approachability - The Learning Center

4 Tips to Engage Customers & Employees

When a business is able to hire and engage with the right people, they will be able to operate better. And, as we are nearing the holiday season, businesses are looking for necessary holiday help. Part of this includes quickly identifying employees so customers and clients will be able to locate who can help them. Simply provide each employee with a name tag to help them communicate with your customers.

Name tags create a personalized experience as they make it quick and easy for customers to quickly see employees. These tags play an important role in developing effective communication between employees and customers for several reasons. From helping with employee visibility to increasing business approachability, name tags are an essential tool for any business to have.

Using custom ribbon rolls, custom plaques and engraved signs in a retail business to inform and engage customers and employees.

Engage Seasonal Workers with Name Tags

For many businesses, seasonal help is necessary to handle holiday demands. Not only are seasonal employees cost effective, but they also help your business remain flexible in adjusting the size of your workforce. During peak holiday times, these temporary employees are often necessary to have around to help keep full time operational coverage. Without these crucial employees, you couldn’t keep your business running the way your customers and clients are used to.

Adding seasonal and temporary employees to your staff has huge benefits for your company. It makes it easier for full time staff to enjoy the holidays while they maintain work/life balance, and you can keep your business steady. You will also have enough people to cover any increase in hours or demand for products and services.

So, have you already started the process of hiring your seasonal employees? If not, now is the time. Of course, you will need to make sure you train them thoroughly before your holiday rush hits! With that being said, as a business owner, you should also be concerned with how well your new help will be able to work with your customers.

Tip #1: As always, name tags help to engage employees and customers.

When employees wear identification, they help to enhance the overall customer experience. This, in turn, will make customers feel more valued. When a customer knows an employee’s name, they can quickly establish a level of trust with them. Name tags humanize interactions and help customers feel more comfortable when shopping or doing business with your company.

Name tags also express a sense of professionalism and being organized. When employees wear name tags, it shows that the company takes customer interactions seriously and is committed to providing a higher level of service. Employee identification also holds them more accountable for their actions and behavior. Name tags encourage staff to provide excellent customer service and uphold your brand’s reputation.

Tip #2: Decorating is easy with custom ribbon rolls.

Custom ribbon rolls with holiday messages and themes are great for helping to decorate any business.

Be creative in your store or shop by using custom ribbons to promote sales and products. Ribbon rolls are eye catching and will help with displays and packaging. Use these ribbons in a variety of ways, such as wrapping around products, decorating packaging or creating displays. Their versatility allows you to showcase your business creatively.

When using custom ribbons for promotions and sales, make sure that you consider how the design works. Always provide messaging that aligns with your branding and the purpose of any sale. Remember to consider the placement of the ribbon rolls and make sure that they are easily noticeable to customers.

Decorating for Success: Business 101

The key to a successful retail business is product presentation. No matter what your company sells, whether it’s furniture or cookies, product packaging and store design play a key role in how well your business performs. Take some time right now to learn about an easy to use tool that will help you decorate for success: RIBBONS.

Tip #3: Custom signs engage your holiday helpers.

Using custom engraved signs helps communicate clearly with employees and customers.

Begin the season with the early fall holidays by keeping your store current with up to date signage. The signs can be customized or simple office signs. From holiday hours to indicating entrances and more, engraved signs are your customer’s best friends.

Offer special promotions or discounts that are tied to the early fall holidays. Then, use signs to communicate these sales so customers can take full advantage. Or show off products that are relevant to any holiday or season. Use your creativity to promote Back to School, Halloween, Thanksgiving and other holidays or special events.

PRO TIP: Extend your signage efforts to social media by customizing signs with a QR code, helping your customer base find your channels and interact with you. This will help create an online buzz and attract a wider audience.

Tip #4: Making award plaques work for you.

Create award plaques to help employees feel like they are making a difference.

Keep your holiday momentum going by awarding your staff and teams as they achieve their goals. You encourage improvement by consistently recognizing your staff and helping them set well defined goals. Custom award plaques help you provide meaningful rewards for a job well done. And by acknowledging your employees’ success, you influence your business’s success.

Custom Plaques & Employee Recognition

From promoting accomplishments to motivating employees, custom plaques are a unique and personal way to connect with coworkers and other colleagues. Motivating employees to stay on track while at work can often be problematic. Use these custom plaques to go beyond highlighting someone’s achievements and help them see just how useful they are to your company.

Engaging with Employees and Customers

By strategically incorporating these tips, you can create a memorable and engaging shopping experience for your customers during the holidays while keeping your business’s atmosphere current and exciting.

SHOP CUSTOM PRODUCTS NOW

Improving Your Customer Service

Helping your customers is what your business does, right? When you focus your priorities on your customers’ needs, you are actually doing your business a favor. As you meet your customer’s needs, you can better your business and better your customer service. In the long run, focusing on who is doing business with you will help you in your client retention as well as finding new customers.

Whether small or large, every business will always benefit from improved customer service practices. So how can you, as a business owner, help your employees and customers feel more valued? Here are several steps that you can take to improve your customer service.

Improve Your Customer Service by using name tags (relatability), name plates (approachability) and reusable badges (versatility).

Understand Your Customers’ Needs

According to several studies, service is vital in a customer’s brand loyalty choice. However, each customer will have a different view and opinion of excellent customer service. To provide this excellence, you need to determine your customers’ needs. Once you find out these needs, you can better train your employees to meet them.

Listen to (and Implement) Customer Feedback

You should also listen to customer feedback. Sometimes reading customer feedback is not the most exciting thing to do as a business owner. However, whether you are a small business or a large one, customer feedback should be a critical point in running your business.

Even if it’s negative, customer feedback will keep your business running up to par with what your customers expect. Part of being a business owner is listening to your customers. When you listen to your customer feedback, you can improve the customer’s experience. Once you improve this experience, your business can better help meet your customer’s needs.

Take all customer feedback constructively. Remember that most customers only provide negative feedback when something needs to be fixed. Therefore, even when dealing with positive feedback, find a constructive way to implement any changes that you need to your business.

Pay Attention to Your Competitors

Yes, even your competitors will influence your customer’s needs. For example, if consumers have a bad experience with a competitor, they may turn to you to meet their needs. So, you should always pay attention to your competitors to better help your customers.

While it is not prudent to stalk your competition, you will find it necessary to understand how your competitor runs its business. Then, you can identify possible shortcomings in their business and find ways to improve your business by building on what customers need.

Provide Open Communication

One of the best ways to improve your business’s customer service is by communicating openly with clients and customers. Find ways to communicate directly with customers about what services and products you offer and how they meet their needs.

Use every available means to communicate with your customers. Whether it is online and social media or in-store surveys, make sure you keep in contact with your customers. No matter how you communicate with your customers, make sure you use consistency in that communication.

Communicating with your customers is a crucial component of running a business. When you have an open line of communication, customers’ needs will become readily available to you. From the feedback received via surveys or messages sent through emails, customers will be happy to let you know what they need when your business is transparent.

Helping your customers remember your brand will also help you retain them. You help customers remember your brand and business by constantly providing them with your best business practices. This consistency is one of the best ways to accomplish customer retention.

Following Up with Your Customers

There are so many different ways that you can get in touch with your customers. From in-store surveys to social media postings, customer communication is easier than ever. Following up with your customers after completing a service or transaction is an excellent opportunity to understand their needs.

Once you understand these needs, you can follow up with your customer to ensure that they are satisfied with your business dealings. One of the easiest ways to reach out to your customers for a follow-up is an email. Make sure that when you send out emails to customers, you fully represent your brand. Your voice still needs to remain consistent so that your customers will keep coming back.

Promptly Handle Complaints

Part of listening to your customers is also taking their complaints. While taking complaints may not always be an easy part of doing business, it is vital that you allow your customers an opportunity to speak their minds. In addition, when you let customers complain about poor service or poor quality of product, you are also gaining their trust.

It is an important part of this step to follow up after receiving a complaint promptly. Remember, most customers do not complain unless there is an issue. And as a business owner, you want to make sure that there are no issues between you and your clientele.

No matter the kind of feedback you receive, you can always learn from what your customers tell you. So, always encourage customers to express and share their feelings about your company. Stay as transparent as you can during this process, and customers will continue doing business with you.

Meeting Your Customer’s Needs

One of the keys to excellent customer service is understanding and meeting customers’ needs. To make this happen, several steps must be followed. Keep the following in mind while dealing with your clients, and excellent customer service is sure to follow.

Offer Reasonable Solutions

Knowing your customers’ needs is only half the battle. The other half is to offer solutions to any problems that may occur. Find ways to explore how to improve your business continually. One of these ways is to listen to your customers’ needs and then respond with a way to fix any issue.

One key thing to remember is that the solutions need to be simple. Keep an open mind when responding to customer issues, stay as transparent as possible and actively keep your customer in the loop as you offer any solution.

Keep Listening to Your Customers

Just because you found one customer’s need does not mean that you found them all. Constantly keep listening to everything your customers say about how you run your business. Remember, your goal is excellent customer service. Without listening, this goal is unattainable.

And, don’t just listen but actually hear what your customers are saying. Take into consideration everything they say, no matter how unimportant it may seem. While sometimes it is hard to admit that a customer may be right, you may have a broken system (especially if more than one customer complains about the same thing). The only way to stay in business is to keep listening.

Be Honest and Transparent

It does not matter what type of business you run, honesty and transparency are two of the most important things you need to remember. Keeping your customers aware of how you are running your business will keep you in business.

Unhappy customers are not repeat customers. After all, a happy customer is your greatest asset as a business. Remember that a happy customer is also a buying customer. Whether it’s goods or services you offer as a company, your customer is there because of how you make them feel.

Honesty and transparency are just good business practices. Stay honest in your dealings, and your business will increase. Keep transparency as part of your brand, and you will continue to have excellent customer service.

How To Connect with Your Customers

The H2H experience should be available to all customers. What we mean by this is human to human connections. Connecting with customers should be the focus of every business. Over the past while, we have become disconnected.

As humans, we crave experiences that connect us with others. Those connections have turned online throughout the last year and have become a little less human. So, how do we revert to that constant human interaction we naturally crave while still existing in our ever-changing world?

Part of the solution to this issue is becoming more approachable. While you and your company may have already been in a position of trust, people need to feel that they can still trust you and your services. Now the question is, how do you gain that trust and become more approachable.

Tools for Improving Your Customer Service

NAME TAGS

With an extensive line of tags available, we have everything to meet your needs. Name tags are guaranteed to improve your customers’ experience and improve your customer service.

Communicate and relate better with your employees and customers easier with the help of name tags. While we are slightly biased, name tags are just a good business decision. They provide identification, security and so many other benefits.

There are significant benefits to wearing name tags in any retail establishment (grocery store, boutique, department store, etc.). Some of these benefits include the use of identification in marketing, providing security, identifying employees and other staff, and many other positive benefits.

REUSABLE BADGES

These versatile reusable name badges help your customers even when you have a high employee turnover. Your customer service will improve when everyone has identification. Reusable badges are perfect for volunteers, seasonal employees and even visitors.

And, with printable inserts, you can quickly provide identification for everyone at your company. Our reusable name badges are simple systems that can either be written on or printed and still look professional.

NAME PLATES

Be more approachable by using personalized name plates around your business. These name plates can include employee names, directions to find offices and other amenities, identify conference rooms and even provide an uplifting message for your customers.

NAME TAGS

Reusable name badges such as speedy badges, Mighty Badges and others.

REUSABLE BADGES

NAME PLATES

How a Name Tag Boosts Your Approachability

…And Other Wisdom from Your Name Tag Experts

People wear a name tag at social events to help remember each others’ names. In the business world, these tags serve a bigger purpose. They have a subconscious effect on the viewer that enhances a company’s networking, branding and promotional efforts. At trade shows and conventions, people wear name tags to promote their brand and establish professional relationships. In retail, they improve customer and employee relations. People respond to them wherever they show up.

lanyards and badges holders being worn as a name tag at a social event

Retail employees and convention attendees frequently wear name tags. Some people wear them at conferences, trade shows, business luncheons or sporting events. Politicians sometimes wear them, usually with a support message along with their name and title so that viewers will remember their cause as well as their name. In short, many people wear name tags for different reasons.

A name tag is a personal identification tool that helps you become more relatable and approachable. Many people use them, including politicians, business managers and conference attendees. The effectiveness of wearing one depends on following guidelines such as keeping your name tag simple and using the right fastener. It is also important for them to have a large font so that people can read them easily. Not only are they used for identification, but they are also used as corporate gifts to strengthen your work relationships.

Be Approachable by Using a Name Tag

Scott Ginsberg, the Name Tag Guy, said, “The first idea to remember is that approachability is a two-way street. It’s both you stepping onto someone’s front porch, and you inviting someone to step onto your front porch. It connects people to you. It allows them to feel more comfortable talking to you.”

When someone is relatable, it means people can draw similarities between that person and themselves. Customers want to feel they have a connection with a company and its employees. It makes them think they can trust the company to do what is in a customer’s best interest. Therefore, when a company and its employees are relatable, people feel comfortable doing business with them. Relatability is, therefore, a valuable asset that helps a company become successful.

Name tags play a significant role in increasing relatability. When a person wears a name tag, it humanizes them. It makes them relatable and more approachable. People are more willing to interact with a stranger in a retail store, conference room or trade show if that stranger is wearing a name tag.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Ineffective Name Tags

Scott Ginsberg, an international expert on name tags and approachability, wrote a list of “Seven Deadly Sins” to avoid when ordering them. The purpose of this list of “sins” is to educate people on what makes them ineffective and how to avoid them. Ginsberg stresses the link between name tags and approachability.

“Your name tag is your best friend. It is a lifesaver in meetings, trade shows and events to start conversations when you meet groups of new people. It also identifies you as well as your company in the minds of others.”

SIZE

Nobody wants others staring awkwardly at their chest, trying to read their name tag. “This is self-defeating, embarrassing and works to decrease your approachability.” It should be readable from at least 10 feet away, thus making the recommended font size a minimum of 24 point. Avoid cursive, script or other fancy writing styles.

COLOR

For name tags, complementary colors create maximum visibility. Whether it is dark writing on a light background or vice versa, what matters is that the name, title and business logo are easy to see. “Fashion must be outweighed by your name tag’s approachability and visibility.” Many color combinations allow viewers to read tags without any awkward squinting or leaning. Find the best match for your brand that gives you both readability and recognition.

TURNAROUND

Another problem to avoid is what Ginsberg calls “the name tag turnaround.” It refers to when a name badge turns so that the information on the front is hidden, and there is no information on the back. Typically, this happens when the tag is worn around the neck on a lanyard or worn with a clip. To avoid having “name tag turnaround,” write the same information on both sides.

CLUTTER

“Avoid name tags with overly thick borders, unnecessary clutter or too much text. All of the information contained must be readable and memorable in less than five seconds. Remember, they call them name tags because the name is the focal point. Whether it’s the name of the person or the name of the company, those are the two most important pieces of information.”

PLACEMENT

Placement refers to where someone wears their name tag, such as on the right or left side of their shirt. Which side the tag should be on depends on where the person is or what type of function they are attending. For example, when at a conference or convention, the name tag should be worn on the left side because that way it is more visible to people walking from the opposite direction. At corporate meetings or other office events, they should be on the right side because when the wearer greets people by shaking their right hand, the tag is parallel with the viewer’s line of sight. Do not decrease a name tag’s effectiveness by wearing it on the wrong side.

PRESENCE

Similar to placement, presence has to do with putting the name badge in a place where it is the most visible to any viewer, regardless of wearing it on the right or left side. The name tag should be where people can see it but also be able to see the person’s face. According to Ginsberg, “the most effective location is two to three inches below your collarbone on whichever side most appropriate for your function.”

MAXIMIZATION

To make the most of wearing a name tag, utilize all the space it provides. Have your name in a larger font so that a lot of white space does not surround the text. If the tag includes a logo, the logo and text should fill up as much of it as possible. Like the front porch of a house, a name tag is meant to be inviting and make others feel comfortable. When used to the fullest capacity, they become more visible and welcoming. It initiates conversations that can turn into valuable business connections.

By avoiding these seven “deadly sins,” name tags become more efficient and improve a person’s approachability.

How to Make Your Name Tag Effective

name tags with logos, both engraved and printed

A name tag helps to make you look professional. When someone wears one appropriately, it indicates that they take their job seriously. In turn, this helps create an excellent first impression when meeting with potential clients and investors.

In addition to looking professional, people tend to act more qualified when they wear a name tag. And, they are more aware of how much they are accountable for their actions. For example, if a customer needs help, employees are quickly identified if they are wearing their name tag.

Include Relevant Text

Add titles on your name tags in office settings or retail environments. Titles help make managers and head staff stand out a bit more from other employees. Titles are also helpful during a conference or convention to separate attendees from venue staff and event volunteers. While typically titles are kept brief, it is important not to sell anyone short when using their title. So, make sure to order your tags in an appropriate size to adequately accommodate all of the text.

Don’t forget about visibility. All text should be readable from a distance, typically about 10 feet. Don’t add too much text to one line as it could become too small to read even from close up. And, make sure that all included text is relevant to your event or business.

For a name tag to be the most effective, there are guidelines to consider. The first rule is to keep yours simple. Some people treat them like business cards or resumes, but personal identification should be straightforward and concise. Name tags should only include the bare minimum information necessary to identify the person wearing it. In commercial and retail settings, that means the person’s first name, unless there is more than one employee with the same first name. With such cases, adding a last name helps with identification.

Brand with a Logo

Another recommendation to consider is where and how to include a company logo. The logo should be an appropriate size so that it doesn’t crowd the name or title. And, the layout needs to be tidy. If the text is laser engraved, the logo will have limitations to a specific color or printing format. Full-color tags provide the user with brighter colors and the option of bleeds. These are useful for logos that are large or require particular colors.

Use of a logo depends on the style of the name tag. Metals will show logos far differently than plastic will. It is important to choose whichever type of name tag works best for the person wearing it. Plastic name tags tend to be less expensive than metal ones, are heat resistant and come in many different shapes. Metal name tags are more durable than plastic ones but also heavier. Some people prefer a lighter name tag, especially if they wear loose clothing. Make sure to choose the right material before ordering the name tags.

You can increase your brand recognition by including logos. People associate the company logo and employees with the organization when employees wear logo name tags at conventions and trade shows. Another benefit to having a logo is that employees tend to keep their name tags on when they go on their lunch break or commute to and from work. By doing so, they advertise the company to the public and make the brand more memorable.