January is normally fairly quiet for the Liqueur business. Most of the time, it’s just sorting out administration from last year. This year I’m thinking of ways to improve our mail order service and have decided to ask our regular customers via an online survey.
From about November last year, a paper survey was included with each order – a fair number have now accumulated and the results are very interesting. One of the most popular requests was for a ‘Free delivery’ option. This was implemented in November and resulted in more orders and happier customers, so that is top of the list for this year once I have worked out the best way offering this.
Another area I am looking at is how to ensure that the orders arrive in good condition. Some other mail order companies spend a lot of time and effort on this and I will be analysing what they do and then incorporating the best ideas for our own online and offline mail order business.
If you have any mail order experience as a customer that you think would be useful to me, please get in touch – all comments and ideas welcome.
From time to time I will be focusing on business tools that I come across that improve efficiency, cut costs or help sell more goods. Look out for these ‘tools of the trade’ especially if you too have a business like mine.
All the best. Wild weather here today – hope it calms down for the weekend as I’m off on the ferry from Oban to Coll.
All the best. Roy Lewis