I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
Read, and enjoy!Tash
One tool to improve employee engagement is to clearly communicate your mission and value to your employees – this same survey showed that is significant. Presumably because people can feel where the business is heading and thus find ways to contribute to that direction.
A mission and vlaues statement is about answering basic questions on the business direction and aspirations.
Value of a mission and vision
64% of the AIM respondents said their organisation gets a positive return from having a mission and value statement.
I admit that I am one of those who think a mission and values can be a waste of time. But apparently they can be done well enough to inspire many employees.
I like the fact that, of those aware of their employer’s mission, 64% believe those values are reflected in their operations. Part of my cynicism is that a mission is just words on a page unless taken seriously – it appears many businesses are taking them seriously.
The survey summary states that employees being aware of a business’s missions and values…
more than doubles the belief in management cultivating a good organisational culture
increases employee loyalty (by a factor of 1.5)
makes it less likely they will change employers
makes it more likely to care about the future of the business
Use of a vision and mission statement
Further break down of the survey results shows that micro-businesses (ie have 20 or fewer employees) are less likely to have given employees a clear mission or values.
Of course, micro-businesses may have closer relationships within the business (the owner of CEO is more likely to be involved with all staff if there are only a dozen or so of them!) so a written statement may seem less necessary.
However, it if has benefits and makes it clear for new employees, and reminds existing employees, maybe a written statement is worthwhile for micro-businesses, too.
Does your business have a written mission and values statement? If so, how public is it – who knows about it?
Of course, that means 61% consider it moderately effective or worse. That’s a big number.
Note for micro-businesses (with 20 or fewer staff) 59% rated it effective or very effective while 50% gave that rating if staff levels between 21 and 50 applied. Staff rate this effectiveness less as the business size grows, which makes a certain amount of sense.
Communicating effectively is the only way to get your idas across to others – and to get them to help you implement your ideas.
Communications is important
On a positive note, the survey showed many people will stay in their current job because they have a great relationship with co-workers.
So the question is, how do businesses improve communications within teams and from the leadership to everyone else?
I think the key is wanting to communicate – the hows and skills can only do so much if management wants to keep secrets and power to themselves.
Improve communications ideas
From the survey itself, some ways to improve that perception of two-way communications include:
57 % believe management listens and responds to employee concerns – so actively listening is a clear method for making improvements
59% stated that being valued and understood is a major factor in employee engagement – that comes back to listening and ensuring communication really is two-way
55% agree and 43% strongly agree that is it important to be acknowledged for their work – communicating appreciation of people’s efforts and skills could make a huge difference in their happiness and loyalty. Yet only 54% felt appreciated by their employer…
On my way to Canberra yesterday, I listened to the flight attendant’s safety message.
A fire truck is a not-so-boring safety precaution at airports
Obviously we are meant to do this every time we catch a plane but it isn’t the most interesting speech you’ll ever hear so it is, uh, challenging to stay focussed on it.
On Tuesday, the Qantas staff acknowledged one of the complaints about these safety messages by starting the presentation with
We know you can operate a seat belt, but we want to give you a few tips on using ours today.
A different message
It was a bit more human to acknowledge most people are smart enough to use a plane’s seat belt so it felt friendly and more interesting than ‘here’s how to do your seat belt up’.
However, just the fact that it was different to the usual safety blurb got my attention. And kept me listening to see what other changes they’d made to their message.
Unfortunately, that was the only deviation from the normal approach.
Nor is it now standard at Qantas. My return flight used a video to present the safety message and it was routine. And I didn’t really pay any attention to it.
When’s the last time you listened to a flight safety message?
When’s the last time you consciously changed something in your business to keep it fresh and attracting attention?
Let me tell you a story of a great idea from a service provider…
Great service…
Today, I received a SMS from my daughter’s school telling me (and other parents on the list) that the kids had arrived safely at camp.
I think it’s a great idea to give feedback like that; it builds trust and loyalty, reduces parental concern and therefore probably means fewer calls to the school to check all is good.
Many similar activities could do this same thing quite inexpensively. For me, it’s something like an emailed ‘your annual report has gone to the printer’ or ‘I submitted that guest blog post for you.’
Can you think of a way to use this idea in your business?
but details count.
The problem with today’s message, however, is that my daughter left yesterday so I would have hoped they arrived at camp about 24 hours before I got the safely arrived message.
Yesterday, the SMS was a great idea.
Today, not so much. At best, it makes them look a bit silly or slack. At worst, it worries parents about why it took 24 hours longer than expected to arrive at camp!
No one can stay productive at a desk like this without regular breaks
How often do you feel overwhelmed with things?
How often do you feel quiet – no tweets, emails or status updates firing at, no phone calls or client/boss requests, no attempts at reducing a to do list?
I intend reading this book, and will review it in this blog, as I am very conscious of how much stuff business people have to deal with. We’ve always had to deal with multiple roles (accounts, marketing, sales, staffing, production, etc) but now we have digital presence and technical changes to keep up with as well.
Matthew’s fifth law is ‘break is the important part of breakthrough’ and I think that will be a very interesting chapter. I think breakthroughs can change lives – whether it is a breakthrough new product that changes the world or a simpler breakthrough on a better way to deal with a difficult client or finding a new tool that will save you time.
Any break from routine/habit/patterns can make us look around, take notice and see the things we take for granted most of the time. Then we can be more creative and find solutions or new ideas.
I like the idea of regularly getting away from my desk – and by regularly I mean once an hour or so – but I admit I often get caught up in things and stay working for longer than I probably should.
So I want to ask how you fit breaks into your working day/week. Is it something you plan or do you ‘go with the flow’?
But I like Matthew’s twist – I believe it is true that too much information stifles imagination. Giving enough information to set a foundation is enough.
What information can you limit to get people’s imagination working in your favour?
Matthew gave the example of Steve Jobs launching the first iPhone – he showed one, explained some of what it could do and then said no more until it launched a few months later. And something like 20 million people signed up to buy one before it was on sale. That’s a lot of people acting on limited information, isn’t it?
Maybe it seems a little back to front. I mean, first I reviewed some online chat software and now I am writing about whether or not adding online chat to a website is worth considering.
For me, that’s the order things have happened – I did the research because a client asked me too. And now I am thinking about adding chat to my site as well.
Of course, I could wait a while and see how chat goes for my client… Yet again, their business is so different to mine that any data would probably have limited value.
So what’s so good about offering online chat functions?
Here are what I see as the reasons for adding chat to a website…
you appear approachable and interested in helping potential clients
you can solve issues quickly – no waiting for emails or loosing people because they can’t find the answer they want from your site
some people prefer to interact online instead of via the phone – and I suspect this tendency will increase
an online chat can be quicker and less intrusive than getting a phone call
by answering immediate questions, you can learn what people want to know when visiting your site – and maybe what is missing (or hard to find) from your site
as a service provider, it can also be a great customer service tool for existing clients
for someone like me, knowing how to use a new feature can be beneficial in advising my clients
And what’s NOT so good about adding chat to your site?
If online chat was perfect for every website, we’d all have it, right? So here are some downsides to adding an online chat function…
it costs money – there is quite a range of prices but you are likely to pay for the software and maybe hosting
it will take time to set up – choosing a supplier, adding the code to every page on your site, customising the system to match your site/brand/clients
there may well be time and money in getting a designer involved to integrate things nicely into your site
it’s a new tool to learn how to use
it’s potentially a distraction – being interrupted as you work and having a new set of stats to look at and worry about
if you can’t be online a lot of time when your clients may expect you to be, it may give an impression of being unavailable or disinterested. Most software shows you are offline – yes, people can leave a message for you to get back to them, but not all will and the offline message may not be great. Some software has the chat button disappear when you are offline so that could be a solution if you are frequently unable to monitor chats.
it may not suit your audience. Taken to extremes, a blind audience is more likely to prefer phone calls to online chats, but there would be less extreme examples where chat would be a waste of effort to install
being live, you need to think faster than if answering an email or even updating social media. If writing (or writing clearly with good spelling) is a struggle or you’re concerned with being 100% accurate, then an online chat feature may be intimidating
Making the choice
Have I missed any other points to consider?
I think it’s also important that a website gives the right impression. Do you think online chat is suitable for professional businesses or perhaps just for more informal or technology businesses?
Or put it this way, would you ever use an online chat feature on a professional website?
I have been researching online chat software for a client. There are a lot of options available so I thought I’d share some of my observations for anyone else who may be thinking of making their website more interactive.
Of course, these are my personal opinions and experiences, and are based on a user’s perspective. I looked at many websites, compared features and made a short list of six suppliers to try – this is my short list.
Online chat suppliers
I will list these roughly from best to worst so you can skip the rest of the list once you’ve found one to suit you. I’ve added a couple of explanations at the end, too, so you can understand their terminology when visiting their sites.
Prices listed are as listed on their sites – presumably in USD so at least comparable to each other. You can convert to local currency online if need be.
Note many of these have an affiliate program if that is important to you. I am not an affiliate with them (I won’t promote products/services I wouldn’t use myself!) and note that the ones I like best either don’t have or don’t promote an affiliate program – I wonder how coincidental that is?
Works across browsers & platforms (including mobile)
detailed stats reports (easy to export)
multiple chats
unlimited operators and the ability to chat with other operators (eg ask them a question to help a customer)
offline contact form
searchable archive of chats
track & record visitor data
transfer chats between operators
customisable
pre/post survey
$9 = 1 operator online at a time, no customisation, their name; $29 = 4 operators, no customisation; $69 = 8 operators, customisation. Note an annual payment discount applies.
Many help videos
Can save/print/email offline transcript easily (as can member) – but Banckle staff can’t access them
this was actually at the top of my list until I tried it
Free 30 day trial
Free WP plugin to include chat on a blog (last updated Nov 2012)
Mobile access
customisable
visitor tracking, stats & reports – but I couldn’t find any stats within the admin area
no contracts, no software to download (just code to site)
pre chat survey
offline contact form (or hide)
incoming seen by all online
pre prepared responses
multiple chats
integrate with FB or google talk
records transcripts
Free – 1 operator, 100 chats
$10 per month – 5 operators, 3,000 chats,
$20 per month – 10 operators, 6,000 chats
simple to install
button on the site sits below the footer despite changing settings to put it elsewhere
Can’t change time settings to local (eg transcripts will show 5.30pm when it is 11.30am for me) which will make tracking chats more difficult
chat works through my client’s strict firewalls but dashboard access shows an error message
Transcripts emailed instantly & easy to access in backend. Can’t delete them so they are there forever
Links appear as text not a hyperlink – push feature described on the site but the relevant buttons not visible in the admin area
Cloud based storage
Service very poor – chat operator can’t answer how-to questions and they never emailed me back
Online chat glossary
operator – the person who answers the chats for the business. If you have a system with multiple operators, you can usually personalise it and use their names; if you only have one operator function but multiple staff, they will have to share a name.
pre-prepared response – often called a canned response. SImply a commonly used answer or question that is added to the system to save time and typing during a chat. For example, I could have ‘Yes I write guest blog posts’ or ‘My monthly newsletter is free to subscribe to’ as canned responses.
pre-chat survey – the ability to ask some questions before allowing someone to chat with you. Common questions are name and email address but you can add things like ‘what do you want to ask about?’ or give them a choice of departments to chat to.
permanent window – the chat window will stay open and visible even if the visitor changes pages within your site. This is most relevant if the chat window is not a pop up window (ie is embedded into the page)
How do you decide?
If you are looking at doing something like adding a new feature to your website, how do you go about the process?
I love the simplicity of just grabbing one option and running with it, but I would never feel I had the best deal unless I had looked at other options as well. I like to shop around a bit – even if that just helps me learn more about the features to look out for – then create a short list and decide.
Do you need to look at options yourself or are some good reviews enough for you?
In short, they joined the April Fools Day spirit and announced a plane that would allow you to watch the passing ground as you flew. Spectacular views maybe, scary probably!
A number of other companies also ran some jokes on the day, and it got me thinking about the message behind such jokes.
What does it say?
Running a public joke like that can obviously be taken a number of ways, but I think most people appreciate it as long as it remains appropriate.
Making a joke shows the company can be fun and don’t take themselves too seriously. It may make it seem more approachable and flexible, too.
It could send a message of being too frivolous or flippant, but I think that comes back to keeping the joke appropriate – to the business brand as well as generally appropriate for the public.
Is it a good business tool?
I think it can be good for a number of reasons:
making people smile and feel good generates warmth towards your brand
getting into the spirit of a particular day or event shows community involvement and can also build good feelings towards the business
if it’s well done, people will share the story so the business gets lots of publicity. How many Facebook and Twitter mentions did you see of company April Fools jokes this week?
it can be fun for the staff and thus build morale and staff retention
Of course, these benefits need to be weighed against the cost of running such a joke. It may not cost a lot of money to Photoshop an image or put a message on a website, but there is a cost in time to plan a joke so it works and goes live at the right time.
Speaking of timing, remember that April Fools jokes should only be run before midday on 1 April. That can get tricky with a global audience such as on social media.
So what do you think – do you enjoy such jokes?
How does it impact on your view of the business behind the joke?
You can take it to mean its best to write naturally and don’t go too far in making your posts relevant to a very different topic. Which are good points.
Or you can read it as advice to only write for other blogs when you feel like it. Which sounds very nice, but is not so practical for a business owner trying to market their business!
Choosing a guest blog host
When it comes to choosing where to put a guest blog post, I try to get that balance through the following ideas:
if the blog’s topic is too far from my areas of knowledge, I don’t write posts for them
I only approach someone with a potential guest post when I know I have the time to provide the post, meaning I have a bit of time to be able to write without it being a huge chore or stress
I don’t try being someone else or write in another’s voice so the post feels natural. I will angle the content and tone to suit an audience but keep to what feels right for me
I am experienced in writing on demand – I think you can choose to write at any time, not just want for the right mood, without feeling forced into it. Habit and attitude can get you writing – like Chris Guillebeau, I like the quote from Somerset Maugham: I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.
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