Every single store owner prays for his business to hit those big numbers, from the amount of clients to the sum of money on his bank account. Obviously, with great success comes great responsibility, as I paraphrase one of the wisest thinkers of the 21st century – Ben Parker, Spiderman’s uncle. In your case, it’s responsibility to maintain the quality of service.
By the quality of service I mean processing incoming orders in the first place at the highest possible level. What if there are dozens of them just in an hour and you’re all by yourself? By the end of the week you’ll have a long list of what needs to be done or has already been done, and sadly, it has the tendency to turn into a mess. If you start feeling overwhelmed with the amount of requests, than what you need is to consider a more efficient approach, for example, you can devote to order processing a couple of hours in the morning and in the middle of day. Figure out the time management, establish the schedule and follow it without excuses.
Besides, the technologies come helpful as well. With Magento you can sort orders by different fields, for example, so it would be easier for you to sort out the requests. There are also tons of tricks on how to optimize the routine, from editing fields and columns that show up on screen to making notes and commentaries while going through the orders list. And, of course, do not forget to delete or archive orders in Magento, such as tests, or the ones sent by mistake, or outdated, or spam. This will really make your life and work easier.
When a store is getting more popular and wanted among its customers, a business literally grows. What do you do when a baby grows out of clothes? Right, you buy new clothes, one or two sizes bigger! Regarding our business situation, it means an owner often Needs (I mean it with a capital N) to hire some help, one, two or even more employees.
The worst thing a businessman can do is overestimate his own capabilities. Besides obvious physical struggles and exhaustion from being at work 16 hours a day, it’s almost impossible to live under such an enormous pressure, – eventually your brain will start doing strange things to you, like freaking out in the middle of the night, making you believe you forgot something crucially important. Hiring help not just makes your life easier, – an outside perspective is more than welcome while in the state of transitioning.
Before doing any changes to your business process I recommend to analyze the situation maybe even with a professional analyst involved. If it’s a real deal, you may consider to change the suppliers or delivery companies you’re currently working with, reconsider pricing or expand the assortment. Sometimes store owners mistakenly take seasonal demand on hot products or during holidays for permanent growth. In this case, if you struggle to cope with the amount of work, you can ask members of your family and friends to help you out during this time, or maybe temporarily hire some freelance workers.
I hope that after reading this article you’ll feel more confident and be able to stay on track of bringing the best shopping experience to your customers. And for those who are still waiting for the big success to come, just keep working hard and you’ll get somewhere for sure.