Blog posts in Employees

How to create a customer service guide for your business

Company manuals and guidelines are not on the agenda when you’re starting a business – because usually it’s just you who works for the business.

However, once you start employing people it’s wise to set some “ground rules”. For example, a customer service guide will help with training new staff, providing them with a reference point for any issues they encounter in their early days on the job.

Here are a few simple tips on creating an effective customer service guide. I have focused on an online business, but it’s similar for an offline operation.

Introduce your business

Though it’s your business and you know the standards and quality you expect, new employees may not. It won’t be long until your customer service team is the main contact point for your customers and they need to know how your business operates and what it promises. Otherwise they can’t adequately answer people’s queries.

The key points to cover are:

• Shipping costs and delivery times.
• Returns policy – any shop or online company needs to make clear both the law and their own attitude to unhappy customers.
• Key details about your product/service (eg if you sell printer ink cartridges, the differences between original manufacturers’ items and compatibles from a third party are important for staff to know).
• Employee “power” – how far a customer service person can go to appease a situation and when management must be consulted.

It often helps to create a short list of, say, five key points, ideas or practices that you feel are essential to your team. This could include things such as politeness and tone of voice. At my company, we have crucial targets, such as responding to all email enquires within 24 hours.

Tailor it to the role – don’t over-inform

Starting a new job is overwhelming, so make sure you clearly explain the tasks relevant to the role you want that employee to perform.

If you have a sales team, as well as product knowledge, you’ll need details such as how to handle different payments, any limitations of the system (eg can’t accept American Express) or how account and new customers are dealt with.

For roles with more of a focus on service and support, product familiarity is also vital but in-depth knowledge of the sales process may not be necessary (though the ability to do a basic job can help cover staff absences or busy periods). Focus more on relevant factors such as knowledge of your suppliers or product training and troubleshooting.

Proper use of equipment

For any piece of hardware and software, it’s essential that anyone working for your business understands its purpose and how to use it properly from both safety and efficiency viewpoints.

This doesn’t mean you need to copy out every user manual available, but some bullet points with tips can make the employee feel more comfortable and get them up to speed quickly.

Taking screenshots can often save time and effort when trying to describe a series of on-screen tasks. They are great, not only to complement instructions, but also to serve as verification that the correct stages have been followed.

Who ya gonna call?

It’s inevitable, your new customer service employee will need to be able to turn to someone with more experience or authority for help. This makes a quick-fire contact list of all employees (and their jobs) essential, and helps get problems resolved faster by streamlining issues that arise. Plus, you’d be amazed by the added confidence an employee can get from just knowing there is someone to turn to.

This area could also cover where to refer customers who’re looking for services you don’t provide. Draw up a shortlist of companies that don’t impinge on your market but are in a related niche. This can not only encourage customers to see you as being helpful, but also build relationships with those businesses. If you’re sending business to them they’ll be much more likely to send it back to you.

Produce a cheat sheet

If you can distil some of the more essential information onto a single page that your team can pin up for quick reference, you’ll save time.

This can be anything from a flow chart for taking a payment by cheque to how to handle ‘difficult to scan’ barcodes (I’m looking at you and your eggs, Mr Cadbury). In non-retail situations this can be how to document an issue properly, or the correct series of questions to ask when troubleshooting a problem.

Updating your guide

If it’s good, employees will refer to your manual and follow it, which is great, as long as the guidance is correct. It’s definitely worth re-evaluating this document periodically, as well as updating sections when new business practices, equipment or services become available.

I hope these tips help you streamline your processes and your new recruits are still smiling after settling-in! Have you got any tips that you’ve found really helped you to integrate a new team member?

Matt Bird of printer cartridge supplier, StinkyInk

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Tax rules about employing family members

On the face of it, employing family members can be a good idea. You know them well, so all of the issues of trust and reliance on a stranger should be eliminated.

However, the existence of the family relationship does not bypass any employment laws or any issues relating to tax. Knowing your duties in this area is essential to not falling foul of the law and incurring fines or penalties.

Can I employ my partner or spouse in my business?

Regardless of your business structure (sole trader or limited company) you can employ your partner or spouse in your business.

The general rule is that your partner or spouse should be paid for the effort and hours worked in your business. You must pay your partner or spouse at least the national minimum wage (you can’t get away with paying less).

Where the amount earned exceeds the “lower earning limit” (currently £102 a week, £442 a month or £5,304 a year) you must register as an employer with HM Revenue Customs (HMRC), complete the required PAYE records and file annual returns.

So, just like employing anyone else, you must comply with the tax laws.

What about company directors?

Directors of limited companies who hold office and do not have a contract of employment are outside of the scope of the national minimum wage (see the Directgov website for further information)

This means that a director can be paid an amount that does not incur tax or national insurance.

What about employing my children?

Subject to employment laws, you can employ your children in the business. Again you must pay them the relevant national minimum wage for the hours they work.

It may also mean that because of the payments made to your children you must register with HMRC as an employer. Be sure to check or else you could incur fines and penalties.

What if my offspring are students?

If you employ a student at any time other than their normal holidays, you operate PAYE as normal. However, if you have children at college or university and you employ them solely during the summer, winter or Easter holidays, you may be able to apply special rules to their pay which can make the administration simpler and negate the need for you to register as an employer with HMRC.

If you meet this criteria, you may be able to pay the student without deducting tax, although in most cases you will still have to deduct and account for national insurance. Full details can be found on the HMRC website.

Where can I go for more advice?

Employing anyone is complicated and a minefield of rules and regulation. To ensure that you do follow the rules on this it is always best to seek specific advice from your accountant who will know and understand your circumstances and can make sure that you adhere to the tax laws and your solicitor for employment law issues.

Using 20 years’ experience spent working at some of the UK’s leading businesses, award-winning chartered accountant Elaine Clark is the founder and managing director of www.cheapaccounting.co.uk, an online accounting service aimed at small businesses with big ambitions.

See our Tax Donut for more detailed information on UK tax

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Play to your strengths

This is my third blog in a handful of months that is essentially about people issues in a start-up, but I make no apology for that. I will, however, admit that a few years ago, before I had actually started a business, I was a sceptic on this subject. But that was then, this is now.

If you are to be successful in a start-up, you need some self-confidence. If you don’t think you’ve got it, you won’t succeed. This is however, different from being like an X Factor contestant who believes he or she has a world-beating singing voice but sounds like an animal in pain. To be successful, you also have to be realistic and understand the balance of risks you are taking. Understanding your strengths – and playing to them – is part of that equation.

But how do you understand your strengths? Here I must recommend the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath published by Gallup. I also suggest you take the online test that comes free with it. In my 30 years in businesses large and small, I’ve come across numerous tests, but this one is the best of all.

For a couple of my strengths, it says I should partner with someone who has particular complementary strengths. My first business partner had these strengths and our company, Actinic, reached the FTSE 350 within four years of starting out. My latest business partner also has these strengths, so hopefully watch this space.

The abilities of the founders are by far the most important factor in a start-up situation. Get these right and you’re well on your way to success. Enjoy the ride.

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The ego has landed

My recent column in the Financial Times about mentoring generated many responses from people wanting to learn more about how they can pass their knowledge onto the next generation of entrepreneurs. This is very encouraging; the single most important factor in increasing an entrepreneur’s chances of success is regular access to good mentors.

From the mentor’s point of view it is also a very rewarding process, but should only be embarked on for the right reasons. Mentoring should be provided for free; otherwise commercial considerations might intrude on the process.

Providing free mentoring also focuses your mind on whether you can really afford the time to offer this valuable service. You should already be financially secure or your business and customers doing well enough on their own, so you can provide mentoring without detriment to yourself or connections.

Last week I met with a perfect candidate for mentoring, a 60-year-old industry veteran with a successful consultancy. To explain how I run my one-hour mentoring sessions, I asked him to go through the same preparation I require from my mentees, to complete a simple psychometric profile and provide a one-page summary of where they are and where they want to get to.

I have been a keen advocate of psychometric tests ever since I met Sir Philip Trousdell, a former commandant at Sandhurst who has also run the NATO Operation in Bosnia and the British operation in Northern Ireland. He explained that the British Army had been using psychometric since the 1940s, and considered them a vital first step in selecting potential leaders.

After studying a number of different psychometric tests, I concluded that they generally map onto each other, providing similar conclusions about peoples’ aptitudes for certain tasks.

Some are quite deep and intense, measuring how you interact with other people and behave under stress, but for a first meeting with an entrepreneur, my personal preference is for a profiling system called Wealth Dynamics.

I have used this as a mentoring tool for several hundred people in the past five years, and find it highly effective at providing a basic overview of people’s potential strengths and weaknesses.

This test was developed by Roger Hamilton and is available on-line for $100. It explains that there are eight different ways to be a successful entrepreneur and gives examples of highly successful people whose particular path to success you can follow, depending on your own personal profile.

For my aspiring mentor, his profile showed that he was strong in three areas: as a “creator” coming up with new business ideas, a “mechanic” working out exactly how to deliver these new products and services, and as a “star”, using his personal charm to persuade people to ultimately buy them. He would be less motivated to work on the company finances, negotiate complex deals or concentrate on delivering the same thing every day.

This commendable versatility also has its negative side. His creativity might result in overloading the mentee with too many new ideas, his desire to deliver may turn into excessive interference and his natural radiance might incline him to overshadow his protégée.

Understanding the potentially negative side of one’s own character is vital for being an effective mentor. My own “star” profile often tempts me to respond to any perceived slight or poor customer service with the sentence “don’t you know who I am?”

I now realise that deploying this tactic always backfires sooner or later. There are much better ways of reaching a desired outcome, rather than letting one’s ego take over. Once I realised this, my own effectiveness as a mentor was significantly enhanced.

The Wealth Dynamics profile test can be found at www.wdprofiletest.com

Originally published in The Financial Times. Copyright ©Mike Southon 2011. All Rights Reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission in writing. Mike Southon is the co-author of The Beermat Entrepreneur and a business speaker.

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All you need to know about employers' liability insurance

The opportunity to be your own boss and make a living out of something you love doing is a dream come true, right?

Well, yes, of course it is. But it also involves masses of hard work, absolute commitment and a fair bit of paperwork. Being organised enough to make sure you’ve covered everything is a full-time job in itself.

The answer may be to take on more staff, but that means a change in dynamic. You’re very suddenly the one in charge. The buck stops with you and you’re the one tasked with covering all the bases – and that takes some getting used to.

However, like any person charged with running a business, you take your responsibilities seriously. You want to make work fun (if you can) and you also want to make sure your staff are safe and well and don't become sick or get injured as a result of working for you.

Your duty of care as an employer means that – quite rightly – your employees’ welfare is down to you. You’re obliged to do everything necessary to ensure their working environment is safe and any equipment you’ve supplied them with is fit for purpose.

Despite your best efforts, however, things can sometimes go wrong. What happens if an employee is injured or becomes ill and blames you? And worse, then sues you for damages?

As always, there’s an insurance policy that covers it. It’s called employers’ liability insurance and it’s a legal requirement for most businesses in the UK.

Who needs employers’ liability insurance?

Any company with one or more employees. The only exemptions are:

• Limited companies, where the owner is the sole employee.
• Unincorporated family business, where all employees are closely related.

What does employers’ liability insurance pay for?

If a claim is made against you and you need to defend yourself (which you will), the insurer appoints and pays for legal expertise to fight your corner. The insurer also pays any compensation due to your employee as a result of a claim.

Who says I need employers’ liability insurance?

The Health and Safety Executive enforces the law on employers' liability. They could fine you up to £2,500 for any day you're without the necessary cover and £1,000 for not displaying the appropriate certificate.

How much cover do I need?

The minimum level of cover is £5m, but you’ll find most insurers only offer £10m. That sounds a lot, but it doesn’t mean it’s expensive. Annual premiums start from around £30-£40.

It’s usually quick and easy to sort out too, so don’t take any chances. I advise talking to a specialist broker to help point you in the right direction.

Nick Green, PolicyBee professional insurance brokers

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Why your first employees are the keys to your success

Venture capitalists deciding whether to invest in early-stage businesses will tell you that there are three things that they look for: people, people and people. It’s a slightly trite saying, but my experience says there’s wisdom in this approach.

I’ve recently joined the board of a financial services company that has gone from start-up to a multi-billion pound valuation in the lifetime of its founders. In fact, it’s the only FTSE 100 company to achieve this entirely by organic growth. It’s an amazing story and there are lots of lessons it could teach. A major part of the success has been down to one of the key early employees working alongside the founders.

In a similar way, when I started my own company, Actinic, we went from start-up to full listing on the London Stock Exchange in less than five years. The first recruit started working for us while the business was still in my house and was absolutely critical. He later became a director and has now gone on to be highly successful at other companies.

And again, Actinic’s biggest customer success story started out in a front room and grew to sales of £23m in a handful of years. Sure enough, their first employee went on to become the operations director and was a major driving force for the business during its development.

When you are starting a company, you have limited resources and husbanding them carefully is critical. It may seem difficult to be choosy when you are recruiting your first one or two staff, but it’s an important discipline. In fact, it’s up there with choosing the right business partner. If you get it right, it can be the first step on the road to huge success. If you get it wrong – it could be the end. Put more effort into your early recruitment than on any other issue. Believe me, the venture capitalists have got it right.

Chris Barling is CEO of ecommerce software supplier Actinic 

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Do recruitment agencies have a future?

What is your experience of working with recruitment consultants? Do you use them? Many businesses do, that’s why recruitment is such a lucrative market.

In the year-ending March 2009, the value of the permanent recruitment market in the UK stood at £2.61bn and the number of permanent placements made was 582,803.

What will happen next? Well, the times they are a changing.

According to the National Statistics office, 2.45m were unemployed for the three months up to September 2010. Many were claiming employment benefits and as such the job centre has become a hive of actively available job seekers.

Did you know that recruitment agencies advertise your job in the job centre and sell candidates to businesses for thousands of pounds?

We’re now witnessing an explosion in online social media. Forward-thinking recruitment consultants realised you can search someone’s job title through, say, Facebook, to generate candidates or start a discussion on LinkedIn, which are nothing more than job adverts, you can even tweet your latest job vacancy on Twitter.

So what does this mean? Well, recruitment agencies advertise your job using social media sites and sell you the candidate for thousands of pounds.

What are the alternatives? You could approach the leading job boards directly. Do you NEED a recruitment agency? Well, in many cases NO. Of course, recruitment agencies will tell you that’s not the case. A recruitment agent may save you time in searching and getting candidates before you, but you still have to interview them. Is that worth paying thousands of pounds for?

Darren Leighfield, Director at EtcEtc Ltd

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How to write more effective recruitment adverts

Writing recruitment adverts needn’t be a chore and, if done well, it can transform your response, generate strong interest and attract good candidates.

Think first. Focus on what you’re trying to achieve – attract the right person for the requirements of the role. If you’re to do that, you must attract the attention of the target audience, tell them what they need to know and persuading them to reply. Make sure you have a clear idea of your target audience and how your advert will reach them.

If necessary – carry out some basic research. Maybe the salary you’re offering is a bit low – or too high. Before you can write your advert you also need to carefully consider the contribution the role needs to make to your business. Only then can you set out the skills, knowledge and experience you seek.

You must get the tone of your advert right. Formal language will work best for certain roles, while in others it might put candidates off. Even if you opt for a formal tone, remember – you’re communicating with human beings. Keep it friendly, almost as if you were having a conversation with the reader.

Good candidates won’t want to read the same dull, old lines they’ve read in a thousand and one other job adverts. Quickly they must be able to recognise (or not) their suitability for the role and the benefits this will bring to them.

Try and be creative. I admit it’s easier said than done. Try and say something that other adverts don’t. Perhaps you’re offering a brand new role or unique opportunity in a new market. Find a unique selling point for the role and do a good job of selling your business to readers.

Get the structure of your advertisement right. There’s an accepted structure; one that readers know, recognise, trust and expect. You include something about your business; something about the job; something about the person you’re looking for; and something about the benefits. You’ve also got to tell people how you want them to respond (ie by letter or email?) and what the deadline is.

Also make sure you include an attention-grabbing title. Throughout your copy, avoid clichés, business speak and jargon. Keep the language simple and to the point. When finished, use your spell check, because any errors will reflect badly on your business. Get someone else to read through the copy, just to make sure there are no mistakes and that all key information is included. Good luck.

Darren Leighfield, Director at EtcEtc Ltd

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Who’d be a working mum, eh?

Research published recently by office-space provider Regus suggests the number of UK businesses who would take on working mums if they were recruiting has fallen significantly in the past year.

More than 1,000 UK businesses were surveyed and only 26 per cent said they would hire a woman with children, compared with 38 per cent last year. According to Regus: “With 43 per cent of firms saying they plan to increase employee numbers this year [itself quite a remarkable statistic], the proportion intending to recruit working mums is worryingly low.”

Sadly, when asked for key reasons, the same tired, old excuses (not reasons) reared their ugly heads. Some 38% fear “working mothers may show less commitment and flexibility than other employees”; while “31% believe working mums will leave to have another child”; and “17% are worried that women who return to the workplace will have out-of-date skills”.

Why are so many UK employers still stuck in the 1970s with their thinking when it comes to women with children? I’d wager that many of respondents were male – whadya reckon? And behind most successful businessmen, usually there’s a dutiful wife tucked away in the suburban background, who’s quietly looked after the kids and home for years.

Women seemed damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Most working mums I’ve worked with over the years could give many of their colleagues lessons in commitment. Trying to balance a career with childcare is no small challenge. Most families these days can only get by on two incomes, so many women have no choice but to return to work after having children – they do so out of necessity, not choice.

And while many women are allowed to work fewer days after having children (employers who facilitate such flexible arrangements take a bow), most working mums feel under added scrutiny and immense pressure to achieve the same results. They could give lessons in working hard, too. Many working mums try to cram as much work into their reduced working week as they did previously, which can eventually takes its toll.

The use of the word “flexibility” by respondents is interesting. This, of course, usually means willingness to habitually work for no pay. Surely by now we all know it’s about working smarter, not longer? And if your business really has to rely on employees’ willingness to work for free, you’ve really got problems. As long as people work the hours for which they are paid, employers can’t really complain.

On a more positive note, again according to Regus, 67 per cent or those surveyed said employers who ignored the potential contribution returning mothers can make are “missing out on a significant and valuable part of the employment pool”.

More than half (51%) regard working mums as “offering skills that are difficult to find in the current market”; and (revealingly) 45% value returning mothers because “they offer experience and skills without demanding top salaries”. (The implication being that some employers believe these women are just glad to have a job, so they won’t ask for pay parity with male colleagues.)

Generalising is a foolish and dangerous act. It’s certainly not my personal experience, but I’m sure there are women who show less commitment and don’t work as hard after they return to work after having children. In many ways, it’s a natural consequence. But as with any other employee, if there are problems with a working mum’s punctuality, attendance, productivity or quality, then your business should have processes and mechanisms to resolve them.

Some women will soon leave again – either temporarily or permanently – to have more children, and this often creates headaches for business owners and managers. But not taking on women with children or women of a certain age for fear they will soon have children isn’t the answer.

It seems some employers still have a lot to learn when it comes to the two-way streets that are commitment and flexibility.

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It’s all about the Belly

I love my job and what I do and as a result I spend lots of my life seeing and hearing things and then being unable to stop myself relating them to being a good leader and what makes organisations work. I guess if I was a musician I’d always have songs in my head!

A few days ago we were doing a long journey in the car and we put story CDs on in the car for our young sons to listen to - and so, for the first time in ages, I heard Aesop’s Fables. Initially I wasn’t really tuned in and then I heard this one and BANG my mind was back in work mode again:

The Belly and the Members Fable - An Aesop’s Fable
One fine day it occurred to the Members of the Body that they were doing all the work and the Belly was having all the food. So they held a meeting, and after a long discussion, decided to strike work till the Belly consented to take its proper share of the work. So for a day or two, the Hands refused to take the food, the Mouth refused to receive it, and the Teeth had no work to do. But after a day or two the Members began to find that they themselves were not in a very active condition: the Hands could hardly move, and the Mouth was all parched and dry, while the Legs were unable to support the rest. So thus they found that even the Belly in its dull quiet way was doing necessary work for the Body, and that all must work together or the Body will go to pieces.

As I listened, it occurred to me that we so often feel that we are the ones who are doing all the work, whether it be at work or at home – and we forget that there are other people in the team who are doing their bit too, but in a quiet, often overlooked way.

I regularly facilitate in situations where someone is convinced that the other departments or individuals aren’t pulling their weight – and I get them to understand and/or work in each other’s departments and also encourage them to make sure their own house is in order before they start casting around to give criticism. These approaches get good results, but I think I’m going to add this fable into my toolkit as it underlines the point very succinctly and is a great model for good organisational design. I probably need to pin it on the fridge at home too!

Emma Warren, Portfolio Directors

This post originally appeared on Emma Warren's blog

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Motivating your team

The two most common complaints in business are that no one asked me and no one told me. While, in my experience, it’s impossible to ever fully eliminate these complaints, making a concerted effort at addressing them can lead to a big boost in team morale.

As a manager, I feel that if I don’t tell people what’s going on, I can’t complain if they fill in the gaps with negatives. And if they don’t feel that their input is taken seriously, they will become de-motivated and probably work less hard, as well as putting up with things that frankly, they should be screaming about.

In fact, listening is the key to continuous improvement. I do try to practice what I preach and I interview all staff, including those in junior roles, on a regular basis. It doesn’t take all that long, it’s amazing what you find out, and the very act of listening leads to a big improvement in morale.

Another angle that we have tried is to hold a series of workshop sessions with all staff whenever we review our strategy. These enable us to get useful input on the broad thrust of the strategy, and identify many of the potential pitfalls. It also means that we communicate and get buy in as we go along. By the time the strategy is completed, everybody is on board and starting to act on it. This is hugely better than a brilliant strategy done by outside consultants but that sits beautifully documented but largely untouched on the shelf. With that sort of strategy, you wonder a year later why the business isn’t really following it, and why it faces resistance at every turn. The lesson is that it’s important to explain where you are going to everybody even when you are a small company.

In most businesses, money is not a great motivator, but can certainly be a great de-motivator. So it’s important to try to be consistent in how you reward people, and also to explain pay policies so that there is a degree of buy in. Sometimes, it may be better to reward with bonuses rather than pay rises, as rises institutionalize pay differentials in ways that may become unfair over time, They can’t easily be unpicked and when discovered will destroy morale.

Motivation is a funny thing, and is pretty hard to achieve. I hope that some of the ideas here will stimulate your further thoughts.

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