SURFACES | StonExpo Blog

Archive for February, 2012

You’re using technology to improve your business. Maybe you’re even reading this on a smart phone or tablet. You don’t have a complete social media strategy yet, but you’re working on it. Mostly, you need help, now, on how to use technology to improve your bottom line.

In a previous SURFACES│StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas Blog “You’re Really Good At Change, But What’s Next?” I reported some practical, inexpensive ideas on how you can use technology in your business. Here are a few more tools and ideas you and your staff can use right now:

-Search for your store on Google and consumer review sites (like angieslist.com, yelp.com and complaints.com); if you find compliments about your business when you do the searches, have them on a computer ready to show to customers in your store, and put links to them on your Web site;

-Get a small, inexpensive “shoot and share” video camera; ask your staff to each record themselves as if they were telling a customer about your business and why the customer should buy from you; when they have a version they like, ask them to show it to you and one another; they’ll be practicing – on one another instead of a customer – while training each other; you might even find videos good enough to use on your Web site or YouTube.com;

-Ask satisfied customers for video testimonials about their new floors and your business; these can be used (with permission) in your store, on your Web site, etc.; (yes, I know, you think customers won’t agree to do this, but as time passes Gen X’ers and Millennials are much less concerned about privacy issues than Boomers, so you may be pleasantly surprised at the results).

Yes, at some point, all new technology is scary. But if we take small steps we’ll learn and benefit from the technologies. After all, there’s a reason that DVD’s replaced VHS tapes, and Blu-ray is replacing DVD’s. When people see benefits from new technology, they adapt the new technology. These tips can help you benefit from new technologies today, simply.  Good luck!

Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is quoted as having said “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” Trust is similar – if you have to ask people to trust you, they probably shouldn’t. Trust needs to be earned.

Trust is becoming increasingly important as you try to serve your customers. It’s part of the reason why they

-check your Web site and your competitors’ Web sites, or Google you and review sites like angieslist.com before coming to your store;

-check with their friends on facebook.com and twitter.com for second, third and fourth opinions before buying from you; and

-bring friends to your store and want to check with their family before committing to buy new flooring.

How do you earn their trust, then? Certainly your reputation and brand are critical to ever getting them in your door. Once they walk in, what can you then do to earn their trust? Because they can’t trust someone they don’t know, it’s critical to build a relationship with your customers.

First, we need to listen to each customer, both online and when she comes into the store. Each customer has a unique situation and we need to be ready to provide unique solutions, not the same solution as we try to give everyone else based on go-to products.

We need to demonstrate by our actions – good eye contact, sincerity, and listening – that we genuinely have the customer’s best interests in mind. We are her partner in finding that unique solution. Nothing is more important than she is.

She needs to believe that the options you present serve her interests as well as your own. What do I mean by this? Just because you have three rolls of a beige texture in the back doesn’t mean that you should put it first on her list of carpet options! Make sure the products you show her deliver on her unique needs in a way she’ll understand. This is possible if we have listened well and demonstrated our partnership role.

And, your customer needs to understand the selection process, and that it truly is her selection. You’re not selling – you’re enabling her selection of the best product for her.

Trust based on this kind of a relationship with your customer will strengthen your reputation in your market. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Glass, china and reputations are easily cracked and never well mended.” Protect your reputation by building trust with your customer.

So for everyone who didn’t manage to get on the Designer Day Tour and for our readers who didn’t attend SURFACES in Las Vegas, here is my whistle-stop review of what was trending at the show.. Read the full blog here: http://trendsblog.co.uk/?p=20929.