Do Business Well

The Clashes arising from differences in most relationships can be managed satisfactorily by this Method. Some conflicts, however, lack certain requirements necessary for success.

Personality Factors

When involved in ‘personality clashes’, we often conclude that the conflict is irresolvable due to the Other’s personality — the Bad-Person Illusion. In truth, certain personality factors can indeed impinge on the Method, making it less effective. So, some relevant personality factors will be mentioned as we list the eight prerequisites. Continue Reading »

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As you might expect, conventional wisdom tells a rather different story. First, it spins us this tale: You can be anything you want to be if you hold on to your dreams and work hard. The person you feel yourself to be every day is not the real You. No, the real You is deep inside, hidden by your fears and discouragements. If you could free yourself of these fears, if you could truly believe in yourself, then the real You would be released. Your potential would burst out. The giant would awaken. Continue Reading »

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Yet today most companies organize their inbound and outbound functions separately. To avoid this, the engaged organization must organize all its marketing, customer service, and support functions into one department. This way, customers visiting the company’s website or receiving email see a single company and a single brand.

There are two primary reasons why it makes sense to combine customer service support and marketing into one department. First, organizing different functions under the same department lets you align their goals and measures of success. When the goal is to build and nurture lasting relationships by engaging customers in an ongoing dialogue, it makes intuitive sense that the inbound and outbound parts of that dialogue come from the same place. Continue Reading »

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If you want your customers to have a consistent experience and develop a loyal relationship with your brand, you must clearly define your organization’s communications and relationship management responsibilities. Normally, marketing is responsible for managing an email direct marketing program, but it is not the only part of your organization that will engage with customers. Customer service, support, sales, and perhaps even e-commerce groups may also communicate with your customers independently.

To avoid any confusion, I propose that if your company is communicating with thousands, perhaps even millions, of customers, you put your marketing department in charge of managing and coordinating all customer communication, regardless of where it originates, and that the “relationship czar” discussed earlier be responsible for this initiative. Marketing’s role in the engaged organization is to ensure that your company’s email communication have a consistent voice, that they are focused on servicing the customer and effectively coordinated across all points of contact. To do this requires the following: Continue Reading »

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Franchising. Franchising is a marketing and distribution system under which a franchisor licenses franchisees to utilise his brand and business know-how as well as receiving initial and ongoing assistance in the successful operation of the business.

Franchisor. The franchisor can best be described as the grantor of a franchise. In the absence of hard and fast rules, it is generally assumed that a franchisor has an outstanding record of accomplishment in the operation of the business he wishes to franchise. This record should extend over a reasonable period, with the absolute minimum being one year. Continue Reading »

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Having established the role of employees as a key stakeholder group in the development of effective customer service, we will now go on to examine the subject of customer relationship marketing (CRM) in more detail. There are many definitions of relationship marketing. Here are just a few:

Attracting, maintaining, and — in multi-service organisations — enhancing customer relationships.

(Berry et al. 1983: 25)

Establishing, developing and maintaining successful relational exchanges.

(Morgan and Hunt, 1994: 20)

a business strategy which pro-actively builds a bias or preference for an organisation with its individual employees, channels and customers resulting in increased retention and increased performance. Continue Reading »

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