What can you implement in your business right now that will help you deal with a higher demand? In this episode, Dominique talks to black owned business owners. 

We have been faced with another yet tragic experience for the black and brown community with the recent events involving George Floyd being murdered by the police officers in Minnesota. There has been an outrage in the black community due to being fed up with systemic oppression and racism. We have come together now more than we have ever to get justice that we deserve. 

She is using this podcast today to specifically talk to the black and brown community to make sure your businesses are prepared for an influx of support. 

People are still scheming and raising their prices by the person just to make an extra dollar. This is not the time for us to be making mistakes. This is not the time for us to be hustling just to make that quick extra dollar. We have to be strategic about how we are operating in our businesses at this time. 

We should be operating on an elevated level to where our customer experience and on how we deliver our products and services is on 10. That way anybody would want to do business with us.

Stop playing small, stop winging it. Assess your business and how it runs. Rise above the stereotypes.

In this episode, Dominique speaks on the importance of making sure your business can still show up, even when you can't show up for yourself. Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster, and currently, Dominique is experiencing the down side of trying to balance many responsibilities,  but even though she’s not feeling well, she’s ready to share some of her tips on how to overcome these trials.

One important message for her audience is what to do when you feel unmotivated as a business owner so that it doesn’t negatively affect your business, reviews, work of mouth, and referrals. Another big takeaway from this episode is the importance of automating as much of your business as possible to avoid that burnout. Listen to the full episode for advice on how to handle the lows of entrepreneurship and being a business owner.

Are customer service and customer experience the same thing? How are they different? In this episode of Creating A Buzzworthy Business Podcast, Dominique breaks down the difference between customer service and customer experience. 

She found that people are not aware of the difference between customer service and the customer experience. 

Customer service is only one piece of the model. It is the focus of the human interaction and directly supporting your customer. Customer experience is the entire customer journey that you build within your business.

A lot of times as business owners some tend to forget that not only are you someone running a business, but you are someone that is also a customer at some point to someone else’s business. 

She also breaks down the 3 parts of customer experience which is customer service, technology, and design, and goes into detail for all of those topics so you can offer the best customer experience. 

The listeners of this episode will confidently understand the difference between customer service and customer experience, and know how to execute both in the both manner possible. 

In this episode, Dominique debunks 3 of the most common customer service myths. Businesses now have a lot of differences from 15 or 20 years ago. Online business space opened up a new chapter in the business world and evolved some of the previous customer service rules.

This episode covers many important customer service topics like: how to actually get loyal customers, when the customer isn't right, how to grow as a business with feedback from customers or clients, dealing with complaints, and more! 

Are you practicing out-dated customer services ideas in your business? Listen to this whole episode to find out! 

Dominique is joined by Bianca from More Than Social to speak about the life cycle that a customer goes through, how to successful use influencer marketing, and other marketing techniques.

Bianca is a marketing and sales strategist. She’s been an entrepreneur for nine years. With that experience, she now helps other people build up organic marketing strategies and teaches how to build up audiences without paying for advertisers or influencers.

Bianca believes one of the most powerful mindsets to be successful is to have a lot of discipline, know exactly what you’re going to do and then be disciplined enough to do it.

If you’re entering entrepreneurship because you just want a quick buck then it is not the game for you. Entrepreneurship a long game and you need to find what you want to be known for, apply integrity that, and use that to grow your business.

By the end of this episode you'll learn Biana's top tips for marketing including facebook pixel, retargeting ads, the biggest marketing myths and misconceptions, the do's and don't's of influencer marketing, and the 80/20 rule. 

Find out more about Bianca's services by following her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/morethansocial.co/

Customer Abandonment as most of you know it is when a customer leaves an order and they don’t complete it. However, for this episode she will talk about how business owners abandon their customers after they purchase.  Have you eve noticed once you pay someone and make the payment their level of service drops.

She shares her experience as a customer and not as a business owner. People take for granted that they charge you thousands of dollars for them just to fall off. Everybody needs to be treated accordingly. You don’t want people feeling like their hard earned money went to waste. 

Respect is earned and not given. People forget that in order to be successful you have to have people buying into your product or service, not just your visions.

Learn to be a business owner and you will learn only if you invest in yourself to get these tools and knowledge. You will learn how to deal with conflict with customers. Standard operating procedures should be an outlined guide for you and anyone within your business for your customer's journey. It doesn’t stop when you deliver your service. Creating proper experience and follow up methods is key.

Money should not be the validation to us as successful business owners. The experience that you provide to your customers and your clients is what should be validating. Everybody needs to be valued and as business owners you need to take the customer experience more seriously, provide value and not just things. 

Follow Dominique for more tips on IG: https://www.instagram.com/dominiquestaylor/

In this week's episode, Dominique focuses on The Customer Life Cycle 

Customer life cycle is the process of building a relationship with a brand or a company with the intent to keep the customers coming back. It’s meant to be repeated. 

A good way to be discovered by customers is to warm them up with freebies and offers to simply get them into the door. Eventually they will turn into paying customers.

25-40% of the total revenue of a stable business comes from their repeat customers. It costs more to get a new client than it is to sell to the repeat clients. 

Five Pillars of the Customer Life Cycle:

• Reach – contact with the customer. 

• Acquisition – have customer attention. The hope to convert customer.

• Conversion – where they become a paying customer.

• Retention – keeping the customer. Build and maintain customer relationship. You can increase your profits to 25%-125% by making customer retention a priority in your business.
• Loyalty – have customer entered into the life cycle where they become a brand advocate and they continue to buy over and over.

80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers. That 20% is your retention, the people who continuously buy from you.

A lot of people take the customer experience for granted.

How are you separating yourself from the competition? Try following up with your customer. Feedback is extremely important.

There so many ways that you can get creative in your business to be able to provide rewards or follow up with your customers to provide that satisfaction to them.  The good thing about customer experience is not everyone requires a wild, luxurious experience. There are some customers that may be content with the basics. The best thing you can do is not try to assume or guest and just provide a good experience.  

It is very useful for business owners to understand the selling and the psychology around the buyer meaning the customer and the phases they go though.

Everybody is looking for something different. 

Your goal as you move through your business and find success and continue to make money should be to enter your customers into a life cycle. You want to acquire customers that will be lifelong loyal customers to you.

Find out more about how to work with Dominique:

https://dominiquestaylor.as.me/schedule.php

Whether you're running a multi-millionaire dollar company or a solo-preneur, having core values are extremely important for your business because those are the values that will remind you why you started the business in the first place, who you are as a person, and how to handle situations and difficulties that arise.

People don't realize many of their struggles are around the actual customer interaction. So in this episode Dominique shares the 5 core values she's suggests every business have in place for their business that speaks to the customer experience.

5 Core Values You Should Implement to Provide a Good Customer Experience

1. Integrity – Doing the right thing at all times. The times when you think that no one is watching is when they’re actually paying attention to you. Be honest. From the beginning to the end make sure you’re operating from the place of integrity. Not just in business but also in your personal life.
2. Commitment to customers/clients – Hear your customers out. Make clear communications. You have to know how people are interpreting what it is you are offering so you can live up to their expectations. Make your language clear for your ideal client that you are targeting.
3. Passion – Be passionate about your business and the services you offer. In order for people to trust you they have to know that you have a burning desire. Value anybody and everybody who makes a choice to spend their money on you.
4. Continuous learning and constant improvement – Allow yourself to be teachable, coachable, and always be a student. There’s always going to be someone who knows more than you. What we knew 5 years ago is not how we are operating today.
5. Humility – Stay in a humble place. Never allow money or anybody to take from that humble place.

Think about what your core values are, it can be personally or in your business. If you experience any problems, you can revert back to those core values to help you handle whatever is in front of you.

Make sure to follow and learn more with Dominique Taylor on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/dominiquestaylor/ 

Wondering what you can do as a service based business during something no one planned for? Not many businesses can say they had a "pandemic" planing section of their SOP's or emergency planning documents so this is all new for many of us.

In this episode, Dominique talks with us about how many 9-5's will suffer significantly from this while many online business owners may be a step ahead in the race to thriving during this unforeseen journey.

She stresses the importance to use this time to be humanized in your business and show your clientele your ability to be  understanding and empathetic. Whether it's with a lenient refund policies, amped up customer service support with cancellations, or reaching out and being one step ahead of meeting your people where they are before they reach out with questions. 

As business owners Dominique wants us to really take this as an opportunity to be innovative, show out and show up for our communities, clientele, and the people we serve. Letting the people you serve know you're here as a company is critical in showing your empathy. 

This is the perfect episode if you're wondering what to say or how to show up as a business owner during this pandemic.