In a growing industry, where competition is intensifying, and the customer base is constantly evolving, it may be necessary to stop and consider whether you are still on the right track. In this blog post, we have gathered our suggestions on achieving success with your business in today's leasing industry.
1. Embrace your technological capabilities
It can often be tempting to lean on the adage “don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” - why replace manual workflows with new and modern technology when it works?
It does not require a long career in the leasing industry to have experienced how big an administrative workload is associated with running a leasing business. Dealing with leasing contracts is often a considerable time- and energy-intensive process. At the same time, errors can easily occur when working with contracts, documents, and other data. Maybe the Excel sheet works, but it is worth considering if a replacement is not worth it?
When you replace the Excel sheet with a lease management system, you release resources, increase efficiency and reduce errors while improving quality. Your employees will have more time to service your customers, putting you in a strong position compared to your competitors.
It does not have to be expensive or comprehensive to automate manual operations with a lease management system. You can easily make a financially reasonable agreement with your supplier, where you do not have to pay a hefty amount up-front but instead can pay the system on a subscription basis.
If you invest in a user-friendly and intuitive system and prepare your employees, we dare to promise that you will get the employee hours used in the implementation phase again and more so.
2. Analyze your business data
It can be challenging to grow your business without a clear idea of how it is actually going. When you dive into your business data, you get insight into what works and especially where there is room for improvement. In modern companies, where plenty of data is generated, creating a meaningful overview using Excel alone can be challenging. This is where BI - or business intelligence - becomes relevant.
Microsoft Power BI drags your data, analyzes and transforms it into easy-to-understand reports with visual elements - such as graphs and charts - on all devices. You can access these reports from browsers, iOS, Android, etc. With Power BI, you and your employees get a clear and detailed overview of what is happening in your business right now.
Power BI can be connected to various data sources - from Excel sheets to databases and cloud-based, local apps. It is built on the foundation of Microsoft Excel, and therefore anyone familiar with Excel can also easily learn Power BI. The only difference is that Power BI is a far more powerful tool that gives you excellent conditions for making decisions based on actual data.
3. Remember your existing customers
Many companies put a lot of effort into recruiting new customers, and while it is important to grow your customer base, it must not be at the expense of your existing customers.
Targeted offers for first-time buyers are a well-known method of getting new customers into the store. For example, you may offer a new customer a reduced price for the first three months of the leasing period.
There is nothing wrong with acquiring new customers by rewarding them with great deals, but is it worth considering whether you equally care about and reward your existing customers? We often see that new customers are given a special treatment to a greater extent than existing ones, even though the existing ones are both cheaper and more valuable to hold on to.
It takes time (and sometimes requires great deals) to get new customers interested in you and even more to convince them to buy your leasing service. With existing customers, you often only need to make sure they are happy and satisfied.
The conversion rate for existing customers is also often higher because they trust you and you are better equipped to know their needs and thus provide them with tailored offers.
With happy and satisfied customers, you also get free marketing. Happy customers will most probably tell their surroundings about your leasing business, and this is extremely valuable today, where consumers are indeed listening to their surroundings.
