4 Strategies To Keep Your Business Current and Competitive

Since COVID-19 forced the part-time closure of many UK businesses, companies must remain competitive in their market of operation. Although recent announcements have reinstated stricter rules, it’s vital that you as a business owner continuously look for ways to improve and adapt your enterprise.  

This all starts with a strategy. In the same way as a mission statement tells customers what your purpose is, a business strategy shows your employees what the objectives are to work towards. Here, with the help of Snowshock, we discuss four strategies to help keep your business current and competitive.  

Since the survival of all businesses relies on customers, it's vital that you place them at the heart of all business decisions. It’s important that you understand what they want to see your business provide and what their thoughts are on the current items available. The most effective way to understand your customers is to talk to them directly. Whether you operate in-store based or online, there are many effective ways to reach out to your current and past consumers.   

In-store based businesses  

For physical store-based businesses, politely asking them to complete a survey is an effective way to engage with your customers more. Take clothing stores for example, by asking customers simple questions such as “What are your favourite items in the store?” and “What is your least favourite clothing items?”, you can gain a further understanding as to what your customers want to see more of. Since many people tend to roll their eyes at the thought of having to take a survey, ask employees to fill it out for them instead. Rather than giving them the paper and pen, talk to them while they’re at the checkout and note down what they say!  

Online businesses  

As for e-commerce sites, there are many ways to understand your customers in more depth. Through the use of pop-up box style questionnaires that appear as customers are shopping, you can use these to gain further insight. This can work effectively for businesses operating in niche markets. Since buyer personas must include specific characteristics and demographics, conducting an online survey that asks both numerical and opinion-based questions can help gain a further understanding as to who your customers are and what they are looking for.  To encourage more people to partake in the survey, reward them with a discount code to say thank you.  

Other than the value of your customers, it’s the products and services themselves that support your businesses financial success. Therefore, its vital that you assess your product portfolio to see which are performing well and which aren’t. There are many business analysis models that are put in place to help with this. Take the Boston Matrix, for example.  

This product analysis tool groups your products and services based on how well they are performing and divides them into four groups.