5 Things You Can Learn From Family Business About How To Treat Your Customers

A family-run business is something that different people within a family group pitch in on. The goal is to keep the business solid by relying on those that one trusts. Five principles follow that should guide others to learn how a family business treats their customers, and how to profit from it. “Why treat others as family in a business?” one might ask.

Trust
Trust is important in a family-run business because it will keep fraudulent activity from happening. In the corporate world, fraud is something that can happen at any time, and often it goes unnoticed by management and the financial team. In a family-run operation, however, it is probably minimized, provided the family one hires is trustworthy and honest! Trust is something the owners need to have of their family members working for them, and honesty is a virtue that the family members should have within the dynamic of the business so that everyone makes money at the end of the day.

Treating the Customer Right
Trust extends into treating customers right. A trustworthy business will honor their word and written codes of warranties, guarantees, etc. No customer will return to a store where the employees and management are not going to honor a warranty on a defective item, or where the management refuses a refund or exchange. There are many companies online that offer great customer service that would rival any brick-and-mortar store in one’s home town.

Loyalty
A family-run business often can maintain loyal customers. This stems on the fact that a customer has had a great experience in the store and will return for future purchases. Future purchases are a near guarantee that the customer will return to buy add-ons or other supplies in the store’s special selection of goods or services.

Respect
A family-run business can have respect among a community. This can lead to more sales by word of mouth. Family-run businesses are often competing with national or global chain stores. When a small, family-run business is respected in a community it can thrive!

Reviews and Return Customers
A family-run business can be a community leader and show others how to run their own businesses as well. Word-of-mouth or online reviews can lead to further sales and more repeat customers. This is a win-win situation.

A family-run business will succeed through the five principles laid out above. They should all be followed for the best returns on investment for which the company has strived. Anyone who runs a business should aim to achieve the highest level of customer service they can.

Informational Credit:The information for this article was provided by Pristine Sales, an online family company that sells complete television series on Blu-Ray.

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Be An Advocate For Your Customers

Fantastic customer service is a huge opportunity for word of mouth marketing. Show them you care, and they’ll appreciate you and talk about you. But what if you took that kind of service one step further by becoming an advocate for your customers?

Phone system provider Grasshopper does just that with their “Tell Us Your Story” form. They ask their clients for information like how many employees they have, what makes their business unique, and which blogs they’d love to appear in. Then they turn that information into a reason to put the spotlight on them.

Grasshopper uses these stories to feature their clients on their Happy Customers page or to get them press coverage. In fact, they even managed to get one of them quoted in The New York Times. That’s a great way to not only do something awesome for your customers, but also to build stronger relationships by learning more about them.

Make your word of mouth story about your customers and they’ll be more than happy to tell everyone about you, too.

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