Give Your Customers A Great First Impression Even If You Work From Home
When you work from home it’s important to have some processes and ways of working in place that will help you come across as professional to other organisations, helping you to build your reputation and standing with your customer base. This article looks at a few simple things you can put in place to enable your home-based small business to work with even the largest organisation.
If you are starting out in business and you will be working out of your home (for now), then there are several things that you need to be thinking about. What happens if you have a client meeting and they want to come to you? What about getting mail delivered or setting up voicemails?
Even though there may only be you and perhaps a couple of other employees, you can still make a great impression with your business and make it look professional; you don‘t have to have business premises to be taken seriously. But you do need a few things that will help you.
Here are some things to think about as you start your new business. When you are taken seriously from the start, it will make massive difference to your business and its profitability.
Business Website
There are so many reasons why you should have a website for your business. You can be found online by potential new customers, as well as rank higher on search engine searches. People will be able to find you when they see that you have a website. They can also look up your business. How many of us will have searched online for a business that we may have heard of or seen an ad for? The world is online and your business needs to be too. Make sure that you have a smart looking website, that loads quickly and will fit your business. Then people will be likely to stick around to see what your site has to offer.
Business Email
You want to be taken seriously if you are starting out in business. And as good as Gmail or Hotmail are, you don’t want to be emailing potential customers or clients with an amateur email address. Studies have shown that people find a business email address more trustworthy than a regular email provider.
if you want to be taken seriously, and increase your customer base, then having a proper business email is a must. With the right website provider you will be able to have a selection of emails that are related to your domain name.
Virtual Mailbox
If you’re working from home, then getting a virtual mailbox set up, through someone like Physical Address, can be a good for a number of reasons. First of all, it makes it easier to look like you are working from an office. Do you want your customers to know where you live and that you are working from your home?
A virtual mailbox means that if you’re searched for which, let’s face it, as a new business you are likely to be, an actual office address will show up rather than your house. It looks way more professional, but also helps for security of you and your home.
Branding
Your branding may change over time, it is only natural that it might. But to start with, you want your branding to reflect your business and look professional.
From your website, to business cards, to emails, and to product packaging; it all needs to look good and look cohesive. If your branding is all over the place, and each communication from you looks different, then it can create a lot of confusion, as well as looking very unprofessional. So get your logo and branding sorted and use it across all platforms to create a neat and smart business look.
Social Media
Having a presence on social media is really important. You don’t need to be on all channels but, like a website, your customers are going to be on social media and will probably look for you there too.
If there is a way to target them through social media ads, for instance, then you need to be doing it. It is a great way for people to see reviews of your services, as well as to use for customer service. So being on some social channels that suit your audience best is a good place to start.
Rent Office Space
The reason that you might be working from home for now is that you don’t have the need for an office. If you only have a small team that can work remotely then it makes complete sense to keep costs low by having them work from their own home office.
If you are going to be having client meetings, then look to rent a meeting room in an office from time to time, for example. When you can greet potential clients in a smart and professional environment, then it looks much better than welcoming them into your living room at home. So look around your local area to see if anything like this is on offer.
Keep Regular Business Hours
As tempting as it is to roll out of bed at 2pm, watch some TV and then finally start work around 4pm, that’s not really helpful to your customers if they’re working the usual 9-5pm.
When you’re working from home, in order to come across as professional you’ll need to make sure that you’re working at the times that your clients are operating and responding to their emails and calls in a timely manner.
So, if you follow the tips above, the smallest company can come across as being a professional outfit that even the largest of organisations will be happy to do business with.
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