How Small Businesses Can Achieve Consistency & Authenticity
Consistency, reliability, dependability. These three virtues mean mostly the same thing, but that virtue is so important they named it thrice. No matter what kind of enterprise you run, who you serve, or what services and products you offer, your customers want to know if their experience will be dependable from the first to the last time they use you.
If not, then the value proposition for giving you a chance (especially compared to other, perhaps larger services) reduces over time. This can be a problem, for obvious reasons.
But how can a smaller business perfect reliability, especially when that humble, handmade, and in-person focus may be what grants you authenticity over others? For example, a small food truck making hamburgers isn’t going to rely on the exact same precise measurements as McDonald's might from branch to branch, a little bit of love and variability is what makes that enterprise so lovable.
It’s a worthwhile question and one we need to consider. In this post, we’ll explore how small businesses can achieve consistency and authenticity, without one overriding the other.
Crafting A Consistent Brand Message
Unfortunately, small businesses can easily get into a habit of under-explaining what you do and how you do it. This is because small businesses tend to focus on a smaller market, perhaps more local than others. Moreover, sometimes, their business is obvious in function. If you’re a contracting outfit, you attend to household issues, repairs, and renovations.
But what exactly do you specialize in? Is that roofing work, driveways, plumbing? Perhaps you started out as a locksmith service, and this is what you’re most comfortable with. Moreover, how does your invoicing structure work? Where are quotes given? What about the warranty, do you offer a standard coverage plan? The more you can make this utterly clear (best on your social media or landing pages), the more consistent you’ll be.
Moreover, what takes a smaller business from a local easy service to work with into one that can be trusted with complex projects is that kind of stability in your process. If this is communicated from the rooftops, automatically, customers see what you have to offer and will respect your intent.
Careful Management, Without Micromanaging
We all know what it’s like to have a micromanaging boss. It’s not comfortable or pleasant. It can actively degrade not only the quality of our work but the motivation we have to do it. For this reason, a small business owner should always trust in the staff they hire, keep training to necessary allotted periods (of course, apprenticeships may lean heavily into this), and broadly set goals while trusting staff to keep up.
That being said, it’s not just how you manage staff, but what tools you use to do it that counts. This way, you can exercise careful management without the potential motivation of micromanaging them. A field service app that allows you to manage your contractors easily while still letting them meet your clients and manage projects is a great investment. It helps you provide the necessary oversight without the small-business urge of sticking your finger in every pie, as it were.
This way, you can bring staff up to your level, and never micromanage and bring yourself down to theirs, eroding their sense of autonomy and frustrating the end-user experience. There’s nothing better for consistency than a motivated staff always willing to go that extra mile.
Quality Control Services
Of course, at some level, quality control services have to come into play. We see this with restaurants that will go through public health inspections and even book their private preparation sessions to ensure they can trade for another year, enacting any suggested improvements.
Depending on how you operate, the quality control inspections may come at various stages of life. From taste testing to checking on the supplies you’re given. For example, a guitar maker might check the condition and durability of their spruce wood before accepting it and then making their instruments from that point on.
You can also outsource quality control where necessary. Perhaps through the packaging of your products, or the e-commerce fulfillment and logistics provider that reviews their process, responding to any complaints or new requirements you might have.
Building Trust Through Transparency
Transparency is a virtue, and smaller businesses can afford to offer it. This is one way of solidifying your authentic output because it shows a willingness to be vulnerable, open, and even instructive regarding how you process your approach this way, and why that’s better than an alternative.
But how might your transparency take shape? Well, to start with, you might offer tours of your hospitality area or manufacturing space. For example, if you’re a microbrewing business putting together beers for your local community and supply a few bars, you might run tasting sessions, allow people to see your small factory, as well as the full process involved with processing your hops and how you transfer them into a tasty product at the end.
Not only does this open transparency, it lets you connect with your customers in a reliable, consistent manner. What could be more dependable and appreciated than that? Sometimes, to be authentic you have to show you’re here, and proud to be where you are.
Remain Mindful Of User Experience
The great thing about serving customers is that they’re vocal, and they’ll tell you when something isn’t working. Sure, no news might be good news, but bad news can sometimes be good news too. It lets you know what to work on, and potentially how to go about it.
So, in some cases, you might be made aware that the packaging of your products is less suited to the durability requirements of overseas shipping. After refunding those customers, you can work on putting together a more consistent package you can then use to sell more widely.
Perhaps your website isn’t as compatible with a certain type of device, like a tablet with its unique aspect ratio. You can then talk to your web designer or reformat some pages personally to retrofit your content to overcome the problem. This is why having reliable channels in place to gauge and work on these issues can be so important - it gives you a vantage point into what’s wrong and how to resolve those problems in the long run.
Be Fair In How You Treat Customers & Clients
When we operate small businesses, it’s easy to give customers special treatment, because you’re more likely to know them. It’s unlikely that Disney is going to give us a personal holiday package plan with a massive discount just because we know someone in management, but the local campsite operator you’ve been friends with for twenty years might let your family stay for a discount rate.
Where you can, at least visibly, it’s important to try and be fair about how you treat customers and clients. Artificially giving some special treatment while offering full price to others can sometimes be seen the wrong way, especially if you’re arbitrary about how you do it. This can come right down to the basics of how you manage, such as not allowing your staff to drink in your restaurant's bar after a shift, only if they come in on a day off to enjoy your usual services with their staff discount. Little things like this help you run a reliable outfit that retains its self-respect, as it were.
