Archive for the ‘SMEs’ Category
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007
This week’s podcast (available at www.themarketresearchpodcast.com - B2B International’s podcast website) looks at the issue of differentiation and ‘how to avoid competing on price’.
For your convenience you can listen to this Podcast using the player below or visit our podcasting site.
How To Avoid Competing On Price (24:49)
[http://www.themarketresearchpodcast.com/podcasts/b2b_podcast_19.mp3]
How To Avoid Competing On Price (Right Click and Choose Save As - if you wish to download)
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Thursday, January 25th, 2007
We know from all the market research we do for our clients at B2B International that customer service is often the key differentiator. These days product quality and price are often seen as ‘hygiene factors’ and so you wouldn’t be in the game if you weren’t delivering on these areas. We always like to practice what we preach and so let us know if you contact our offices and we are not responsive enough to your needs.
Response to customer enquiries is crucial to success. Get it right and punters are likely to keep coming back to you. Get it wrong and they will go elsewhere. So how do you go about it?
It has been estimated that poor response to customer enquiries loses an average small business in the UK four customers each year - thought to amount to some £16,000 in profit.
Most enquiries are requests for information about products or services. People initially ring up to enquire, not to buy, and your call might be one of several they make to different businesses. How you respond is vital because the caller will compare you to others they contact.
So how can you distinguish yourself from competitors? “A swift response is always impressive, but so is correctly establishing what the caller actually wants, and why. Listen to what they are asking and don’t be afraid to ask them questions.”
Your demeanour on the phone is also important. The caller expects you to be knowledgeable about your product or service but also wants you to be approachable. People appreciate a personal service. Follow up on what you say you’ll do and keep in touch to provide regular updates.
Even at this early stage you should aim to exceed expectation. If possible, improve on the timescale you’ve set. If you’ve said you’ll respond with more information within 24 hours, answer more quickly. When you do, show the caller you’ve understood their needs.
Slow, vague or stock responses to customer enquiries will lose you business. It reflects badly on your business. If you can’t answer questions or don’t get back when you say you will, you’re not showing an eagerness to meet that person’s needs.
Even small firms are in a great position to compete with larger companies on customer service. They usually have the flexibility to go the extra mile to make customers and potential customers feel valued. Make the most of the personal service you can offer and you’ll reap the rewards.
Click here to view the original article.
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Thursday, December 21st, 2006
So, for our last post of 2006 we thought it would be fitting to compile all our favourite posts from throughout the year. After starting from scratch at the start of the year, the blog has seen massive success, and we are sure you will agree, has now become a vast resource of information. Here are the links to our favourite posts from 2006:
All Marketers are Liars!
Sniffing Out The Right Information
Helpful Market Research Tools
Are companies out of touch with their customers?
Brand Innovation
SMEs - The engine of the UK economy
Sources for desk research
The Key Principles Of Effective Questionnaire Design
Most Loved, And Most Hated Brands
How our gaze path affects the way we consume the web
One Word Equity
Devising Marketing Campaigns For A Marketing Audience
Questions on b2b blogging
Reinventing Brands in B2B Markets
Online Market Research In China
Podcast: The Value Of Brands
Chinese expansion for B2B International - BBC Interview
Ten Easy Ways to Increase Response Rates For Your Online Survey
How Customer Focused Is Your Website?
Helping The Clients Succeed In China’s B2B Market
Eight skills that make you a good leader
What to do, and what not to do when it comes to PR
The Innovation Process - 7 Deadly Sins
And of course, 2006 has also seen the publishing of our first two free ebooks - click the links below to download them if you haven’t already:
A Practical Guide To Market Research
The Power Of Industrial Brands
Well, that’s all for 2006, thank you for visiting our blog throughout the year, we hope you have found to be interesting and of use. We’re back on January 2nd, so see you then.
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Pricing Strategy, Online Research, Online Focus Groups, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Industrial Research, SMEs, Segmentation, Market Research China, Esurveys, Market Research, Industry News, B2B News, Branding, Customer Satisfaction, Employee Satisfaction, Desk Research, Articles |
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Friday, October 27th, 2006
B2B North West, a significant new business event will take place at Manchester’s G-MEX on November 22 and 23 and will bring together leading business experts and entrepreneurs under one roof. This free event will attract over 3,000 visitors who will attend to source information, advice and inspiration for their businesses in the future.
With Bob Geldof and Gerald Ratner confirmed as headline speakers, B2B International, is looking forward to showcasing its services at B2B North West and invites all business decision makers to visit stand 115 for further details.
This is a highly accessible event, as entry to both the conference and exhibition is free. For more information visit - http://www.b2bnorthwest.co.uk/
Below is an article taken from the Manchester Evening News:
B2B International Enlighten SME Decision Makers With The Power Of Market Research At The North West’s Largest Business Event
Manchester based specialist business to business market research agency, B2B International, wants to open the eyes to business decision makers of SMEs to how crucial market research can be to their success and will raise awareness by exhibiting at this year’s B2B North West, the region’s largest business event, which incorporates the established BEX conference. B2B International specialises in providing custom-designed, individually tailored market research services to a broad range of industries from financial and food to chemicals and construction.
Director Nick Hague says “We’re really looking forward to the event. A lot of companies in the past have made the mistake of making presumptions about their markets’ needs by “putting the cart before the horse” when launching a new product or service that has resulted in timely and costly mistakes. Nowadays, more and more importance is being given by businesses to researching their markets, products and advertising campaigns before launch in order to gain market intelligence and resulting in overall success. B2B International would like to make companies aware of how critical attaining knowledge on a marketplace is as well as how affordable research actually is.”
B2B International has tremendous expertise in the SME sector and is currently undertaking a rigorous online panel recruitment programme to get to the hearts and minds (and purchasing patterns) of SME key decision makers, people who are notoriously hard to get hold of yet who buy hundreds of different services. This panel will then provide companies wishing to reach the SME market with a high calibre, readily-available source of information on which to make decisions. The exhibition will provide an excellent venue at which to recruit these decision makers to join their research panel.
Director Nick Hague commented: “Business people running SMEs seem to be the Cinderella of the business world - they are the forgotten decision makers. However, they are powerful purchasers of products and services that can be as varied as utilities, cars, finance, computers, stationery, insurance - the list is endless.
�B2B North West will provide an ideal platform to recruit SME decision makers to join our team of panellists,� continues Hague. “As well as highlighting to visitors the potential our research data may hold for other SMEs and their business needs, all recruited panellists will be offered a financial incentive each time they answer a questionnaire. If anyone is interested, they should visit stand 115 at B2B North West this November.�
For further information on B2B International visit www.b2binternational.com and for more information on their SME on-line panel initiative, please visit www.b2bepanels.com
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Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
We have a short but important article for you today on the structure of UK industry. An article in the Financial Times gives us the latest figures on how many companies there are in the UK. Here are two important facts you will learn:
1. There are over 4 million enterprises in the UK
2. Only 6,000 of them employ more then 250 people.
That last bullet is worth repeating – only 6,000 of them employ more than 250.
The reality is that we are a country of small businesses. There are literally millions of them, mostly run by sole proprietors. Because there are so many of these small and medium enterprises (SMEs), they play a huge role in our economy. In fact, they are a major driver of it as they are responsible for reacting quickly and introducing new products. They account for the output of over £1 billion of products and services per annum.
We hope that you agree that these are vitally important facts for business to business marketers
Record number of businesses due to sole trader rise By Jonathan Moules Financial Times 1st September 2006
Growth in the number of sole traders helped to push up the number of businesses in the UK to a record high, according to official figures.
There were an estimated 4.3m enterprises at the start of 2005, an increase of 59,000, or 1.4 per cent, on a year earlier. This was the eighth successive annual increase.
The statistics, published yesterday by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Small Business Service, showed that 3.2m enterprises had no employees, or 72.8 per cent of the total.
The number of sole proprietorships increased for the third successive year, while the number of partnerships fell by 24,000, or 4.4 per cent, to 520,000.
Small and medium-sized enterprises, defined as those with fewer than 250 workers, now account for 58.7 per cent of the employment and 51.1 per cent, or £890bn, of turnover in the UK.
Only 6,000 businesses, or 0.1 per cent, employ more than 250 people, but they account for 41.3 per cent of private sector employment.
Simon Briault, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “It is encouraging that there is more entrepreneurship going on in the UK. The worrying trend is that businesses, once they have started up, are finding it difficult to expand.”
Victoria Carson, campaigns manager for the Forum of Private Business, which represents 25,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, said red tape continued to stunt business growth.
“We continue to see legislation that effectively taxes firms for taking on extra staff,” she said.
“Increases in the minimum wage have continued at an unsustainable rate, and the government is about to burden them still further with its national pensions saving scheme. Whilst larger firms can absorb these tariffs on employment, it is the smaller businesses that feel the pinch, as these figures show.”
Margaret Hodge, small business minister, welcomed the increase in overall business numbers.
She said: “We are continuing our drive to cut red tape, provide top quality support and are encouraging even more people with great business ideas to take the plunge and start their own business too.”
That last bullet is worth repeating – only 6,000 of them employ more than 250.
The reality is that we are a country of small businesses. There are literally millions of them, mostly run by sole proprietors. Because there are so many of these small and medium enterprises (SMEs), they play a huge role in our economy. In fact, they are a major driver of it as they are responsible for reacting quickly and introducing new products. They account for the output of over £1 billion of products and services per annum.
We hope that you agree that these are vitally important facts for business to business marketers. To make the most out of this information, it may interest you that there is a white paper available on our company website entitiled “Small & Medium Enterprises Equal Big Opportunities”
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