How to survive the influx of customers and not to close: a checklist for Internet entrepreneurs
The director of marketing and business development of Audiomania , Timofey Shikolenkov, continues to talk about typical mistakes of Internet projects - and how to work with them. The traps at the start of the project we have already discussed in this material, the next step is the business at the stage of sustainable growth.
Business is like the second (or even the first) child: it requires constant attention, care and support from the founders. Like any child, the business grows - and with growth there is a need for new management approaches and techniques: what worked at the start can not necessarily be scaled to the level of an actively developing project.
Our experience of interaction with other online stores confirms: the stage of active growth, when the project begins to expand, and the leadership approaches remain the same - one of the most serious in the life of the company. This material is about how to recognize the dangerous signs that you have turned from caring "parents" for your project into hapless "ancestors" who are not ready to understand that their child has already grown up.
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In the practice of Russian ecommerce, there were cases when the management of an online store required couriers to give flowers and candy to “especially loyal” customers, in addition to delivering orders, despite the fact that they did not sell the store. If you take this approach for granted, and the phrase “unique service” makes you constantly invent new reasons to surprise customers, you will have to be upset: you are confusing customer focus and customer productivity.
What it threatens is: when a company has few customers, it is easy to implement an individual approach: there are few orders, so you can safely load employees with non-core work. It is not excluded that in some cases this may be beneficial for the company: it will ensure the appearance of the first loyal users, will attract the attention of the press.
However, as soon as the company's turnover increases, customer service goes “on stream”, and each additional action, each unscheduled fulfillment of the client’s whim, begins to cost a lot of money and a headache, “reducing to nothing” the economies of scale, due to which large enterprises usually keep afloat.
Moreover, any “exceptional” services rendered several times become the norm. If buyers receive generous bonuses from you, then this practice will seem to them to be mundane. One day, when a client does not receive his dose of service (for which he has developed tolerance), a stream of indignation and criticism awaits you, and if the company refuses to provide bonuses at all, for example, due to financial problems, there is a high probability of being left without clientele.
Another detrimental consequence of client-content is a shift in the focus of managers from the main operating activities to “additional services”. This is fraught with the fact that in pursuit of creativity, employees will no longer cope with direct responsibilities, and the leadership will maintain the illusion that everything is going as it should.
And there will be a new way to justify their mistakes: "Sorry, we have delayed the delivery, because we chose you candy." But will the client help the candy if, for example, he ordered a birthday present for a friend and because of the delay did not have time to hand it in on time?
Exceptions: yes, there are industries where special attitude and compliments are secretly a mandatory part of transactions, and non-standard (and “non-standardized” by the standards of streaming service) service comes first: selling luxury goods, less often - hotel and restaurant businesses usually also in the luxury segment). If your project does not apply to such areas, you should not “hook up” the client on a “unique service”.
What to do: the overwhelming majority of your customers are intelligent and adequate people who do not expect overselling hyper-help and sudden bonuses from the seller. What they are really waiting for is the fulfillment of your direct duties: delivery on time, detailed advice on the order, the possibility of returning the goods according to the law. Does the buyer require the fulfillment of dubious desires that are not within the scope of your obligations? You should not go on about it - you will spend money and time in vain.
If your online store does not sell luxury goods and the number of customers grows, forget about customer obsession, concentrate better on improving your direct responsibilities, the effect of which can be measured and scaled. This, in particular, is about reducing the time of delivery, the selection of qualified consultants, high-quality interface design. Such an approach will ensure that - even if not unique - but a consistently good level of service will be provided to all your customers, without exception.
Another “trap” of many e-commerce projects. When the scale of activity is small, business forgives this mistake. But if your warehouse is empty or you don’t have a warehouse at all, and after each order the courier goes to the supplier, you will have a hard time when the number of orders grows.
What it threatens is: in order to conduct business “in the old manner” and continue working from the supplier’s warehouse, you will have to fork out: increase the staff of couriers, raise their salaries (according to the increased number of their movements), hire additional managers for planning and implementing logistics. Of course, this situation does not contribute to the financial well-being of the company.
In addition, with an increase in the number of orders and customers you are likely to increase the number of suppliers. And it’s not a fact that they will all be close to your office or even close to each other (although there are some such cases). Now, remembering the effect of scale, think about what each courier trip will cost you first to the supplier, and then to the buyer. And how much time will be spent aimlessly?
An incompleteness or inaccuracy of information can also play a cruel joke. Imagine: the buyer has made an order with you, and the supplier of the goods is not available, or the price is not the same - an error in the catalog. Of course, you can say that these are problems of the supplier, but the buyer doesn’t care - the reputation will be stained by the store in which he placed the order.
What to do: unfortunately, there is only one way out - you will have to build your own warehouse and take additional costs - rent a room, hire a storekeeper, develop an assortment policy.
The latter task, as a rule, raises the most questions. The easiest way to start is to consult a supplier - find out which items in his product range are popular. Adequate supplier will not dissemble and deceive your partner, because the more you sell, the more it sells. If the supplier does not want to help with the choice, it is worth considering whether to continue cooperation.
Based on these recommendations, you can make the purchase of "top" positions in reasonable amounts. Of course, this will not save your couriers from traveling for goods that are not in stock, but in general will save a lot of time, help you prepare for the influx of customers and - oddly enough - keep relationships with suppliers.
It is much more pleasant for them to work with that counterpart that makes itself known rarely, and does not resort every day with its petty requests. A good supplier has things to do besides constantly communicating with your couriers, and if it’s convenient to work with you, he will appreciate it.
When the business does not bring a large income, it is worth adhering to the strategy of healthy savings of monetary resources. To save on the services of specialists, a small company can do some simple things with its own hands, but even in this case, the result will not always meet expectations.
When the scale of business increases, there should be two ways in front of the company (in theory): hire a professional (programmer, designer, photographer, copywriter) on the staff or contact another company for the appropriate service. In practice, online stores continue to engage in artisan amateur activities, explaining their behavior by the fact that “the layman built the Ark, the professionals - the Titanic”.
What it threatens: saving on the services of professionals "at their own expense" is an illusion. A professional knows all the nuances of work and will perform it in a much shorter time than your unprepared employee. During this time, he could bring the company income by doing what he was hired for. Therefore, taking into account the loss of profits, the cost of performing non-core work on your own is usually more expensive than attracting the services of third-party organizations and specialists or hiring a professional.
A vivid example of where you shouldn't go do it yourself without proper preparation is contextual advertising. “We tried contextual advertising. It doesn’t work ”- the standard attitude to this tool is where contextual advertising is simply not properly configured or an automated service is used to save money. Contextual advertising should be done by a person. And this person should be a professional (even better - if this professional works with you on a long-term basis).
What to do: when you want to save on the services of professionals, think about whether these savings are real. When choosing a partner company or agency, limit yourself to non-core areas in which you can build long-term cooperation with a proven team (contextual advertising is one of those industries where low staff turnover is a rare success).
If you do not intend to attract third-party specialists, or hire employees in the staff, you will have to spend at least on training someone who will perform non-core work. It is advisable to find an experienced teacher who in a couple of days will explain to a beginner the basics of his future activity. Then you can go to self-education and practice. Even such an approach would be much better than thoughtless "experiments."
All these problems are united by the fact that at the initial stage of business development they do not interfere with the organization’s work, do not lead to financial and temporary losses. But the activities of a medium or large online store, these "traps" can knock down, which is fraught with serious consequences - until closing.
Company executives are not at all masochistic and do not want to purposefully crush their projects. The entrepreneur is driven by fear: the fear of losing customers forces him to provide an inflated level of service; the fear of not selling the goods and losing money makes it necessary to work from the supplier’s warehouse; fear of overpaying and being left without money leads to the fact that he solves all problems on his own.
As you know, the best way to get rid of fear - meeting with him face to face. Take care of customers, but do not allow hypertext. Do not save on your own warehouse, qualified personnel and partnership with professional agencies. This will allow you to get all the benefits of growing your business.
What else do we write about:
Business is like the second (or even the first) child: it requires constant attention, care and support from the founders. Like any child, the business grows - and with growth there is a need for new management approaches and techniques: what worked at the start can not necessarily be scaled to the level of an actively developing project.
Our experience of interaction with other online stores confirms: the stage of active growth, when the project begins to expand, and the leadership approaches remain the same - one of the most serious in the life of the company. This material is about how to recognize the dangerous signs that you have turned from caring "parents" for your project into hapless "ancestors" who are not ready to understand that their child has already grown up.
')
You are confusing customer focus and client content
In the practice of Russian ecommerce, there were cases when the management of an online store required couriers to give flowers and candy to “especially loyal” customers, in addition to delivering orders, despite the fact that they did not sell the store. If you take this approach for granted, and the phrase “unique service” makes you constantly invent new reasons to surprise customers, you will have to be upset: you are confusing customer focus and customer productivity.
What it threatens is: when a company has few customers, it is easy to implement an individual approach: there are few orders, so you can safely load employees with non-core work. It is not excluded that in some cases this may be beneficial for the company: it will ensure the appearance of the first loyal users, will attract the attention of the press.
However, as soon as the company's turnover increases, customer service goes “on stream”, and each additional action, each unscheduled fulfillment of the client’s whim, begins to cost a lot of money and a headache, “reducing to nothing” the economies of scale, due to which large enterprises usually keep afloat.
Moreover, any “exceptional” services rendered several times become the norm. If buyers receive generous bonuses from you, then this practice will seem to them to be mundane. One day, when a client does not receive his dose of service (for which he has developed tolerance), a stream of indignation and criticism awaits you, and if the company refuses to provide bonuses at all, for example, due to financial problems, there is a high probability of being left without clientele.
Another detrimental consequence of client-content is a shift in the focus of managers from the main operating activities to “additional services”. This is fraught with the fact that in pursuit of creativity, employees will no longer cope with direct responsibilities, and the leadership will maintain the illusion that everything is going as it should.
And there will be a new way to justify their mistakes: "Sorry, we have delayed the delivery, because we chose you candy." But will the client help the candy if, for example, he ordered a birthday present for a friend and because of the delay did not have time to hand it in on time?
Exceptions: yes, there are industries where special attitude and compliments are secretly a mandatory part of transactions, and non-standard (and “non-standardized” by the standards of streaming service) service comes first: selling luxury goods, less often - hotel and restaurant businesses usually also in the luxury segment). If your project does not apply to such areas, you should not “hook up” the client on a “unique service”.
What to do: the overwhelming majority of your customers are intelligent and adequate people who do not expect overselling hyper-help and sudden bonuses from the seller. What they are really waiting for is the fulfillment of your direct duties: delivery on time, detailed advice on the order, the possibility of returning the goods according to the law. Does the buyer require the fulfillment of dubious desires that are not within the scope of your obligations? You should not go on about it - you will spend money and time in vain.
If your online store does not sell luxury goods and the number of customers grows, forget about customer obsession, concentrate better on improving your direct responsibilities, the effect of which can be measured and scaled. This, in particular, is about reducing the time of delivery, the selection of qualified consultants, high-quality interface design. Such an approach will ensure that - even if not unique - but a consistently good level of service will be provided to all your customers, without exception.
You continue to work from the supplier's warehouse
Another “trap” of many e-commerce projects. When the scale of activity is small, business forgives this mistake. But if your warehouse is empty or you don’t have a warehouse at all, and after each order the courier goes to the supplier, you will have a hard time when the number of orders grows.
What it threatens is: in order to conduct business “in the old manner” and continue working from the supplier’s warehouse, you will have to fork out: increase the staff of couriers, raise their salaries (according to the increased number of their movements), hire additional managers for planning and implementing logistics. Of course, this situation does not contribute to the financial well-being of the company.
In addition, with an increase in the number of orders and customers you are likely to increase the number of suppliers. And it’s not a fact that they will all be close to your office or even close to each other (although there are some such cases). Now, remembering the effect of scale, think about what each courier trip will cost you first to the supplier, and then to the buyer. And how much time will be spent aimlessly?
An incompleteness or inaccuracy of information can also play a cruel joke. Imagine: the buyer has made an order with you, and the supplier of the goods is not available, or the price is not the same - an error in the catalog. Of course, you can say that these are problems of the supplier, but the buyer doesn’t care - the reputation will be stained by the store in which he placed the order.
What to do: unfortunately, there is only one way out - you will have to build your own warehouse and take additional costs - rent a room, hire a storekeeper, develop an assortment policy.
The latter task, as a rule, raises the most questions. The easiest way to start is to consult a supplier - find out which items in his product range are popular. Adequate supplier will not dissemble and deceive your partner, because the more you sell, the more it sells. If the supplier does not want to help with the choice, it is worth considering whether to continue cooperation.
Based on these recommendations, you can make the purchase of "top" positions in reasonable amounts. Of course, this will not save your couriers from traveling for goods that are not in stock, but in general will save a lot of time, help you prepare for the influx of customers and - oddly enough - keep relationships with suppliers.
It is much more pleasant for them to work with that counterpart that makes itself known rarely, and does not resort every day with its petty requests. A good supplier has things to do besides constantly communicating with your couriers, and if it’s convenient to work with you, he will appreciate it.
You do not trust the professionals
When the business does not bring a large income, it is worth adhering to the strategy of healthy savings of monetary resources. To save on the services of specialists, a small company can do some simple things with its own hands, but even in this case, the result will not always meet expectations.
When the scale of business increases, there should be two ways in front of the company (in theory): hire a professional (programmer, designer, photographer, copywriter) on the staff or contact another company for the appropriate service. In practice, online stores continue to engage in artisan amateur activities, explaining their behavior by the fact that “the layman built the Ark, the professionals - the Titanic”.
What it threatens: saving on the services of professionals "at their own expense" is an illusion. A professional knows all the nuances of work and will perform it in a much shorter time than your unprepared employee. During this time, he could bring the company income by doing what he was hired for. Therefore, taking into account the loss of profits, the cost of performing non-core work on your own is usually more expensive than attracting the services of third-party organizations and specialists or hiring a professional.
A vivid example of where you shouldn't go do it yourself without proper preparation is contextual advertising. “We tried contextual advertising. It doesn’t work ”- the standard attitude to this tool is where contextual advertising is simply not properly configured or an automated service is used to save money. Contextual advertising should be done by a person. And this person should be a professional (even better - if this professional works with you on a long-term basis).
What to do: when you want to save on the services of professionals, think about whether these savings are real. When choosing a partner company or agency, limit yourself to non-core areas in which you can build long-term cooperation with a proven team (contextual advertising is one of those industries where low staff turnover is a rare success).
If you do not intend to attract third-party specialists, or hire employees in the staff, you will have to spend at least on training someone who will perform non-core work. It is advisable to find an experienced teacher who in a couple of days will explain to a beginner the basics of his future activity. Then you can go to self-education and practice. Even such an approach would be much better than thoughtless "experiments."
Pitfalls of consciousness
All these problems are united by the fact that at the initial stage of business development they do not interfere with the organization’s work, do not lead to financial and temporary losses. But the activities of a medium or large online store, these "traps" can knock down, which is fraught with serious consequences - until closing.
Company executives are not at all masochistic and do not want to purposefully crush their projects. The entrepreneur is driven by fear: the fear of losing customers forces him to provide an inflated level of service; the fear of not selling the goods and losing money makes it necessary to work from the supplier’s warehouse; fear of overpaying and being left without money leads to the fact that he solves all problems on his own.
As you know, the best way to get rid of fear - meeting with him face to face. Take care of customers, but do not allow hypertext. Do not save on your own warehouse, qualified personnel and partnership with professional agencies. This will allow you to get all the benefits of growing your business.
What else do we write about:
- Decide in your mind: What you need to know when starting a business in e-commerce
- The fight for the regions: How to online store to win against an offline retailer
- "Conservative sound": Talk Arslab and Penaudio
- "We look at home": We discuss technologies and formats
- Audio Digest # 6: Do it Yourself, Interesting about Sound and Audio Technologies
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/308866/
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