5 ways to supercharge your business as the economy recovers

06 May 2021

The last 18 months have been incredibly challenging for everyone.

Whether your business was effectively shut down due to the restrictions, or you had to deal with a huge influx of demand for your services at a time when the way you operate changed significantly.

We’ve not all been in the same boat, it’s important that we now look to capitalise on the opportunities that are emerging as restrictions are easing and the economy reopens.

It’s highly anticipated that there’ll be a sharp recovery from the pain felt since the first lockdown back in March 2020. In this blog, We highlight 5 ways that you can supercharge your business as the economy reopens.

Automate

First and foremost, as the economy reopens and the pent-up demand for your services is realised, you’ll need to cope with demand. Whilst this is a great opportunity to grow your team, it also represents a huge opportunity to embrace modern technologies and change the way you work.

By automating key processes from stock management to customer communications, you’ll be able to streamline the way you work and achieve more with less.

By starting with a simple process map for your core business processes, you can highlight key areas you could automate and help boost your productivity.

Communicate

We all know that acquiring new customers is much more expensive than continuing to work with your existing customers. So what are you doing to retain your customers?

4 out of 5 customers say they would work with a competitor after a bad experience (Zendesk), which is why communicating is so important. Maintaining a dialogue with your customers and keeping them informed is vital to turning a one-time purchaser into a loyal customer.

It’s so important that your customers can communicate with you, too. They don’t want to be a number, and more importantly, they want to be able to communicate with you in a way that suits them. Millennials, for example, would prefer to speak with someone via live chat than any other way (Comm100).

Standardising your customer service process and service levels will not only turn your customers in to repeat business, but they’ll refer you to their friends and family.

Diversify

Have you considered what complimentary services you could provide to your customers to improve the value you add to them?

It’s worth considering areas that your business could diversify the products or services that you provide to add more value to a customer.

A great example would be a specialist commercial property solicitor diversifying to offer other services such as shareholder agreements and employment law advice.

By diversifying your service offering, you increase your ability to cross-sell services to your existing customer base, without having to spend time on acquiring customers in a specialised area.

Specialise

However…

You have got to consider whether diversifying fits with your value proposition, or does it dilute your brand as your branch out to service lines that you are not a specialist in.

The other option is to really specialise and innovate how you deliver in your area of expertise. Positioning yourself as a specialist and truly owning your market can help build trust with customers.

There are still ways that you can use this to your advantage. By focussing on your specialism, you can focus on how you deliver your products or services helping to differentiate yourself on satisfying the customers’ needs in a more concentrated area.

If you become known as the leader in your area and deliver exceptional service, you could turn your customers into your best marketing channel as they’re more likely to refer to your services.

Measure

In order to move your business forward, you need to have control of the key numbers and measure the impact your efforts are having.

We use the EOS framework to help us measure success and hold ourselves accountable to an agreed definition of success.

Whether it’s measuring customer satisfaction or the number of touchpoints with a customer required to provide your products or services, it’s vital that you have a grip on the numbers.

Measuring your success won’t just help to improve your performance in your area of focus, but also help to understand what impact the changes have had on other areas of the business.

Summary

There’s a great opportunity for businesses to make the most of the economic recovery that is looming. How that opportunity looks will depend on your situation, but we’d recommend making a start by evaluating how you work now with a simple process map.

These process maps can really help you to identify exactly what and where you can improve.

If you’d like to have a discussion about how to get started with a simple process map, get in touch.

Contact us