Angry customers! Every business has these types and we cannot blame them for being furious. Most of the time it’s our fault due to some inefficiencies but there are some instances where customers are wrong.

Regardless of the reasons, we need to devise some sort of standard operating procedure (SOP) to arrest these problems. After all, we must be aiming towards superior customer experience.

There are different ways to handle irate customers. One of the important things you must learn is to separate the person from the issue. A screaming, cussing customer has the tendency to affect your judgment. Stay calm and do not fight fire with fire.

Sound Money Tips suggest you treat customers as you as you would want to be treated. In case you encounter a cursing customer, immediately tell him or her that cursing will not help solve the problem. More importantly, maintain your respect to your customers no matter how angry they seem to be.

Not all entrepreneurs and customer service agents possess effective skills in handling difficult customers. It’s better if you can train through seminars and some simulations similar to the concept of mystery shopping.

Most traditional advertising channels like TV, radio, and print ads are costly for starting entrepreneurs given the limited financial resources. Today, the Internet has drastically altered the way we market products and services. In many ways, this new medium favors small businesses. All you need to do is learn and embrace this powerful technology.

Sharing videos to your customers and to selected online communities is becoming a marketing trend. What makes this a powerful tool?

Aside from the cliché “to see is to believe”, creating these videos is inexpensive but can reach consumers even on a global scale! All you need is a video camera plus Internet connection for uploading. If you have extra money, you can even hire professional videographers to do it for you.

But what can you cover? Small Biz Survival recommends:

• Profile your customers.
• Show how you solve problems for customers.
• Tell your founding story.
• Talk about future plans.
• Share your vision and passion!

You can also check out the top video sharing Web sites once you’re ready to incorporate this concept in your marketing program.

Now, imagine a bakery sharing a similar video, below, to their potential customers.

Inefficient customer service is slowly hurting established companies, giving small businesses opportunity to capture their already irate customers. According to a survey conducted by Hornstein Associates, only one-third responded to email inquiries by customers within 24 hours. Worst, the timely response rate dropped by about 50 percent compared last 2002.

We’re not talking about small companies but the likes of Starbucks, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines.

“Common sense says that everybody sends an email to a company at one time or another and that everyone would like a response within 24 hours,” says Scott Hornstein, founder of Hornstein Associates and author of the survey. Hornstein argues that because customer service is such a driver of customer retention today, a response delayed more than a day could spell attrition.

As a small business owners, you have the opportunity and the capability to respond in timely manner to customers’ emails, personalize responses, and attend to their concerns about your products or services. In most cases, it is better to be hated than to be ignored.

Excellent customer service can be your unique selling proposition and it is stronger than any price deals or discounts you can offer. Gauge your response time and if you’re confident about your performance, build up this advantage over competition. Make sure you do not forget to use snail mails to augment your customer service performance.

Via Marketing Idea Blog

Unfortunately, not all business ventures succeed in this hypercompetitive landscape. It can be caused by lack of business skillsets, vague differentiation strategy, inferior product quality, or poor customer service. Since small businesses are mostly powered by passion, entrepreneurs are blinded by their vision and might not be in a good position to decide the future of their businesses.

If selling your company is not emotionally easy, closing a small business built on passion, hard work, and personal savings is much more difficult to bear.

While sales volume and profitability are good measures, how do you know if it is time to close your business or pull the plug to protect your remaining resources? Improving Your World offers 6 signs before you pull the plug. I find sign number 4 very relevant:

If you have to borrow more money in order to pay your credit payments or any other business obligations. If you have more debt than you do have assets than your company is not going to make a profit, so you need to fix the problem, but if you have tried everything and still can’t meet your monthly obligations than you will need to pull the plug on your small business.

Also, listen to Marketplace Podcast on Pulling the Plug to learn more about this emotionally draining yet very practical business decision.

Although Baby Boomers are the biggest spenders today, the growing teens and tweens (8 to 12 years old) segments are the wave of the future. If you are catering to these segments, one of the best ways to connect and promote your brand is by actively participating in social networking Web sites. A new study from a youth-oriented marketing firm, Alloy Media & Marketing, reveals that 96% of online teens and tweens use social networking and 71% connect weekly.

If you decide to take advantage of this opportunity, you must do it in such a way that you will help enhance not interrupt their social networking experience.

In other words, give them freebies: utilities, cool downloads, exclusive content and other items of value. “Mix their music or animate their backgrounds or offer a countdown to a special day,” said Samantha Skey, exec VP-strategic marketing at Alloy.

While this approach works well in businesses involving technology and entertainment, teen and tween girls are also interested to know more about personal care products. Would it be nice if you can take the first mover advantage in this category?

There are different social networking sites now and you can choose among this list your preferred site.

Via Entrepreneur Daily

Here’s a secret your your employer doesn’t want you to know. Having you work from home is generally far cheaper for them than setting up an office/ cubicle for you. Depending on the city you live in, the average non-executive career job might cost them $50-70/hour, maybe more. There’s the cost of electricity, office furniture, supplies, time wasted at the water cooler, the rent per square foot of your cubicle, your salary, and more.

So if you work from home, your employer might be able to pay you more, provided doing so saves them money. However, if their total monthly operating costs do not decrease, don’t expect a larger salary. More important than raw costs: can they trust you, and will you be more efficient working from home? Some jobs simply require being physically present at the office.

If you manage to convince an employer to let you telecommute, you also have the freedom to start your own entrepreneurial efforts at home. That’s a bit better than being a weekend entrepreneur.

If you’re already a startup entrepreneur with limited capital and are thinking of hiring, take into mind the above considerations. If you end up with an employee or contractor you can trust, seriously put some thought into letting them telecommute not only as a way to save on operational costs, but as a bonus for their good work. Those people already successfully working online know how to let their work prove itself.

As Guy Kawasaki says in No plan, no capital, no model… no problem, you don’t always need a capital or a crew to make millions of dollars per year, especially if the Internet is your business’ platform. While your business may not currently be online, that doesn’t mean you cannot come up with some aspect that can be promoted online.

Take, for example, the website Woot! It started as a way an electronics store or some such to get rid of a few junk items. I think that’s the way I recall it being described. But it turned into an ultra-popular website that usually sells out each new, hot consumter electronics items every day. Imagine being able to determine what your cashflow will be each day. And because the store and staff still exist, sending out product isn’t a problem for them.

Woot! is probably one of the best integrated online/offline business models I have seen to date. Can you come up with some innovative way to build a presence online for your bricks-and-mortar business?

There are always new businesses starting up, but it seems that this is a hot time for the “startup”, especially for online businesses. In my weblog subscriptions folder, I found around ten weblogs about Startups, many of which are relatively new sites themselves. Then there’s a new online reality show called StartUp, with 21 episodes scheduled, that will show at HDOnlineCinema.

With all this Startup fever in the air, if you think you have some salable ideas but not the wherewithal to get them started, check out Cambrian House, a crowdsourcing site. Ideas come together and wisdom and skills are combined, according to their How it works page.

There’s also MobIncentive [via Entering Startup], another crowdsourcing site. You propose an idea that you’d like to see become reality, and, if I understand correctly, others who agree offer cash incentives to the person or group who is willing to complete the idea. If you have a look at the current items, though, being the fastest to drink a beer (for a prize of $20) isn’t exactly in the entrepreneurial vein.

The majority of people that become entrepreneurs either start right out of school when there’s no pressure yet about holding a regular job, or they fall into a lump of startup capital. Right. Which leaves the other most common process of becoming an entrepreneur: easing into it while holding down a part- or full-time job, or being a stay-at-home parent.

It’s by no means an easy process, but it can be done. Michelle Anton at Weekend Entrepreneur offers twelve very useful tips to both make efficient use of your time and to stay under the radar. The latter is important so that co-workers don’t get jealous and that you don’t jeopardize your job. It doesn’t matter that your side business may not be earning anything yet. There may be just one small-minded coworker unable to pursue their own dreams, but they are enough to give you grief, even get you fired.

I’m a bit shocked and somewhat enlightened with the results of a new survey conducted by Discover Small Business Watch, a monthly index measuring the relative economic confidence of U.S. small business owners who employ less than five employees.

Independence not money is the primary motivator among entrepreneurs. Even if the majority (64%) believes that it is riskier and harder to run a small business compared to working as an employee in an established company, our latent need for power and control emerges. Besides, who doesn’t want to be the Man or the Boss?

Survey Highlights:

• 46% of owners started a small business to have more flexibility with their time or to be more independent. Only 19% cite making more money as the primary reason.
• 61% would still choose independence over working for someone else – even if offered more money than they currently make.
• When asked about the biggest challenge facing their business, 28% cite finding new business and 21% cite managing cash flows.

This survey will be more interesting if they can capture how many among these 22 million small businesses today started as hobbies. Maybe there is also a way to verify and quantify the role of passion as key driver for the growth of small business.

Expect to see more posts on business development and cash flow management so we can help you face these major challenges.

Via Small Business Connection