Complaints can help your Business
Mistakes, errors, issues occur everyday in the business world and as a result complaints generally follow. It is, therefore, important to understand that no matter how big or small the complaints, this "feedback" is an indicator that something is wrong within the company. No one likes a complaint and no one individual relishes being complained about, yet as the old saying goes "it's not personal, it's business ".
How does a complaint make your company better?
1. Show your client that you have a mechanism to deal with complaints. This is not a "red rag to a bull", this illustrates professionalism. Within the Lettings industry all letting agents are required by Law to be a member of a Redress Scheme - either the Property Redress Scheme or The Property Ombudsman Service. This means that the consumer has a point of reference once the complaint has been dealt with by the Letting Agent and the outcome for the complainant does not feel satisfactory
2. Receive the complaint with grace. The default is to become defensive. Don't. Train your team to be gracious rather than angry when a customer puts in a complaint. Face the complaint with understanding, ask and find out as much information as you can. Remember- we are all consumers.
Our Advice Line - a Source of Comfort during the Pandemic
The last seven months have been pivotal on so many levels, it really is difficult to know where to begin. We witnessed the country stop in its tracks in late March, as businesses, our clients transitioned from the office environment to WFH. A task which seems straightforward but not so; where do directors, MDs, office managers, negs, property managers and administrators begin with such a gargantuan undertaking? And yet, they did up until the 12th May when the housing market re-opened to the surprise of everyone working within the sector. What followed was a flurry of activity to get Covid-19 protocols in place for the safe re-opening of the sector, a soft-opening if you will do so many letting agents, estate agents, conveyancers, surveyors - tentatively venturing into unknown territory to be certain that health and safety came first.
Our Role
We, like everyone in business, have been affected by the virus. Our CEO, Susie became ill with virus on the day of the first Lockdown, a worrying time for us all, hoping she would make a swift recovery. Our face to face training was put on hold and with the support of Tony at Pixels and Puzzles, we moved seemlessly online, not just to train but provide clients with extremely important webinars, put together to guide letting agents through what must have felt like relentless changes to existing legislation. Susie came to the webinar party in mid-April when she was certain she could cope with the level of questions being asked; we remember after every webinar or training session, she needed a nap - post-Covid fatigue was a real thing.
COVID-19 Will Continue To Test Small Businesses—Here’s How To Respond
Almost every business, regardless of size, has had to make adjustments to cope with the new realities accompanying the pandemic. The near-universal pivot to remote work, government-mandated stay-at-home orders, and ongoing health concerns have created a business environment that looks, for all intents and purposes, dramatically different than it did just months ago. Yet this is exactly the type of environment in which entrepreneurs thrive.
Your creativity, willingness to embrace risk, and ability to spot opportunity where others can’t are what allowed you to start a business in the first place, and those same attributes will serve you well as you seek ways to adapt in the months and years ahead. Your business may be struggling now, but by relying on the traits and instincts that got you to this point, you can keep moving forward. Plus, there are plenty of proven strategies you can deploy to continue to create value, even when your resources are stretched thin. Here are five:
1. Refine your marketing strategy and increase your focus on digital tactics.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we’re more reliant than ever on modern technology. Even if you’re not positioned to make substantial investments in new tools, you should constantly evaluate the digital strategies and technologies you already use, and now is the perfect time to do so in preparation for “the next normal.” Owen Loft, cofounder of Socium Media, recommends that companies take this time to optimize what’s working and explore new ideas.
Adapting to Change
Almost six months since Lockdown, almost six months when the Coronavirus became a reality in the UK, almost six months since we were ALL required to adapt to change.
In a country of almost 70 million people not everyone has been impacted by the pandemic in the same way, some more so than others, yet regardless of how different the experience may or may not have been, we were connected and united by the exact same thing.
The virus forced us to change in a way that we had never needed to and there was no “game plan” or rule book because there was nothing that anyone could compare it to. The Second World War perhaps with its global impact, but how do you fight something you can’t see?