This is an excellent post by Shep Hyken on the 5 most important customer service trends for 2013 you should be aware of.
Whether your customer is a consumer or business, this article is well worth reading.
Five Customer Service Trends for 2013 – youngstapreneur.com.
Marissa Mayer the CEO of Yahoo gets my vote. She is doing it all by the numbers.
When faced with a business like Yahoo with a substantial amount of dead weight dragging it down and a lot of legacy that needs to be cleaned up she has done an awesome job. The first steps in any rescue is to stop the bleed. Only after the patient is stabilised can you get to work in repairing the damage.
First she organises the redesign of the Yahoo interface to bring it up to date (this may even be an interim design).
Second she does something very unpopular that has employees and the media in an uproar. Even Sir Richard Branson just had to have a dig and criticise calling the move ‘perplexing’ and ‘backwards’ in today’s mobile work environment.
She improves productivity by making it difficult to use the system and slack off.. you can’t tell me that home and telecommuting workers are all 100% committed to the business and working to their maximum productivity. We all know it’s a big perk. If you want to disagree, please do, but I have seen it many times first hand. Yahoo has specific legacy here and many of the employees agree with the CEO.
Third she is removing the unprofitable or unsustainable products and services. A couple of days ago there was an announcement about Yahoo Shutting Down 7 Products. From my perspective this is all by the book or if you like “Rescue 101“. So what is Marissa’s next move? Anyone willing to take a punt at a guess?
In my opinion it will be another strategic move that may not be popular but will be designed to reduce the current cost base or possibly introduce a new product/service offering that will improve revenue figures.
Who ever said being a CEO is a popularity contest?
This is an interesting article about why the SME community is not embracing the internet and social media. It provides a clearer picture of what the real issues are.
This is well worth reading if you are in the business of providing internet based services to the SME business community.
Six reasons why SMEs are so slow to embrace the digital world.
Comments and points of view are welcome..
Over the last few days I have been discussing Social Media and it’s impact with a small business client. I understand because of his background he has a bit of fear associated with technology and keeps coming up with excuses about not getting involved. My goal is to get him involved in social media at least in a small way… so I can guide him and increase his comfort levels when… I stumbled across this video on YouTube.
This video very simply demonstrates the power of social media. It shows the speed of uptake and compares it to Radio and Television. With the statistics that are shown (most out of date by now) it paints a clear picture of why your business… any business must embrace social media as one of its communication mediums or certainly be left behind and become irrelevant in todays fast changing world.
Now I have the right tool and content to convince my client to move forward. Enjoy.
What do you think? Let me know.
A passion for Small Business 