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2010 May

2010 May

Malaga Corp. Let's Talk Newsletter header
 

Downsizing without Killing the Mood
 
 

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

It's not always easy to be happy -- even though it's free
Maintaining a positive customer experience in an age of cutbacks, extra work hours, short pay and uncertain futures is not easy, and some days are worse than others. But your customers are your business -- what would you do without them? So make sure to show them your best attitude.

Ways to stay positive
~ If there are issues to handle think of your customer as part of the team -- not the enemy. How can "we" fix this problem?
~Separate the issue from the person. The issue might be a problem but your customer is not.
~Steal time: an extra minute to talk to your customer is more meaningful than ever. Make sure not to take up their valuable time -- but don't let your own busy schedule prevent you from asking about your customer's good health.
~Keep your priorities straight - if you have to cut something in favor of customer service - do it - and make sure staff knows where your priorities lie.

BE PREPARED
Just as preparing for growth is critical so is preparing for cutbacks. Sudden growth can destroy a business that is unprepared for it and -- for many of the same reasons -- so can sudden cutbacks. In both cases staff can become overworked, a feeling of disorganization and lack of control can take over, and customers can suffer if their needs aren't top priority. And isn both cases, preparing through continual and frequent business planning and reassessment, resource cultivation, and streamlining of processes can help support your success through the fluctuations that outside forces can cause.

REMEMBER YOUR TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS
1. It's hard to take time out when staff is short and the day is long but remember your time management tools and take an hour a day to write down and prioritize tasks and "think out" issues.
2. Prioritize: It's important to prioritize purposefully rather than doing what seems "hot." You may be able to spot items that can be postponed and areas that are not essential when you analyse the situation with perspective rather than while you are in the midst of the chaos of business.
3. Schedule a limited time each day for answering emails and phone calls. Most communication can wait 4 - 24 hours and don't need to distract you from other tasks.

WAYS TO CUT

Look at your product list: Are there products or services that are not profitable because of the time or costs involved; or because of post sale issues? Are there products that require more sales hours? Consider speciallizing in just the products and services that are the most profitable.

Look at your clients
1. Difficult customers may or may not bring you profits. If you are losing time and money on certain clients consider letting them go or restructuring their pricing or services.
2. See if grouping or catagorizing your customers might result in efficiencies in production or customer service.
3. Break client projects into smaller tasks that can be completed assembly-line style.

Look at your prospecting strategy
1. Find less expensive ways to treat customers during sales calls: coffee instead of lunch or talk while walking through their favorite museum or art show instead of pricier entertainment.
2. Are you spending time with the wrong prospects? Tighten up your qualification process.
3. Consider meeting with more than one "low value" prospect at a time. They may get more out of the conversation if you approach it like a mini workshop or Q and A session. There may be less opportunity to understand the pain of the individual prospect but you can follow up with a second meeting with those who are still insterested.

Look at staffing
1. Hire new employees on a temporary basis.
2. Outsource: rather than hire new employees, outsource tasks. It may take more management on your part but you'll save in payroll expense and you won't pay for cooler talk time.
Cutting staff without tanking morale
3. Don't cut by the numbers: consider the critical skills you'll need to retain, the ease of replacement, and who has institutional memory.
4. Keep close tabs on morale. Unhappy employees afraid of losing their jobs altogether are unlikley to communicate their true feelings - don't wait till they walk out the door and leave you in a bad situation at the wrong time.
5. Find ways to reward them for working extra hours and taking pay cuts: take the work hard play hard attitude and plan friday beer parties or a saturday family picnic.
6. Offer unpaid vacation or leave
7. Offer employee incentives to make up for cut hours through sales or productivity bonuses.
8. Allow employees to work from home one day a week or more and save their commute time and childcare expense to ease the pain of salary cuts.

Automate
It takes a little time to analyze or re-analyze your work flow and develop automation, but it may be worth it.
1. Automate email responses: As time goes on more and more of our time is taken up with email. As you go from 50 to 200 to 400 emails a day or more, it can make a big difference to automate some email tasks. Responses, organization and creating workflow from emails can all be automated to an extent that might ease hundreds of hours a year.
2. Look at automation as product development time. Developing a service or delivery method to be more efficient and cost effective is a valuable use of time.
3. If you're letting people go, think of tasks that can be automated when you make your decision. Any task that involves repetitive keystrokes is a good candidate. If you can save an hour a day by automating a task it may be worth hiring a programmer. (Don't know where to start? Ask Malaga Corp.!)
4. Non-machine automation: Making the human part of your workflow more effeicient means good step by step documentation that allows staff to tackle a task without stopping to reinvent the wheel or refocus.


  
 
Customer Updates
  
     
 
Mission Bay TMA Shuttle & Website go Live!
Mission Bay TMA Shuttle
www.missionbaytma.org

Thanks to all who stopped by our table at Expo to tell us a joke and share in good spirits!
And congratulations to
Sydney Barbara Metrick of
Bridge Artspace for winning the prize for funniest joke! Expo

June 2nd!
Berkeley City Club Open Mic
Berkeley City Club Open Mic Night
 
   
 
 
  
 
 
 

May 2010  




Copy Evolves.






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Words of Wisdom
 
 
Malaga Smith
Malaga Corp. Marketing  
"A sailing ship is no democracy; you don't caucus a crew as to where you'll go anymore than you inquire when they'd like to shorten sail.”
      
-- Sterling Hayden
    
 
 

Copyright ©2010 Malaga Corp. All Rights Reserved.

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One Industrial Blvd., Suite 100, San Francisco, CA 94127
By appointment only, please.
(510) 704-1777
(877) 477-7847 toll-free
(510) 295-2471 fax
malagasales@malagacorp.com

www.malagacorp.com

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