes, it’s difficult to know what to do with customer feedback – especially when they’re complaining about one of your employees.
Consider this example: You run a plumbing business that sends plumbers to people’s houses. One day, a customer says that your plumber never showed up to their appointment, while your plumber says that he not only showed up, but worked on the client’s pipes.
You weren’t there. You don’t know the truth. So, what do you do? If you believe the customer, it will cost you a refund, and you’ll upset your employee. But if you believe your employee, you’ll upset the customer. There is no right answer.
Routing optimization software is a lifesaver in these situations. The best route planners come with a GPS tracking feature that you can use to check on your field employee’s location in real-time. In that plumbing scenario, you could use GPS tracking to see if your employee was telling the truth.
The best route planners also have an e-signature feature, which allows your field employees to collect confirmation signatures with their mobile devices. This will also help you settle disputes.
What techniques do you use to become an inbound organization? Do you have any questions about this article? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
Also, answering the three following questions correctly will ensure that you understand how you can grow your business by becoming an inbound organization:
- How can a route planner help your field employees make it to all their appointments on time?
- How can routing optimization software help you keep your customers informed about inbound visits?
- How can you ensure that you’re assessing customer feedback fairly?
Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Boost Your Profits?
