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As a small business owner, you have a lot of passion. You’re a trailblazer, you’re someone who has a vision that you truly believe in and are willing to take a huge risk to make that dream a reality.
But as a small business owner, you also have a lot of things that you need to be constantly taking care of. Normal daily business functions that have entire different departments in large corporations are left as a responsibility for a few people.
When you own your small business, you may feel like someone who is spinning many plates all at one time, trying your best to find some semblance of balance. This is totally normal, but also easily taken care of.
All that you need to do is find the right tools to help make running your small business easy to manage. Here are some of the tools that you could be missing out on with your small business.
Small Businesses Need Some Tools in their Toolbelt
Let’s face it, as a small business owner, you may feel the need to take care of everything all by yourself. But if you’re looking to grow your business and maybe add some semblance of work-life balance to your own schedule, you can’t just do everything by hand. And the best part is, with today’s technology, you don’t have to.
For example, if you need to connect with your clients immediately, you can simply use a business SMS service to send thousands of text messages anywhere in the world. This way, you don’t have to spend countless hours contacting every single one of your customers individually – thus improving your efficiency and customer satisfaction levels.
So take a deep breath and look into these resources that you and your small business have at your disposal. We promise that they are sure to make your small business far more successful while saving you time, mental energy, and yes, money.
Methods to Measure Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
Your small business is only as good as the customers who love you. You can spend all day playing a guessing game and assuming that you may know how they feel about your business, but you can’t actually know how satisfied or loyal they are without asking them directly.
Luckily, there are some ways that you can get out there and measure what your customers’ satisfaction looks like. The best ways to do this are things called CSAT and NPS. If these acronyms mean nothing to you, let’s take a look at what they mean and what the difference is when it comes to csat vs nps.
CSAT
CSAT is short for Customer Satisfaction. As the name would suggest, it’s a way that you can quantify and specifically measure how satisfied your customers are with your company’s service or product.
In order to measure this as accurately as possible, you need to check in with each customer’s satisfaction immediately after their experience. This makes sure that it’s fresh on their mind and that they will remember as much of the interaction as possible, making for the most specific and accurate results.
A great and effective way to measure your CSAT is through the use of one common tool; the satisfaction survey. Giving them a specific scale is essential to help them answer honestly. A few great examples of what sort of questions you can ask your customers and what answer options you can give them are:
How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the product or service you received on a scale of 1 to 5?
- Very Unsatisfied
- Unsatisfied
- Neutral
- Satisfied
- Very Satisfied
If you want to get even more specific feedback on each part of their process, try asking them to rate the following on a scale of 1 to 5:
- Level of knowledge
- Effective communication
- Professionalism
- Responsiveness
- Understanding of the issue
- Timeliness of resolution
- Effectiveness of resolution
Once you collect this data over time, you can take a look at where your company is succeeding and in what areas you could use some work. From there, it’s easier to set goals for the future of your small business.
NPS
NPS stands for your Net Promoter Score. Unlike your CSAT, your NPS measures customer satisfaction with an emphasis on loyalty. It’s a great tool that you can use to predict your business’s growth. It has actually reshaped the business world in how to conduct business.
This is measured by just one single question from which you can deduce a lot of information. This is what you need to ask and customers’ answers will determine what sort of loyalty they have to your business:
How likely is it that you would recommend your product or services to a friend or colleague?
- PROMOTERS answer with a score of 9-10
- PASSIVES answer with a score of 7-8
- DETRACTORS answer with a score of 0-6
You can get your NPS score by subtracting your percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The higher the percentage, the better the score.
You need to take both your CSAT and NPS into account when thinking about overall customer happiness to give your customers the best experience possible.
A Marketing Agency to Get the Word Out About Your Small Business
Everyone knows how important marketing is for any business, and it only becomes more important for small businesses.
If you’re busy running a business, you don’t have a whole bunch of time to spend launching an extravagant marketing campaign. Luckily, you don’t have to.
One of the most effective ways that you can get the word out about your business and keep your customers updated on sales or news is by using text messaging marketing. If you want to launch a successful campaign and use this technique to its full potential, it’s essential to check out an sms marketing agency to keep up with regular messages.
A Trustworthy Lender to Help Finance Your Dreams
Running a small business is no cheap feat. In fact, a lot of small businesses take a year or two to start seeing any sort of revenue. But your employees and vendors aren’t going to work or deliver the products you need for free.
In order to help get your company off the ground and keep up with covering the costs of running your business, check out a reliable lender like Vaster for a small business loan. You can come up with a payment plan based on your credit score and access the funds you need quickly to keep your business afloat and successful.
Organize Your Company’s Bookkeeping in One Convenient Place
No matter what your small business sells or how many people you employ, there are always costs that you need to keep track of. To run a business, you need to see where the money is coming from and where it’s going.
Luckily, you don’t have to be a professional accountant to keep track of things like payroll and fees. By using bookkeeping software like Quickbooks, you can keep all of your money organized in one place. It can be accessed by computer or even by an app on your phone, making it incredibly convenient for small business owners to keep things straightened out.
Running a Small Business is Tough. Use These Tools to Make it a Little Bit Easier
We don’t need to tell you how much work running a small business is, you already know that. But if you’re not using these tools to help you run your business, you’re really missing out.
