10 Tips for having effective boards
Customer Advisory Boards are a great source of information about your market and your business. Their advice is more valuable than any management consultant's. They provide real world counsel on what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and most important -how to stay competitive. After all, they're the customer. They're the one's who buy your stuff. Here's how to use your Customer Advisory Board for best results.
Make it win-win. As much as they might like to, your customers are probably too busy to be on your board as a favor. Let them know, if they haven't figured it out already, that participating on your board influences your organization to provide better product and service to theirs.
Choose the right members for the right reasons. Select your board members for qualities and values they bring. Benefit from their insight, perceptions, motivations, and ability to communicate - perhaps even their contrarian view. Avoid figureheads picked for their visibility or high positions - they are likely to skip meetings, and when they show they'll have little to contribute.
Prepare your members. Apprise members ahead of time of agenda items and provide detailed backgrounders. Prompt their thinking with questions for their consideration. When germane, ask selected advisors to prepare briefings.
Don't sell to the group. Use your advisory board for their advice. Customers will see through transparent plans to generate more sales. Increased sales will happen anyway - don't prompt for them.
Your board members are special. Treat them that way. Provide them with quality transportation, hotels, meals, refreshments, and meeting space. Make them feel highly appreciated without the sense you are wasting company money. Have your CEO or outside owners participate whenever appropriate. Acknowledge them publicly and often, and especially in print.
Reward their participation. They are giving you their time and knowledge gained from experience. What are you giving them? Dinner and theatre or sports tickets, spouse travel, club memberships, small gifts, and product or service discounts are all appropriate.
Fewer meetings the better. Keep the meetings to two or three per year. Make each meeting count with a full agenda of important issues. Have additional meetings only if you are in a crisis.
Use information technology. Members cannot make every board meeting. Use videoconferencing for virtual meetings. Teleconferencing is effective for briefer, interim meetings. Use web-conferencing tools like Webex or Placeware. Use email questionnaires to get and provide feedback. You survey tools like Zoomerang.com.
Run top-notch meetings. Appoint an effective leader, begin and end on schedule, keep to a strong agenda, review past actions and commitments, encourage total participation, keep communications open, log action items, avoid side conversations, summarize meeting results.
Act on their advice. Your advisory board will give you their best only when you act on their recommendations. That's why you got them in the first place.
Paul Lemberg, author of Faster Than the Speed of Change, troubleshoots companies and helps them increase cash, build repeat customers and invent a secure future. Paul is a business leadership coach and public speaker. He is also the President of Quantum Growth Coaching, the world's first fully systemized business coaching program designed to create More Profits and More Life for entrepreneurs. Guaranteed.
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Article Source: ezinearticles.com
Family owned and operated since 1970, Borcherding Buick Pontiac GMC, will partner with Ask Patty to depict an increased commitment to the female car buyers that would provide a safe and comfortable buying experience. Borcherding Buick Pontiac GMC owes this distinction to their high standard of customer service as well as to their excellent image in terms of total customer satisfaction.
For more than 35 years of having built an identity in the Tri State Area as Cincinnati's premiere Pontiac, Buick, GMC, Explorer Van and Certified Used Car Center, even more dedication lies ahead for Borcherding's full service dealership.
In a latest survey conducted to Borcherding’s customers, it was found out that the major reason for doing business with Borcherding was the fact they were trustworthy and that their depicted appeal for service was of high standard. With these findings, it can be deduced further that Borcherding lives up to their promises. And this has been a progress in a constantly changing and dynamic environment of business.
Also selling GMC spark plug wire, Borcherding Buick Pontiac GMC is accessibly located in the Kings Auto Mall off Interstate 71. They recently reinvented their entire dealership while making a commitment to continuous improvements. The reinventions include a customer café, daily newspapers together with refreshments that would complement the customers’ reading pleasure, internet connection, private work areas and the stress removing massage chairs. And for those customers who have different service wants, Borcherding also offers their courtesy shuttle and loaner vehicles. Furthermore, they have an on-site collision center with Enterprise replacement cars, too.
Kim Borcherding, the Dealer Operator of Borcherding Buick Pontiac GMC, said that Borcherding was so pleased to be associated with the Ask Patty quality Internet resource for women automobile buyers and fanatics. Also one of the newest members of Ask Patty's Automotive Expert Advisory Panel, Kim Borcherding helps answer the queries of customers - everything about automotive.
The decision to tandem with Ask Patty exudes the kind of sound thinking that is needed to provide consistent excellent results in customer satisfaction and sales growth to the women, who are part of a significant consumer segment.
Women population comprises more than 50 percent of all vehicles sold yearly in the United States with revenues reaching $80 billion annually. When Ask Patty was not yet in the industry, there has been no website that is exclusively devoted to the needs and concerns of the women.
Ask Patty Female Friendly dealers represent many brands such as Chrysler, Jeep, HUMMER, GMC, Cadillac, Pontiac, Buick, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Saab, Acura, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, BMW and a lot more.
Ask Patty gives women consumers the avenue where they can send queries about car buying, selling, repair and maintenance to a panel of expert automotive women. It claims that is it a safe online place to share and discuss their car buying experiences. The advisory panel of automotive expert women of Ask Patty is led by Deborah Renshaw, a professional NASCAR driver. The panel is composed of women who hold various leadership posts in the automotive industry.
Last Wednesday, Toyota Motor Corp., announced that the automaker will recall their optional “all weather” floor mats in their 55,000 Lexus ES 350 and Toyota Camry sedans. The recall was due to the potential of the mat to cause a crash as it interferes with the gas pedal.
If the mat is not properly attached, it could move forward and shut in the gas pedal and the vehicle will be unstoppable. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued an advisory regarding the floor mats to respond to the danger it poses to the American motorists.
A similar move was done by Nissan Motors. The automaker stated that they are going to issue recalls for their 420,000 sport utility vehicles with tubes where motorists pump gas which is at risk for corrosion.
Nissan’s recall includes their 1997-2001 models of the Pathfinder and Infiniti QX4 SUVs. Out of the 420,000 vehicles, 370,000 had already been sold and are presently registered in 22 “cold weather” states and in the District of Columbia. 45,000 of the vehicles are in Canada.
For Toyota’s recall, the Avalon and the Prius are not included. But the advisory issued by the NHTSA also advised the owners of these two model vehicles to check their heavy-duty rubber floor mats if it is properly installed. According to Rae Tyson, they issued the advisory “because we believe potentially it is a very serious safety issue.”
According to Bill Kwong, spokesman for Toyota, the company did not receive complaints for the Avalon and the Prius. He also said that the floor mats built to collect rain water, mud, and snow were installed under the original carpet mats and locked up against the accelerator.
To consider that the floor of a vehicle only has one hook that can secure on mat at a time.
22 complaints have been made regarding the issue as reported by the automaker. But they have not learned any injury connected to the matter said Kwong. The Japanese automaker plans to solve this problem by notifying the owners of the vehicles under recall in early October and to expect availability of replacement mats in dealerships by late November.
As an advice, Toyota said that the owners should check their floor mats on a regular basis if it is properly installed. The company added in a statement, “Under no circumstances should more than one floor mat ever be used in the driver’s seating position.”
According to Nissan, their recall was due to inefficiency of coating bracket by the fuel filler tube assembly mounted in their SUVs. For the “cold weather” states, significantly during the winter, a mixture of snow, water and salt could eventually lead to its corrosion on the metal tube resulting to fluid leaks.
Fred Standish, spokesman for Nissan said that they have not been notified of fires or any injuries connected to the issue. The company plans to replace the fuel tube assembly with a new and improved one though its dealers. The company will notify the owners about the availability of this service in late November.
The recall covers the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Earlier this month, Honda (makes Honda cold air intake) also issued recalls for their 180,000 2006-2007 models of their Civic to fix a wheel-bearing seal that can leak and cause a wheel to fall off from the vehicle.
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