I had somebody ask me recently what he could do to establish how his business was performing – lead conversion, how inquiries  were being handled, customer service etc. – because he was so involved in the operational side of the business he had lost track of what was happening in the sales and service areas.

If you are more involved in operational matters and you’re worried you’re not keeping your fingers on the pulse of the customer sales and service, it is incredibly important to first make sure that you have put in place processes and procedures for staff to follow.

If they’re clueless and dropping the ball, you have only yourself to blame.

That’s a given. If you’re too busy, outsource it.

Read on for some tips on how to find out what's really going on in your business...

Photo by Ambro

I had somebody ask me recently what he could do to establish how his business was performing – lead conversion, how inquiries were being handled, customer service etc. – because he was so involved in the operational side of the business he had lost track of what was happening sales and service areas.

If you are more involved in operational matters and you’re worried you’re not keeping your fingers on the pulse of the customer sales and service, it is incredibly important to first make sure that you have put in place processes and procedures for staff to follow.

If they’re clueless and dropping the ball, you have only yourself to blame.

That’s a given. If you’re to busy, outsource it.

The second part is to measure performance over a three month period and, again, you don’t have to be hands on to do this – some of it is easy, and the rest can be outsourced.

Some tactics you could apply include:

* If you don’t have it already, ask your phone company to send you a weekly report of all incoming/outgoing calls and, once a week, select one or two at random and call them up. Ask them for some informal feedback about their experience in dealing with your company.
* Have friends, family or contacts do some ‘Mystery shopper’ calls.
* Phone a few of your existing clients / customers and ask them how satisfied they are with your service.
* Conduct a short two or three question email survey of people on your database (the facilities to do this are now free online). Include existing and previous clients.
* Outsource a telephone survey of your target market (that is, people you are not currently doing business with).
* Put together a form for reception or sales to complete every time an inquiry comes in. Who it was, what they wanted, what the outcome was…

All of these activities will be appreciated by your customers, who having received a call from the company, will enjoy the attention and show more loyalty as a result.

It will also help you identify areas where your staff might be letting you down, or where you may be missing out on some new opportunities – certainly some of the feedback should alert you to changing trends and attitudes in the industry.