While no business will completely run itself, you can set your lifestyle business up in such a way as to minimize what you have to do to keep it running smoothly.
Setting up a self-running business involves considering the aspects of your business that are most important to your customers. That means dealing with customer service – ensuring that they are getting their products on time and that they are happy with the service you offer. The best way to do that is to employ some technology that helps based on your audience’s needs and what you learn about them through your study of them.
Most of your customer service, product delivery, and marketing can be automated seamlessly using various types of technology and software. Let’s look at the ways you can create a business that almost runs itself.
Use Scheduling Software
Some of the software you already use has scheduling options right inside. For example, on Facebook Groups and Pages, you can schedule updates to your pages and groups using the internal scheduler. You can use a Virtual Assistant to upload and schedule these for you.
You can also use software like Hootsuite to plan and schedule social media marketing updates without having to do it live at the time. For this process, you can also hire a VA to upload and schedule the content you want to be delivered periodically.
Use Hosted Software for Your Needs
When looking at software solutions for your small business, it may make more sense to use a hosted platform over a self-hosted platform for some of your needs.
For example, if you want to deliver a course to your clients / students, you might want to use a platform like Teachable because they will deal with platform-related customer service issues.
Set Up a Self-Service Knowledge Base and FAQ
Customer service is vital for a happy clientele.
The best way to ensure customers are happy is to put customer care at the top of your list. Building a customer-centric business requires that you put their needs first. You can use technology to set up a self-service, searchable knowledge base and FAQ that answers the most-asked questions.
Instruct your VA to add every question ever asked and answered via email so far into that FAQ and then add to it as you go.
Give Customers Full Control Over Their Accounts
If your customers sign into your website to use your services or buy your products, give them as much control over their accounts as possible. You don’t want to have to send passwords, help people reset them, and that type of stuff. They should be able to do that on their own using the system’s automation.
There are several product delivery systems out there. For digital products I use ProductDyno.
Use Customer Service Software That Includes Bots![chatbot]()
This might be a new thing for you, but it’s not new for big business. Chatbots are an amazing way to provide customer service. You can practice with this idea a little on Facebook on your Business Facebook Pages by setting up answers to frequently asked questions that your customers can ask without you being there.
Setting up systems can take some time, but the time savings over the life of your business are immeasurable. You can literally save hours a week with a lot of the automation available today. You can get time savings, as well as a very secure feeling, by employing hosted technology. Hosted online tech allows you to run your business in a more hands-off way because someone else is taking care of the tech portion.
