S3 Blog

During times of crisis it can be difficult for anyone to see anything positive and it is very easy to focus the negatives, particularly when you are in business. When negativity strikes, in the form of a recession, falling sales and so on finding anything to be positive about can be a real struggle. However it is possible to turn negativity into positive action, you just need to know how this can be done effectively.

Turning negativity into positive action is not about ignoring bad times when they occur it is about not letting them decide how things are going to continue in the business for the next 12 months or more. Whilst it can be incredibly hard to find anything to feel positive about when sales have dropped, a business can use this as an opportunity to be positive and think about their sales process, their costings and their CRM solution. It can be easy to panic when sales start to fall (especially during a recession) and this can lead to business owners to think that they soon be out of business – but this is jumping the gun somewhat. Negativity happens in life and in business and it needs to be dealt with without panicking and making hasty decisions.

Instead of seeing falling sales figures as a sign of imminent doom for a business it should instead be a sign for a business to revue their internal processes. When this happens turn the negativity into positive action by finding out the reason behind the falling figures. Many might argue that during a recession there is little point in doing this as the recession is to blame but it there is every chance that this is not the real reason. Sure, a recession will alter customer’s spending patterns and habits – but there could be an underlying reason for the drop in sales. So do a little probing and find out why your customers are not returning to you. You could find that your customer relationship management is letting the business down, or that your sales team are not following up on quotes in a timely manner and losing sales. Perhaps your customers no longer feel engaged with you due to something that the business has done – make use of all the options that are open to your business and find out what is going on.

Negativity will always be an issue in business, but it is up to business owners to decide how to handle it. By remaining calm and finding a way through negative and trying times positive action can occur and this will benefit the business in the long run. So the next time that negativity strikes your business spend some time thinking how this has happened and how it can successfully be avoided in the future. Doing this will help business owners to focus on the processes and practises of their business and will play a large part in turning negativity into positive action.

As the song goes “The times they are a changing” and never more so than in the current economic climate of the UK. Over the past 12 months or so the recession has hit thousands of businesses – both large and small, hard and as a result many have now gone bust. The times are changing and there has been a huge shift from the financially frivolous times of the 1990s and early 2000s to a time where millions are out of work and many cannot even afford to pay their mortgages. During the 1990s spending large amounts of money and actually being prod of this was very much the order of the day. Move forward 15 years and the UK is now experiences a credit crunch and those people who had racked up massive amounts of credit are now feeling the strain.

So, how are the times changing for businesses?

- Businesses are also suffering and many are now feeling the pinch as customers are now looking for cheaper deals on the internet and on the high street.

- Spending money recklessly is not seen as something to aspire to and this is forcing many retailers to drastically rethink their pricing plans.

- Business need to see the value of using good CRM (customer relationship management) software tools. Using such software can make all the difference to businesses that want to make the most out of every single customer contact that they have.

- Businesses need to recognise that they have to engage their customers to keep them returning to them time and time again. It is now no good to just market and sell goods or services, customers need to feel as though their thoughts and ideas are valid for a business and identify with the business. Feedback sections on websites and blogs are really useful for this to happen.

- Businesses now need to focus on new ways of reaching their customers. The internet has virtually limitless potential for businesses and there are plenty of methods that a business can choose to advertise which are diverse and attention grabbing.

- The recession has also taught business owners that nothing lasts forever and it will always pay to have a strategy in place for tough times. This can provide a business with the cushion that they need if the economic climate of their country changes.

- Businesses need to be flexible in their approach to their customers and their means of contacting them. With the advent of freely available mobile technology there is more scope to contact customers through email marketing, SMS messages and social networking sites. Smart businesses take notice of this and move with the times.

- No business can ever afford to rest on its laurels and assume that they will always have a strong customer base. This is foolhardy to say the least and all business owners should be constantly looking for ways in which to improve the service that they provide.

A recession can devastate a country, it leaves people out of work and struggling to make ends meet and it can ruin businesses. Over the past 12 months the UK has seen many large household name businesses go bust and innumerable small to medium sized businesses fold under the strain. Today, anyone talking a walk down a city’s high street cannot fail to notice the sheer number of boarded up shops and empty business space going to waste. Previous to this high streets up and down the country were filled with consumers spending and shops jostling for space.

Now, thanks to the recession the UKs shops and city centres are a very different place – but it is not all doom and gloom. Many businesses have weathered the worst of what the recession had to throw at them and they have come out of the other side. In other words for some businesses the recession has actually made them stronger. So how can the recession make some businesses stronger than before but cause others to buckle and collapse under the economic pressure?

Smart businesses always try to have some kind of contingency plan in place should the worst happen, and sensible business owners knew this. By making small but significant changes businesses could protect themselves for the recession. These could include implementing methods that would save the business money or looking into new ways to retain customers. Doing away with old and outdated methods of customer contact or recording information is one good way of doing this as it saves money and time within the business. Taking notice of customer spending patterns is also useful as this can help a business to predict spending patterns for the next 12 months or so.

Many businesses who are still in business after the recession could be seen in a way as being ‘recession proof’ and while there is no guarantee for this it certainly gives business owners a greater degree of confidence. Customers too gain confidence in businesses that can stay afloat during a recession which is good news for those businesses.

It can be easy to assume that a recession will weaken all businesses – but this is not the case at all. Recessions do change customer spending habits and can make people think more before they spend money – but they do not prevent people from spending money. Consumers still need to buy products and services even during a recession and continue to do so, so businesses should stand their ground and they will reap the rewards. Rather than crumbling at the first sign of economic crisis business owners should implement strategies to help them deal with a recession and see it out to succeed.

Recession does make our businesses stronger, but only if there is a firm base to start with. Having a poor infrastructure will cause a business to fail regardless of a recession. The only difference is a recession sorts the wheat from the chaff and strong businesses will get even stronger.

With the credit crunch on everyone’s minds it is no wonder that businesses are developing customer strategies to cope with the downturn. Any business that planned ahead and had a contingency plan for this will no doubt be feeling less of the strain, but for any business who did not have a plan or a strategy here are 10 customer strategies for the downturn:

1.Find out what kind of a return the business is getting from its marketing. Doing this will help to streamline business costs and will prevent customers from feeling the impact of over priced and ineffective marketing.

2.Target pricing – this means looking at your pricing and targeting it more effectively. If your customers can no longer afford your rates (and this will show in your sale figures) it is time to think about carefully targeting your prices

3.Listen to customer feedback – this is always essential for a business but never more so than in a credit crunch, listen to what your customers want and take notice! Do this and it will make all the difference.

4.Be relevant to the correct customers – being too general in your marketing and casting your net too wide can have disastrous effects during a downturn. Businesses who try to do this will find that they rapidly lose revenue and customers in the process by trying to be everything for everyone.

5.Enhance the customer experience – make sure that you are using CRM software that will make every customer contact count and enable a business to get the most out of these every time.

6.Perform a ‘healthcheck’ on your business – see which customers are loyal even during a downturn and give them a little something back. This could be in the way of loyalty discounts, something which customers are always keen to use when money is tight. Remember you want to keep hold of loyal customers and not just the ones that buy from you when you are giving discounts.

7.Increase customer engagement – engaging customers with your brand or business will create loyal customers which is exactly what you are looking for.

8.Take a close look at your loyalty schemes – are they targeting the right customers and are you, as a business getting the most out of them? If not it is time to change your loyalty schemes and raise revenue at the same time.

9.Think about affiliate programmes – these can stand to make customers who know, understand and willing to commit themselves to an affiliate programme a fair amount of money, whilst driving more customers your way. If you don’t already have an affiliate programme maybe it is time to think about one.

10.Keep costs to a minimum so that you are not having to penalise customers by increasing prices – do this by trying to use just one software application to run your business through, such as S3 CRM – the one stop shop for all your business and customer relationship management needs.

Customer engagement is a term that is given when customers engage with a brand or company and it is based on interactions that are repeated and enhance the psychological, physical and emotional investment on that brand or company. When a business gets it right customer engagement can work to create lifelong customers for that business and during a recession customer engagement is essential. Many companies traditionally believed that customer engagement stemmed from television-based advertising, but now thanks to the recession and the emergence of Web 2.0 technology companies are now seeing the usefulness of the Internet in increasing customer engagement.

For customer engagement to continue and survive the recession it is important that businesses realise they need to find cost-effective ways of engaging their customers with their brand. There are several different ways in which this can be done with massive success such as:

- Blogging - today most businesses which have their own website will also have a business blog through which it can inform its customers of any news relating to their products and services or are just fun for customers to read. Adding to this every few days means that the customer will return to a website time and time again and become further engaged with the brand or company.

- User generated content is also a great way to increase customer engagement as people like to have their views on their opinions up on websites for other customers to read and comment on. This method is customer engagement at its best and it encourages more customers to become engaged with the brand by creating their own content on websites.

- Social networking sites are also helping to increase customer engagement during the recession as millions of people all over the world are members of such sites. By joining these sites a business can engage frequently with their customers and at a fraction of the cost that advertising previously used. The use of social networking sites can also help a business to attract more investment from its backers as its potential is so huge.

- Customer feedback on websites is also a very useful form of customer engagement which helps customers to feel valued and as though their opinions are welcomed by a brand.

- Many companies also using smaller blog sites such as Twitter to increase customer engagement and for many this is a yet to be explored avenue which can help to increase customer engagement even further.

As shown, customer engagement during the recession is possible and it can even provide savings for any business who chooses to use the Internet to their advantage. Businesses that have not developed an Internet-based strategy for customer engagement during the recession (and to continue after it) will find that their customer engagement plummets. So any business that wants to raise customer engagement and help to increase their profits even ensuring a recession needs to get Internet savvy and start to utilise the potential of this huge marketplace.

2008 was a year that saw many changes all over the world, it was also the year in which the finances of millions of people suddenly thrown into turmoil. All of a sudden the credit driven lifestyles that many people were used to came to an end. Banks and other financial institutions realised that their reckless credit giving had caused thousands to live way beyond their means. This meant that repayments for mortgages, credit cards, loans and hire purchase agreements were suddenly being missed and people who had taken out large mortgages up to 125% were now faced with repossession.

From the late 1980s up until 2008 the feeling in the UK was one of spend, spend, spend on something had to give. In 2008 well-known shops and banks were now in financial crisis thanks to the global credit crunch that was hitting both the UK and the US hard. This meant that people could not afford to lead the lifestyle they have become used to and thousands found themselves out of work as businesses folded or were trying to save money through losing staff.

So what have we learned from 2008?

- Financial institutions giving lenders credit that is way beyond their means is not financially viable and this can plunge a bank, building society or the lender into crisis.

- People should learn to live within their means, even if this can seem as though they are putting their own wings. Getting credit you can’t afford is not the way to live your life and businesses will ultimately suffer as consumers are not able to carry on spending excessively.

- Jobs are not forever - too many people felt safe in the knowledge that they would have their job for life. 2008 show the world that no job is forever and any people who thought that their jobs were safe were soon to find out that this was not the case.

- With so many people out of work and with so many banks collapsing people had to find out how to live more frugally and within their means. For some this was a very difficult process and one which did not come very easily to them, whereas for others this was not a problem and something that came easily.

- Businesses also learned that they needed to look for more cost-effective ways of operating which meant that they could keep their costs low while still providing the same service to their customers.

- Giving potential homeowners mortgages of up to 125% just before house prices crashed was a very poor and miscalculated financial step for many mortgage companies.

2008 showed both businesses and consumers that the previous 15 or so years of reckless and often needless spending and living on credit was not good for the economy or the country. Today people are actively trying to combat the problems that were caused in 2008 that it will take some time before the economy is back on its feet again.

During a recession things get tough for everyone – businesses have to make changes if they are to survive it and come out of the other side intact. Consumer’s behaviour also changes quite significantly during a recession as people don’t have as much disposable income as they previously enjoyed. It is quite easy to think, especially with so many businesses closing down during a recession that it is all doom and gloom, but creativity actually thrives during a recession and many businesses do incredibly well.

It can be too easy to assume that a recession means the end for most small and medium sized businesses (and quite a few larger ones) but it can be an ideal time to start new a business, if you are creative enough. Many businesses are now taking advantage of the fact that people have to tighten their belts and online discount shops are thriving right now. Before the recession excessive spending was seen as something to be proud of and was even akin to a status symbol – paying over the odds for items that could be bought cheaper elsewhere. Now however everyone is looking for a better deal on the goods that they regularly buy and smart entrepreneurs have realised that to thrive in a recession they need to follow consumer trends – which during a recession is saving money.

With this in mind the number of businesses that are providing goods and services at greatly reduced prices are doing fantastically. Price comparison sites are being inundated with customers all looking for the cheapest electrical goods, holidays, insurance, groceries – and more. What business owners need to realise is that even though a recession makes people more aware of what they are spending their money on, they will not stop spending altogether. Consumers still need to buy goods and services; the only difference is that during a recession they will actively shop around for the best deal they can find rather than sticking with their regular retailers.

Creativity is always essential in business, but often it is easy to leave it on the sidelines when business is good, with many business owners not wanting to change their ‘winning formula’. Unfortunately it can be exactly this sort of attitude that leaves many businesses struggling when times change. Recessions force everyone in business to think differently and be more creative otherwise it is virtually impossible to stay afloat. Today those business owners that faced the recession head on are the ones that are reaping the benefits, as are the people who were creative and saw the business potential of the recession. Online there are now hundreds of shops which are selling off bankrupt stock from bigger retailers and there is no shame in looking for cheap products. Creativity really does thrive in a recession and anyone who buys products online can see this for themselves with the smart businesses listening to and taking note of consumer spending habits and altering their prices accordingly.