It’s a simple fact that good businesses have high levels of customer satisfaction, excellent customer loyalty and even higher employee retention rates.
Aka, a good business is a place where everyone wants to work or spend money.
A good business provides a genuine, carefully curated customer experience for its patrons. It is the first name that springs to mind when friends are in search of recommendations for a product or service.
The question is, will people say your company name when asked? Or could your business strategy do with a little fine-tuning?
Every business has room for improvement. So here are some pointers on how to become a better business in 2024 and beyond.
Replace Customer Service With Customer Engagement
Stating the obvious, without customers you don’t have a business.
The weird thing is despite companies now having more ways to reach their customers than ever before, customer service has probably never felt so dismal. Airlines and delivery companies are two major examples that spring to mind here.
But in reality, every single business has to put in the effort to attract, retain and delight its customers – or face the consequences (aka high churn rates and ghastly Trustpilot reviews).
Often customer frustrations spill into social media channels. But without a trail of the customer journey, and sometimes a lack of customer service training things can soon get messy.
Don’t worry, you can still use your digital tools for good and improve your company’s reputation at the same time. But you have to go beyond customer service and instead partake in customer engagement.
Customer engagement gives a concierge-like experience. If you think that sounds really expensive, complicated or downright scary, it’s really not. Instead, customer engagement is simply about bringing the human element into the conversation.
Cause’ that’s what your customers are after all.
As a business, customer engagement is how you keep the best track of your customers and their journey with you so far. It means you have a much better chance of meeting their needs and retaining their revenue with you.
If you don’t know where to start, check out our customer engagement platform.
Invest In Your People
Throughout 2022/2023 all of us saw news reports of endless worker strikes and disputes. Plus, post-pandemic various industries have struggled to attract workers, shifting the balance from job shortage to worker shortage.
The thing is, so many of these well-publicised gripes are long-standing issues. It’s just they were never resolved, and now the whole world knows about it – including their customers.
When your employees feel valued, and they genuinely want to work at your company that will be reflected in the work they do.
Some stats to back this up, courtesy of Lorman:
Happy salespeople generate 37% more sales for a company.
Disengaged workers cost the US economy $550 billion in lost productivity per year.
79% of US workers consider company culture an essential aspect of job satisfaction.
83% of millennials state work/life balance is the most important factor when considering a job opportunity.
Employers who increase employee engagement can boost profits by $2,400 per employee per year. That soon adds up for larger companies!
In contrast, if your team feel devalued and unmotivated, everything from productivity to employee retention will suffer. Of course, all this will then impact the customers in various negative ways.
So just like you don’t have a business without customers, you also can’t serve those customers without good people in your company. This makes investing in your talent non-negotiable, for any business which strives to be the best.
Reduce Your Carbon Emissions
It’s impossible to ignore the fact that each of us has a carbon footprint. If you’re not sure what yours is, check out our previous post on ‘5 Carbon Footprint Calculators To Help You Lower Your CO2 Emissions’.
As a business, we know it can feel overwhelming to even know where to start with becoming a greener company. There’s actually a really simple change you can make, and one you probably don’t even realise generates carbon emissions: sending emails.
Research suggests that for every email sent, between 4g and 50g of carbon emissions are generated. With around 300 billion emails sent per day, that soon adds up.
So what can you do about it? Well, we’ve actually solved that one for you, in the form of our new tool EcoSend by GoSquared.
EcoSend helps you to use intelligence tools and data to send fewer email campaigns which are more effective versus send-to-all email blasts. As well as running on renewable energies, we plant trees at various points in your customer journey with us. We’re also re-investing some of our profits into climate-related causes.
When you send emails through EcoSend, your customers can also see that you use us in the message. This demonstrates to all your customers, investors and anyone else of interest that you’re striving to be a better as well as an eco-friendly business too.
P.S: Not to brag, but as well as being climate-conscious, we’re also cheaper than most other tools out there. All without losing out on any of the features you need as a marketer!
We can give you a free trial of EcoSend which you can start today, and we’ll plant a tree on your behalf just for signing up!
Don’t Make The Focus Of Your Business Purely About Profit
In a recent EcoSend podcast episode called ‘CSR Done Right’, we had a good discussion about leaving a positive legacy on the world, rather than just making money.
For instance, we’ve recently picked up litter off the streets of London and volunteered at a food bank.
We try to give up some time once a month to help others in need. For us, it’s not just about trying to ‘look good’. We know there are people in need, and if we can give even some time to helping them, for us we know we’re doing our bit.
Imagine if every business could do the same? Leaving the corporate environment to help others even for a few hours a month builds that human connection with others.
Not only will you and your employees feel good for doing so, but you could make a vital difference to someone else. Once you look beyond your own needs, that’s when the good stuff starts to happen for any business.
Join An Accredited Scheme For Good Business Practice
If you really want to become a better business in 2023, then why not make it official?
In 2022, GoSquared became accredited by the Good Business Charter. That name is pretty apt for this post, seen as to get recognised, your business needs to demonstrate a high level of compliance across areas such as the living wage, employee wellbeing, commitment to customers and ethical sourcing.
Joining such schemes is also a great way to network with other like-minded businesses.
Once again, the focus here isn’t about profit, but how to create a company that genuinely puts some good back into the world.
EcoSend – Email Marketing & Customer Engagement Tools For Businesses
Now you know how to make your business better in 2024, how about switching to a better email marketing platform too?
EcoSend is the world's first sustainable email marketing platform. Businesses can still enjoy all the tools they need but without the cost to the planet.
Sign up for your free trial of EcoSend to see what we're all about.
