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Your local financial planning or accountancy business might not appear to have much in common with companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Etsy or Gumtree but small businesses such as these can learn a lot from these online mega sites. Here are three things small business owners can learn from these tech gurus:
1. Adaptability - the poster boy in adaptability is Amazon.com, which started out as an online book distributor in the 1990s. Today Amazon draws most of its profits from cloud servers through Amazon Web Services. Rather than been seen as a weakness (ie: not being true to its original business plan), Amazon entered new markets to grow and diversify its business. Today, the company nets upwards of $100 billion a year in revenues and has acquired dozens of companies to increase the diversity of its offering.
Key lessons small business can learn from Amazon are:-
- Be open to expanding to new markets.
- Experiment and learn new ways of approaching a market segment.
- Be mindful of trends and be ready to act – especially if your competitors are hesitant.
2. Perseverance - When reviewing the rise of companies like Amazon, Airbnb, Zappos or eBay, the enduring theme is that many of them took years to start making money. For example, it took Amazon ten years before they turned a profit. Through hard work and perseverance - combined with an adaptable business model, companies like Amazon began to flourish.
As a small business owner, there will always be obstacles to overcome in business. A common phrase in Silicon Valley (where many of these tech giants started) is “... if you’re going to fail then fail fast and fail often!”
As unusual as this saying is, it means that successful people and companies have a higher than average failure rate because they have more experiences. That is, they fail, learn from their mistakes - often minimising its impact because they have been quick to learn from it.
As a small business, it is important to acknowledge failures in your business - so as not to continue to ‘flog a dead horse’ (so to speak). This will allow you to re-direct resources to other ideas, projects or goals.
3. Customer-centric thinking - Whether you’re a small business or large tech, putting your customer at the forefront of your business thinking is more important than ever. Customers today have more power than ever before by sharing their opinions via social media or review sites or exploring their options by simply going online.
Instead of viewing this as a threat to the way you currently do business, it should be viewed as an opportunity. And whilst you don’t have to be the next Amazon, Zappos or Airbnb, you can acquire the same standards of customer service. In the case of Zappos, an online shoe store started in 1999 and now owned by Amazon. From the very start, Zappos' employees were encouraged to go above and beyond traditional customer service. They built a reputation as an online marketplace that goes over and above to ensure their customers have a positive experience. For example, Zappos would often give "surprise" free upgrades to overnight shipping for customers, although their website reports that delivery will take two to five business days (Wikipedia). The end result being that they exceed expectations - the number one principal of good customer service!
So how can this translate into your business? A good place to start is by ensuring your staff understand what good customer service means. It won't always mean the same thing in every business but what is important is to ensure you set standards about what is expected.
These standards can be identified through communication tools you use in your company such as:
- Phone Etiquette - number of rings, time taken to return calls.
- Meeting Etiquette - meeting room set up, agenda and welcome, closure and follow up.
- Voice mail - updating voice message, time take to respond, option to leave a message.
- Email - response rate, email signatures with appropriate contact details, out of office message with alternate contact.
So whether you are a small to medium company or a large tech giant, taking care of your customers in a timely and proactive manner is key to business success. Investing the time to set and implement service standards, and holding your staff accountable for adhering to standards will help to create a consistent service culture.
Discover the right path you need to take to drive your business further by speaking with a business finance expert from Collins Home Loans. The team at Collins Home Loans offers expert advice on the different loan types and the best financing option for your business.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this is article is general in nature and is not intended as financial or business advice and should not be relied on as such. You should always seek your own independent advice from qualified specialists as per your own specific circumstances.
