Something that gets mentioned in our daily dealings with other businesses in the SME sector, is the fact that the larger businesses seem to be trying different approaches to limit the impact of the current economic crisis.
The effect of which is that some businesses are seeing competition from the big fishes, where traditionally there was only small  fishes.

So, how do we compete with a company who has much more resources than us?
The answer is simple: We don’t have to! 

The thing to take into consideration is that as a small enterprise we have a direct control on the quality of the products and services we offer – that is exactly where we win out.
Basically there are too many people working there, who can’t or don’t care about the level of service that they are giving their customers.

As an example – I went to Debenhams recently, in my GFs attempt to buy a new top for an impending party.
Whilst there I perused the mensware department and found a shirt I liked – off to the counter we go…
Waits about 5 minutes at an unmanned till…
Waits another few minutes at this till…
After catching the eye of one of the three shop assistants – who were having a loud conversation on the shop floor – for the third time I marched over.
“is it possible one of you could please interrupt your most important conversation to serve please?” ← Me
“I’ll go and find someone” ← One of them
From nowhere a rather sheepish girl appears and apologised for my wait. I asked to see a supervisor and waited again…
Amazingly one of the three extremely busy shop assistants – now engaged in an equally important conversation – says in a loud voice “I think we’ve had more complaints than business this week!”
I made a very polite and diplomatic complaint about the ‘service’ – she said she’d inform the department head.

Now you see why I think we don’t have to compete?
They are not even on the same page!

 

 

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