In the business world, speed is of increasing importance. We live in a world where everything is instant. We expect to log on to a website and have all the information we need straight away, we can order goods online and have them with us within a few hours, and we’re getting used to it. We’ve become impatient, and we want things to happen fast. If you run a small sales business, it can be hard to keep up with the bigger companies offering super-fast service and 2-hour delivery windows. But, if you want to do well, it’s essential that you do your best. Here are some improvements that you can make to speed up your business.
This is a contributed post. Please refer to my disclosure for more information.
Website
Whether your business is solely online or also has a brick and mortar storefront your website is bound to be a big part of it. Many small businesses nowadays start-up online, letting their website be the storefront for their company. This means that it needs to be good. Now, most larger cities and towns all over the world provide their residents with super-fast internet speeds, websites are expected to keep up. When users click a link, they want it to load straight away. They won’t wait if it doesn’t, they’ll just click away to one of the other billion websites out there.
So, you need to speed yours up. Make sure all of your plugins and software is updated regularly, delete anything that you don’t need, optimise your photographs and videos for top loading speeds, check that your host is providing you with the best options for your content. Then, get help from an expert if you need further help speeding up your site.
Delivery
We can’t all offer same day delivery, and that’s fine. The most important thing is that you offer reasonable delivery charges and that you are honest about what your customers can expect. If it’s going to be three days, tell them that. Don’t make promises that you can keep. Then, look into a service like that from Jayde Transport who can delivery all over the country using roads and rail.
Workforce
A big part of how fast your business operates is its staff. If your staff are slow and unmotivated, you are going to lose a lot of time and money in all areas. To keep it working it’s best, you need to get them going. To do this, led by example. Work hard and show them how it’s done. Then, try implementing some small changes like adding short, regular breaks to their day and brightening up their workspaces.
Customer Service
In the early days of online shopping, there was some confusion about customer service. You certainly couldn’t build the same relationships as you could face to face. That’s no longer true. The growth of social media means that it’s easy to keep in touch with your customers, assist them, give advice and ask for feedback. But, you need to do it quickly. Your social media feeds, emails and phone lines should be manned so that there is always someone to reply to a customer online, just as there would be in store.
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Customer service is the best tip out of all that you mentioned. I use this email outreach tool and they have this live customer service you could chat if you encounter any problems, and they would usually answer within minutes and provide you with the best solution possible. It made me come back and use the website more frequently and I became their loyal customer.