One of the most commonly used statement by Small and Medium Enterprises, is that : "its difficult for us to compete with larger firms" and generally economies of scale in various aspects of the business are cited as the reason for the same.
Especially SMEs in manufacturing and similar areas and domains comment that larger firms have the ability to purchase raw materials and they have the option of maintaining stocks for a longer time, while being small the SMEs are not able to afford such business scale due to obvious challenges.
Lets look at how Being Small is Beneficial
Many a times smaller firms fail to realize that the smaller scale provides them benefits, as they can provide far more customized service to their customers, while maintaining a personal touch, which is not really easy for a large organization.
Customer service is one crucial area where many companies feel, the bigger the customer service department, the better it is. While the experience of many a customers, when they voice their reasons of working with smaller and emerging firms is has been very engaging. Customers always voice that their experience of working with smaller and emerging companies is the fact that smaller companies are ready to work and go that extra mile for them. They feel its a relationship and not just business.
Customer Retention: only big companies can do it?!
Customer retention is times that we are living in, wherein every business is facing stiff competition. there are enough parallel offerings your customers have from the market at multiple price points, such that they are literally spoilt for choice. Your business has to be compelling enough to actually ensure that its worth dealing with.
Business is a lot about relationships. In our experience of working with SMEs since a couple of years in India, we have seen, companies starting-up and rising up the ladder of success, while maintaining and building upon solid relationships.
With technology keeping conversations alive and new age media and communication methodologies driving engagements, a personal touch to a communication energizes a relationship far stronger than any other way. And relationships are no different when it comes to doing successful business.
But even we will grow to a sizable organization one day!
YES! you will. And that's why we suggest our partner SMEs to create and establish internal processes which create the right set of expectations with the clients from the pre-sales stage to actually creating an experiential "wow" effect post sale.
Remember, customer service is not an accidental happening. It has to be planned before hand and there have to be solid and passion driven customer oriented mechanisms within a company, held together by driven professionals.
Technology helps
Technologies like CRM, Collaborative tools like Internal Social Networks empower your organizational prowess in delivering quality and maintaining and managing it with and for your customers. From ensuring that timely reporting mechanisms exist in your organisation to invoice creation and tracking. From taking feedback to service calls, using available technology in the market can surely help your business become more process oriented and customer centric.
But isn't it going to cost me a bomb?
Not really! Much of the technology is free or priced very affordably. There are many open source tools available which are proving to be a great boon for emerging companies and start-ups alike.
As an SME its in your good to ensure that your customer is happy and that you build on relationships on strong foundations. Going the extra mile is probably one of the biggest reasons why a customer is being with you in the first place, while keeping your expertise and value add on high priority for the business.
To know more about how you can create solid processes in your organization to ensure quality customer service, drop a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!
Especially SMEs in manufacturing and similar areas and domains comment that larger firms have the ability to purchase raw materials and they have the option of maintaining stocks for a longer time, while being small the SMEs are not able to afford such business scale due to obvious challenges.
Lets look at how Being Small is Beneficial
Many a times smaller firms fail to realize that the smaller scale provides them benefits, as they can provide far more customized service to their customers, while maintaining a personal touch, which is not really easy for a large organization.
Customer service is one crucial area where many companies feel, the bigger the customer service department, the better it is. While the experience of many a customers, when they voice their reasons of working with smaller and emerging firms is has been very engaging. Customers always voice that their experience of working with smaller and emerging companies is the fact that smaller companies are ready to work and go that extra mile for them. They feel its a relationship and not just business.
Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/customer-service.jpg
Customer Retention: only big companies can do it?!
Customer retention is times that we are living in, wherein every business is facing stiff competition. there are enough parallel offerings your customers have from the market at multiple price points, such that they are literally spoilt for choice. Your business has to be compelling enough to actually ensure that its worth dealing with.
Business is a lot about relationships. In our experience of working with SMEs since a couple of years in India, we have seen, companies starting-up and rising up the ladder of success, while maintaining and building upon solid relationships.
With technology keeping conversations alive and new age media and communication methodologies driving engagements, a personal touch to a communication energizes a relationship far stronger than any other way. And relationships are no different when it comes to doing successful business.
But even we will grow to a sizable organization one day!
YES! you will. And that's why we suggest our partner SMEs to create and establish internal processes which create the right set of expectations with the clients from the pre-sales stage to actually creating an experiential "wow" effect post sale.
Remember, customer service is not an accidental happening. It has to be planned before hand and there have to be solid and passion driven customer oriented mechanisms within a company, held together by driven professionals.
Technology helps
Technologies like CRM, Collaborative tools like Internal Social Networks empower your organizational prowess in delivering quality and maintaining and managing it with and for your customers. From ensuring that timely reporting mechanisms exist in your organisation to invoice creation and tracking. From taking feedback to service calls, using available technology in the market can surely help your business become more process oriented and customer centric.
But isn't it going to cost me a bomb?
Not really! Much of the technology is free or priced very affordably. There are many open source tools available which are proving to be a great boon for emerging companies and start-ups alike.
As an SME its in your good to ensure that your customer is happy and that you build on relationships on strong foundations. Going the extra mile is probably one of the biggest reasons why a customer is being with you in the first place, while keeping your expertise and value add on high priority for the business.
To know more about how you can create solid processes in your organization to ensure quality customer service, drop a comment to this post and our team of experts will be happy to help!
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