Providing Great Customer Services at Trade Shows

May 20, 2013 by Leave a comment

Participating in a trade show is a great way to expose your business to a number of potential customers. One thing that can be a bit tricky however, is that there are likely several competitors at each event trying to win business from the same people. It’s smart to set your company apart from the herd by offering specific services that are enticing to consumers. You want to attract them to your booth and seal the deal before they wander off looking for others.

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Read on for three effective ways to provide great customer services at trade shows that will win you business and boost company profits.

Customer TLC

The best way to woo the customer is to make them feel important. Every single visitor should be greeted with a smile and any questions should be immediately and articulately answered. Don’t leave them guessing or they’ll likely end up at another booth. Offer pamphlets or other informational materials to all event guests so they leave feeling as if they have all the info they need on your business. Make it clear that the customer is king, and every visitor will feel valued. That could be the key to making the sale.

Bring The A-Team

The best way to ensure that trade show visitors feel important and appreciated is to bring your best employees along to the expo. A trade show is not the time to test out new interns, summer hires, or lazy workers. You want the crew that does the best job reflecting your services and who understand the ins-and-outs of the business.

Do a Demo

There’s no better way to lure trade show visitors to your display, show off your merchandise, and convert them to paying customers than by doing a demonstration and/or offering free samples of your product. This allows visitors to judge for themselves how great your business is, and make them feel pampered in the process. Everyone likes free stuff so putting out small samples of your best items for potential customers to try out is a great way to make your trade show booth stand out above the crowd. Also, any activity from a demo will attract attention and divert focus to your booth.

It’s easy to make trade show visitors feel valued with the right approach to customer service. You want to highlight your products while also illustrating what your merchandise can do for the consumer. The more you woo the visitors who stop by your booth, the easier it will be to keep them around to listen to your pitch.

As long as you have your best employees on site, plenty of product samples, and give visitors the TLC they expect, your business will likely see a positive outcome from the trade show experience.

BIO

Kyle Haze is a small business owner and trade show connoisseur who works with Exhibit Edge to organize and implement expositions all over the country. In his free time he enjoys running, biking, and spending time with his family.

Filed under Business, Sales and Marketing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Extra, Extra…Read all about it

May 20, 2013 by Leave a comment

That’s right the latest edition of the Industry Resource Pipeline is in. It includes great articles on the European Unions decision on the Canadian oilsands, the impact of falling gas prices, Tata steel and so much more. Connect to it through innovationsinpiping.com by clicking here or on the graphic below

IRP Week 21

 

Filed under Blog, Blogging, Business, Economics, Energy, Engineering, Entrepreneur, Environment, Interesting Reading, Manufacturing, Sales and Marketing, Stainless Steel, Steel Market Tagged with , , , , ,

How to Make Moving Your Business an Easy Process

May 17, 2013 by Leave a comment

Business owners planning a move want to minimize downtime. One way to do this is to break down a move step-by-step. This is a good way to keep customers happy and to cut down on the stress that is often associated with moving a business.

Logistics Planning

Make a Budget

Moving costs money. Having a budget will cut down on the amount spent. You might want to include the cost of new supplies and equipment, transportation, storage units and payroll.

Time spent moving usually takes away from business operations. Your goal, of course, is to decrease this as much as possible. One way of doing so is by designating employees to be in charge of different aspects of the move.

Have a Plan

Some folks assume if the move is small a plan is not necessary. However, drawing up a moving plan is always a good idea. Having a plan will cut down on last minute running around, which is what often leads to increased spending.

Make your moving plan as early as possible, but don’t set it in stone. If changes are made, add an addendum and let the people affected know.

If you have different departments to move, get input from employees that work in each department. A quick meeting should suffice. They will bring to your attention something that could be overlooked by managers and directors who are not involved in specific departments on a day-to-day basis.

Get Ready To Notify

If you are moving a retail business, notify your customers as soon as the move becomes a reality. It is usually never too early to begin this process. If you have a small retail establishment, you can post ‘we’re moving’ signs in your shop and at the registers.

Cashiers and customer service personnel should be briefed with as much information about the move as possible. Customers will have questions, and keeping them updated with valid information will keep them satisfied.

Do not forget to notify your service providers. Make a list of every provider or vendor that must be alerted, and note when they were notified and what changes need to take place.

Best Time to Move

If it’s possible to plan the time of year for your move, you will want to do it when your business is less busy. This applies to seasons as well as to days of the week.

Renting storage units for the move is a good idea. This is especially true if you are unable to begin moving items into the new space ahead of time. According to Fairfield NJ self storage, make an inventory list so you can easily keep track of what is in each unit.

Relax

Moving a business might seem stressful, especially if you have never done it before. Breaking the move down step-by-step, and planning ahead of time will make it as easy as possible.

Author Bio: Annette Hazard is a freelance blogger and moved many times in her life. She is promoting http://www.extraspace.com/Storage/Facilities/US/Florida/North_Lauderdale/300158/Facility.aspx.

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HRIS System Interfaces Explained

May 16, 2013 by Leave a comment

During your assessments of or research about HRMS payroll software programs or HRIS payroll systems, you are going to hear interfaces being spoken of quite a bit. The aim of this article is to provide an accurate explanation of how interfaces are generally used.

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If you are considering buying an HR software application, HR information system or HRMS payroll system with the goal of connecting it to an existing payroll program, the following will provide great assistance to you. Most HRMS payroll system programs provide some form of transfer capability for payroll data or HRIS data between systems.

First, it’s crucial to make the distinction between an interface and HRMS payroll integration. With an integrated system, you are going to have two items that share one payroll and HR software solution database or an automated real-time data transfer and update between systems. With Payroll and HR software programs, this isn’t common unless you are operating both systems for one company. If these aren’t your circumstances, you will be working with interfaces.

When working with interfaces, you’re going to need to either manually, or by utilizing some type of automation, move HRIS data from HR to Payroll or vice versa. In many instances, this is a relatively manual system to establish but isn’t difficult to maintain. If you want to move data from Payroll to HR, you’ll need to make a new file in the payroll system and transfer it into the HRM Software solution using some type of application. The main issue with this process is that, if you’re not using automation, you’ll need to regularly execute the data transfer, because, in this illustration, the data in Human Resources is only as current as the last data transfer from your payroll software. There isn’t any justification for not making use of interfaces as they are the standard for sharing data between two distinct products.

How Payroll Interfaces Operate within HRM Systems

If you are making use of a commonly known payroll application, most, if not every, HRIS Data system will offer some form of interfacing functionality between your payroll product and HRIS system. If this isn’t the case, your HRIS payroll system will provide a program for importing and exporting.

System interfaces are synonymous with “data mapping.” When you identify the particular system that is going to drive the data, a report comprising the information needed to be moved into your import process will be run from that system. After running the report, it is usually changed into a text or Excel file for import. At this point, you’ll need to ensure that each system is communicating in the same language, otherwise known as data mapping. If, in a particular system, the field for first name is known as “fnam” and in the system being mapped to it is “first name,” you simply order the “fnam” info in your product to fill the “first name” field. This occurs repeatedly for every field common in both systems. The positive aspect of this is that after your establish data mapping, the process will not have to be repeated; the next time you are required to perform a data transfer, it will only take a few minutes.

Authored By: Rebecca Whiteside. Rebecca contributes regularly on The HR Blog.

Filed under Business, Human Resources, Training Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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