If you find yourself in a position where your customers always insist on speaking with you directly instead of your employees, then you might want to consider shifting your structure so you can improve the value of your business.
To maximize the value of your business, you should set a goal to quietly slip into the background and let your staff take center stage. Here are five ways to make customers less inclined to call you:
1. Re-rank
If you display the bio of key staff members on your website, re-order the list so that it is alphabetical rather than hierarchical.
2. Re-brand
If your surname is in your company name, consider a re-brand. There’s nothing that makes a customer want to deal with the owner more than having the owner’s surname featured in the company name.
3. Hire a President
Giving someone the title of president conveys the message that they have real authority to solve customer problems.
4. Use an email auto-responder
Tim Ferriss, the author of The 4 Hour Work Week among other books, made the email auto-responder famous, and it can serve you well. Set up an automatic response to anyone sending you an email explaining that you are traveling or attending to a strategic project and unable to answer their questions immediately. Instead, train customers to direct questions to the person best suited to answer them quickly.
A word of caution using this strategy: if you continue to answer customer emails after setting up an auto-responder, it’s going to become transparent that you’re just trying to hide behind your auto-responder, which could diminish your credibility. If you set one up, you need to be ready to let others step in.
5. Play hookey
If you have the kind of business that customers visit in person, set up a home office so you can spend more time away from your location.
