When times are hard, and monies are tight – small businesses do not look to cut back opportunities to serve their customers, do they?
I am betting eight out of 10 small businesses cut back expenses/overhead and other unseen costs to their customers, while they try to improve their customer service, and provide new ways to bring those customers back to spend their limited funds. Everyone is feeling the crunch. As commercial lenders, we’ve seen it on the front lines with our clients over time, and we see it when we go to the grocery store, and drive around our community.
Times are tough. I believe the majority of our businesses are very in tune with their customers, and understand it full well. They scrimp, save, weigh options, and think frugally. They don’t run to the emergency room unless it’s for a small child, and they are taking “staycations” (a good catch phrase though isn’t it?). They are counting their pennies. We’re with you. The state and many federal agencies have already implemented layoffs and furlough days, and ways to preserve services while maintaining their expenses. I know they’re a mirror of our own small businesses. We’re all in the same boat I believe, as we plan which bills we’ll catch up once we get our tax returns. Sigh.
Since I’m tweeting these days, I am now “following” a small business forum which really does have some pretty slick blogs and articles which you can link into from the “tweet” you just followed. Many people think it’s when times are the toughest we need to expand our marketing efforts. Becoming more aggressive in marketing does not mean it must be costly, but surely a business will lose more if it loses the customer’s confidence? A marketing strategy which lets customers know you’re committed to continuing to provide them good dependable quality service is vital.
Back to the small business forum tweets. I ran across one last week which I thought was too good to not repeat parts of: through the Maine Merchants Associations twitter account! And, the best part, because I believe our business, the CCC&I, is also a small business, and a voice for other small businesses, was we are even doing most of these things (a bit of validation is always good to give you a boost that you might be on the right path)! I digress. So, they listed: establish rapport, make personal calls, distribute newsletters, acknowledge birthdays, holidays, special events in your customers’ lives, break your own rules occasionally, give employees the power to make good customer service decisions (defaulting back to the previous point), offer gift certificates, give to your community, create a network, and spy on yourself. Huh.
Good to know, but really, ingenuity is the key thing for business survival during hard times. We occasionally suggest it to our clients if it works itself well into a conversation, and we try to look at ourselves on a regular basis to make sure we’re not stagnate and missing things we shouldn’t. We are going to make it through, although it seems depressing right now. Spring will be here soon, mud season, and surely by this time next year things will be a bit better. As GAP financers, we still have a bit of money to lend, and for those brave folks wanting to come back, expand or “just retain” their existing business, we’re here for you, and we want to help.
Wendy Landes, MPA, is the executive director of the Caribou Chamber of Commerce & Industry. She can be reached in person at 24 Sweden Street, Suite 101; by telephone at 498-6156 or via e-mail at wlandes@cariboumaine.net.
