100% Customer Satisfaction - Coursework Example

100% Customer Satisfaction Our company will strive to provide the best service to customers by utilizing the belief that relationships are important to not only individuals but to companies as well. We will do our best to provide excellent customer service so that no one leaves our office dissatisfied. To achieve 100% customer satisfaction means that we will hire the best people, train them, and provide continued support to our customers and employees. We will alleviate companies of the time consuming task of payroll and filing payroll tax forms. We promise that if you are assessed a fine due to the filing of incomplete or improper forms due to our mistakes, we will cover your costs. We also offer your first payroll free so that you can test drive our service firsthand and feel confident in knowing that we have you covered. We will see a profit of over $10,000 by the 4th year and at least $60,000 each year thereafter. In the second year of operations we will see a significant loss due to the provision of benefits to our employees. We feel that our employees will make a better impression on our customers if they are well trained and provided for through our company. This will lead to aspiring to 100% customer satisfaction. We seek startup costs of 2,357,156.88 or rounded up to 2,357,200.00. Vision Our vision is one of satisfaction. One in which no company would be without an affordable payroll service. One in which no employee will have to do without having an option of utilizing direct deposit. One in which the company will be able to concentrate on building the business instead of taking on the time consuming task of paying their employees, making tax deposits, and filling out payroll tax forms. Mission Our mission will be to accomplish 100% customer satisfaction. We do not want any customers to walk away from our business dissatisfied. To accomplish this we will constantly train our employees in payroll processing and customer service. We will go back to the days of developing relationships between businesses and build trust within those relationships. Our clients will have faith that we will do as we say. Product Our product is one that is needed in every business: payroll processing. Every business that has an employee needs to make sure that all of them are paid properly but most importantly that the taxes that are associated with wages and payments are filed accordingly and timely. We will be able to handle any number of employees from any client in and outside of our state. We will win them over with excellent customer service. We will alleviate the time and effort it takes to collect timesheet data, to make sure deductions are correct, to execute direct deposits, to file 941s, and to make any third party payments such as ones to child support agencies around the country. The Industry According to the US Census Bureau there were over 5,697,000 employee businesses in the United States in 2002 (United States Census, 2010). This means there is a tremendous market out there for payroll services. Obtaining a minimum of 1% of the global market would mean that we would have 56,970 clients. Although this is not feasible in the first years of operations, it will be a goal that we will aspire to. Business Strategy and Competitive Analysis There are at least three major payroll services in the industry right now: ADP, Paychex, and Intuit (Parent company of QuickBooks). These seem to have the higher market share among all of the other services. There are also hundreds of smaller companies that make hundreds of thousands in revenue with only a small market share which opens the door for any new payroll service companies. The major three offer direct deposit or pay cards that employees can use instead of receiving a paper check. Paper checks require time to receive them and cash them. They also create extra fees for the employees who do not have a bank account to deposit the checks. Employees want to receive their pay sooner rather than later in today’s market. Our company is new and would therefore need to create a name for ourselves. One way to accomplish this is by advertising using all available means. This includes but is not limited to the yellow pages, the internet, radio, television, etc. We would market based on the fact that we are new and can give the customer the one on one attention they deserve. We would further capture market share by advertising the relationship aspect of our company and that customers will be able to trust us. Our customers would not just be numbers or revenue to us but will be considered as business partners. Marketing The internet would be a major media utilized for marketing. We would develop a website that would introduce us to the world. The layout of the website would be as follows: Home About Us Our Products/Services Our Promise to the Customer Contact Us Feedback Our products/services page would allow the customer to order payroll service or to set up an appointment for one of our representatives to call or meet with them. The website will be on all of our business cards, letterhead, and mailings to drive traffic to the website and encourage clients to set up an appointment. Our marketing efforts will continue with a 30 second commercial on television and a 15 second commercial on the radio. The radio spot would be during ‘rush hour’ to capture those business executives that are on their way to the office. We would also attempt to capture the ear of the employee that works in the human resources department so that they can pass the information they heard on the radio along to their colleagues. The television commercial would be to expose ourselves to everyone that gets paid or pays people. We would also turn our attention to the yellow pages. Large and small towns still circulate a yellow page directory and we will count on the consumer that looks in the yellow pages for services. The newspaper ads will also be utilized especially since the newspaper can be read as a hardcopy and online. This would help us drive more traffic to the website and even encourage potential clients to pick up the phone and give us a call. Another aspect of our advertising would be to have previous or existing clients to give testimonials about us and our service. We would then obtain their permission to share this information with other potential clients. Since we know that businesses talk to other businesses and share ideas, this would be a stepping stone in word of mouth advertising. Word of mouth advertising would also be counted on and each client will be asked if they know of another business that can use our services. We would then give the referring client a percentage off of their own services if their referral utilizes us. A marketing firm would be utilized to help us accomplish the marketing aspect of our campaign within our budget. The website design budget would be no more than $5,000 and the hosting budget would be about $50/mo. The television commercial budget would be $25,000 and the radio budget would be $15,000. The yellow page budget would be $15,000 and other miscellaneous advertising and marketing would be $10,000. These are annual budgets and total would be $70,600 and would increase for the next 3 years until we have obtained a 1% local market share. Operations and Management We will obtain an office in the downtown area since that is where most companies are centrally located. This will pose the image of being accessible to businesses and easy to get to. We will have an office of at least 2,000 square feet. As the customer enters the office they will be greeted with soft colors and a receptionist. The waiting area will look like a living room where anyone is welcome to come and sit down. There will be two couches and other coordinating chairs. The receptionist will be behind a sliding glass window. The meeting areas will be to the right and the employees will be to the left. There will be cubicles for the employees who perform the data entry aspect, cubicles for the employees that verify the information and check for accuracy, and office for the salespeople and the supervisors. The CEO and CFO will have offices next to one another and will continuously patrol the office to check on employee progress and morale. There will also be a Senior Staff Accountant who acts as the supervisor of the all employees and this person will report to the CFO. The CEO will have an MBA and/or CPA and at least 10 years of experience. Any experience over 10 years can be used as a substitute for the MBA or CPA. Their industry background can be in any industry but they would have to have shown continuous progress. They would also need to have an understanding of sales, accounting, etc and be able to communicate this with everyone else. The CFO will need to have at least a Bachelor’s degree in a related field along with 10 years of experience. They would need to have an overall understanding of management, accounting, sales, and some marketing since they will be required to oversee all departments. The Senior Staff Accountant would need to have a Bachelor’s degree in finance, business, accounting, or a related field. Supervisory experience is preferred but not necessary. At least 5 years of experience would be required. The CEO and CFO will choose members of the staff to participate on the marketing committee based upon their interest and creative abilities. Date entry staff will be chosen based on the number of keystrokes they can do in an hour and their accuracy. A staffing firm might be utilized in the beginning as a way to test potential employees before they are hired on fulltime. At least 3 staffing firms will be contacted to give bids on providing the company with quality data entry workers and based on their bids one or none of them might be chosen. The staffing firm would also be utilized if there was a need to fill any employment gaps such as workers being out due to sickness, vacation, family issues, etc. All data entry workers will be trained. The salespeople can either have a background in sales or not have any experience because they will still be trained by the CFO and Senior Staff Accountant. Training will be through classroom sessions as well as online training. The Human Resources Department will consist of 2 people at first and will be expanded as more employees are hired on. The HR department will be responsible for finding appropriate benefit packages to offer our employees after 1 year of service. Benefits will include medical, dental, 401k, medical savings, life insurance, etc. They will be offered to all employees that have been with the company after 1 year of service. Financial Projections Financial projections for the first 5 years are as follows: The first 3 years will be losses to get the business up and running as it should and then in Year 4 we would begin to see a profit and each subsequent year. Our advertising budget increased for the first 5 years to allow ample cash to get our name out to the customer. Our CEO and CFO will receive competitive salaries to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the market. The salaries also allow for a maximum of a 5% increase per year based on performance. The second year of operations would see an increase in the losses of about 100% due to the addition of benefits to our employees. Our startup costs will be a minimum of the following: The computers are based on obtaining a minimum of 15 computers at an average of $1,000 each. These would also include the server where all of the software will be housed. Our utility costs also include internet access. The website costs are included in the advertising budget and include email hosting. Depreciation is based on a straight line method over the period of 5 years and $0 salvage value. This makes it easy for calculating depreciation expense and it is assumed the computers will have no value at the end of 5 years. They will then be either donated or recycled for new computers with the latest technology. After 5 years the company will access its current advertising efforts to make sure they are adequate and efficient enough to maintain or exceed the current market share. The budget will then either be lowered or raised accordingly. The software for the computers is included in the miscellaneous budget numbers and will include our main software that we provide as a service to our customers as well as word processing, spreadsheet, and database software used internally. The budget shows flexibility in projections due to the uncertainty within our market. Competitive prices will be based on competitor comparison which we will offer to our customers. As a way to bring in customers we will offer them a price comparison and try to beat the competitors prices by at least 10%. Our marketing efforts will also change the projections of the revenue per year. We will strive to exceed budget in revenues due to our marketing efforts. Training our employees will also lead to more quality customers. Large companies will also help with revenues but medium and small companies will be our mainstays. Works Cited United States Census. (2010). Statistics about Business size. Retrieved November 22, 2010, from www.census.gov: http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/smallbus.html Read More