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Time flies

7 Tips For Effective Time Management

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Time management is the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work. But this is easier said than done. There are a lot of things competing for our time and attention every minute as business owners and customer service professionals.

How do you determine what activity is worth your time? How do you make the best use of your time daily? Why is it important to manage time wisely?

Have a Priority List

A priority list is a list that contains your priority items — the measurable activities that brings you closer to achieving your personal and professional goals. Therefore, get a pen and paper or a Task Manager, write out all your daily or weekly activities and divide them into varying levels of importance.

  • Urgent and important: Do first!
  • Important, not urgent: Schedule
  • Urgent not important: Delegate
  • Not urgent not important: Don’t do!

Urgent: Urgent tasks require immediate attention. For example, customer service complaints, logistics, etc.

Important: These tasks contribute to your personal or professional long-term goals. You have to determine what is important to your business or career.

Why is it important to manage our time wisely?

  1. Prevents energy waste
  2. Relieves pressure
  3. More time for other things
  4. More opportunities
  5. Leaves time for rest
  6. Goals realization

How to Manage Time Effectively

  1. Set goals correctly. Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
  2. Prioritize wisely. Set tasks based on their importance and urgency.
  3. Set a time limit to complete a task. Decide what time to allot to different tasks and be disciplined to meet your time target.
  4. Take a break between tasks to regain strength and focus.
  5. Organize yourself. Keep a schedule of your activities.
  6. Remove non-essential tasks/activities based on your priority list above. Don’t perform tasks that can be conveniently outsourced.
  7. Plan ahead. Have a to-do list.

The implication of poor time management is waste of time, energy, and other valuable resources. What more, the pressure of constant customer complaints and never meeting deadlines might adversely affect your health and productivity. Save yourself all these woes and learn time management.

ETHICS OR PROFIT (What to do when you are in the line of fire)?

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The race to make money is more heated than ever as a direct response to the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 lockdown last year. Corporations and SMEs seem to be more concerned with ROI than customer satisfaction, and the old argument between ethics and profits has become a daily struggle for managers.

 

Ethics And Profit

Ethics is a system of moral principles that guides a person or business’s behaviour or way of conducting activities. While, profit is simply the net revenue generated by a business enterprise minus the cost of production.

 

While profit is the main motive behind any business venture, the matter of ethics will more definitely determine the long-term profitability of that venture. If you sacrifice customers’ satisfaction, excellence, and integrity for profit, you will end up losing more. Because when people do business with you, they are indirectly signifying their trust and endorsement of your services. Satisfied customers are the best form of free promotions and referrals.

 

 What To Do

Sometimes the lines gets so blurred that as a manager you get confused on which path to follow. In times like this, ask yourself these questions:

  • What are the company’s mission statement and values?
  • Do they align with the decision you are about to make?
  • What is the company culture? Or what is the company protocol concerning matters like this?
  • What is more important to the company, profit or image?
  • Is there a solution that can satisfy both the client and the company without incurring unnecessary expenses?
  • Do you need to consult your superior before making a decision?
  • Would you be satisfied with your decision and be able to defend it later?
  • Do you have proper documentation for all the processes and activities leading up to your decision?

Once you answer all these questions satisfactorily, then go ahead and make your decision. Doing what is right for the business all the time is not an easy task, it requires intelligence, corporate awareness, grit and experience. If you succeed in making the right decision, the rewards will be worth the stress.

Ethics may cost you more in production, but it will bring you more in long term profit.

Valentine Rose: Ways to make your customers know you value them

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Let’s face it – without customers, we don’t have a business. So why do so few companies remember to show some love to their existing customers? Usually, they are too busy trying to attract new customers, even though it costs five times as much to attract a new customer versus keeping an existing one.

Valentine’s Day is all about love, so there’s no better time to think about how you can do a better job of showing some love to the people who essentially sign your paycheck. Here are three easy and cheap ways to make sure that customers know you value them:

  1. Respond to everyone on social media. Whether you are acknowledging positive comments or trying to make trolls go away, it’s critical that you respond to everyone who mentions your brand on social media – whether they formally tag your brand account or not. Today’s customers expect a response from companies, and responding shows that you care about any and all feedback. Most importantly, it shows onlookers – i.e., prospects – what it’s like to do business with you.
  2. Send a handwritten thank-you note or send a rose. With postage rates increasing almost every year and email a comparatively cheaper channel, consumers are seeing far more email in their inboxes than letters in their mailbox. That presents an opportunity for companies who are willing to make the extra effort to thank their customers in a personalized, meaningful way. “Don’t underestimate the power of a handwritten note,” says customer experience expert Joey Coleman. “In an increasingly digital world, getting something in the mail that was clearly written by hand evinces a level of personal care and attention that is not frequently seen in the world of business.”
  3. Go the extra mile to help customers. Pet supplies company Chewy.com responds to negative product reviews on its website by suggesting other products that might better suit the customer’s needs. It also provides immediate refunds even if a customer hasn’t asked for one. This strategy immediately converts a dissatisfied customer into a happy one. Other companies have employed a “surprise and delight” strategy to go above and beyond customer expectations.

Go the extra mile to connect with your customer

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Do you know there are several ways of connecting closely with your customers? First you have Read more