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It’s the beginning of a new year, and just as you might be making personal resolutions about eating healthier and exercising more frequently, it’s also a perfect time to extend these goal-making efforts to your small business.
Additionally, January also tends to be the ideal time to assess successes and failures from the previous calendar year and, as such, continue practices and methodologies that were successful, while at the same evaluating what went wrong and making tweaks to help your business operate more efficiently.
With all of this in mind, consider the following four New Year’s resolutions for your small business:
1. Look into Adopting a Cloud Contact Center
If 2018 saw an uptick in customer service-related phone calls — and, more importantly, if your team is finding it increasingly challenging to handle this influx of calls while completing other day-to-day tasks — then it may be time to consider adopting a cloud contact center.
For instance, companies specializing in cloud contact center solutions can help small businesses like yours increase customer engagement and streamline omnichannel capabilities.
Additionally, having a flexible and reliable cloud-based contact center can help businesses handle inbound and outbound customer interactions with ease, leaving you and your team free to handle myriad other tasks.
2. Become More Adept at Social Media
Some small-business owners believe they’re doing a solid job of creating customer engagement when posting several times a day on social media. But according to experts, it’s a matter of quality over quantity.
By taking this approach on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram, strive to post compelling content, albeit blog posts, GIFs, video and infographics, that will inspire your followers to interact with your company via social media on a more consistent basis. You should also make it a point to respond to all customer comments, even if they’re negative; after all, people want to know they’re being heard.
Likewise, if a prospect asks a question, try to respond within a few hours. Additionally, make it a point to add personal or funny comments to each of your social media posts. All of this will add up to better communication and a potential increase in customers or clients.
3. Create Ongoing Professional Development Opportunities
While a new year is always a good time to think about ways your small business can improve, this activity shouldn’t merely be relegated to January, as you can — and should — make it a point to assess goals throughout the calendar year.
Launch a new program like Brainstorming Fridays, which will allow you and your team to come up with any number of ideas during an informal weekly meeting on how to improve a variety of things within your company, from customer retention to product and office inventory.
Beyond hosting these informal meetings, you could also adopt Professional Development Thursdays, where you encourage every team member to devote an hour or two a week on employee development, training, volunteering and other activities that will increase their knowledge about the company.
4. Watch for Signs of Burnout
Getting a new business off the ground requires a great deal of time and commitment. But if you spent plenty of days in 2018 burning the midnight oil, vow to be more balanced this year.
For example, if your small business is starting to take off, make it a point to take off at least one weekend day this year, and be sure to take proper care of yourself by getting enough rest and exercise. The last thing you want is to lose all of the momentum you enjoyed in 2018 because you are feeling exhausted and burned out.
Enjoy a Successful and Profitable 2019
A new year always feels like a clean slate. As such, this is the perfect time of year to reassess the last 12 months and look for ways to improve in certain areas with small business resolutions.
By researching new technology to increase customer engagement, making every social media post count, and encouraging your team to be the best versions of themselves, 2019 can and should be a banner year for your small business.
I do agree with the last one, as many people say “health is wealth” you need to think & take care of yourself. Whenever I’m too exhausted & stressed from work, I always go to spa & pamper myself.