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For the installation of new Crisis Intervention and Prevention services the following key factors for good practice have been identified:
- Business support is more than teaching entrepreneurs how to do their liquidity planning or how to acquire new customers. It is essential that entrepreneurs overcome psychological barriers and (re-)develop a hands-on mentality. In order to enable them to do so, consultants should dispose not only of relevant business management know-how but also have a psychological background. Furthermore they have to undergo specialised training.
- Learning material and controlling tools that are available on the market are often over dimensioned and not suitable for micro-enterprises. To hang the hurdle a little bit lower and in order to complement the face-to-face or telephonic advice in the most efficient manner, many organisations have their own learning material. Information leaflets transport compressed bit-by-bit information and can serve as homework in between consulting sessions. FIRMENHILFE for example works with information from external sources and mixes it with “in-house productions”.
- To ensure consistent high quality, some organisations impose of rather sophisticated recruitment and training methods. Bringing a new team member into work, many of them work with a mentor approach. In this case an experienced colleague trains and supervises the new consultant.
- In order to establish an effective quality management process, customer satisfaction surveys should be conducted on a regular basis. This measure could be accompanied by qualitative in depth interviews and qualitative studies. The outcome of these surveys allows the partners to improve their services. To receive further funding it is essential that the applicants can document the impact of their offer.
- Without generous funding, it is crucial for the success of a project that the working process is managed tightly. This is why the technical database has become an indispensable element of many projects. Depending on the size of the company this could also be a rather simple solution like an access-based tool. It has also been shown, that a systemic method to document the notes in the drop-down boxes in the database help to bridge over inadequacies of the database for a certain period of time.
- Looking at the business situation of an entrepreneur his personal circumstances can’t be faded out. The partners agree that it is extremely relevant to take a look at the personal financial situation of the entrepreneur and to develop a feeling for his personal environment. It is true however, that a business consultant can’t give advice in matters of life-crisis. In these cases he should refer the caller to a relevant expert.
- There is no use in having an interesting service, if no one is aware of it. To be working at full capacity and to receive additional funding it is necessary to spread the word. Many partners are members of diverse networks and take profit out of a mutual referral system. Although sometimes not self-evident, because of assumed conflicts of interest, co-operation with banks has proven to be very fruitful for some partners. It is however important that the service remains impartial and acts in the interests of the client despite these relationships.
- In order to provide more room for options to business people in distress, it is crucial that they contact the relevant authorities at a very early stage of the crisis. Therefore the project should have a very low threshold. Telephonic advice or advice over the internet seem to have clear advantages in this field.
- In order to map an holistic consulting process, the provider of an internet site or a hotline does not necessarily have to integrate face-to-face advice and further personal training in his offer. He could rather serve as a hub or clearing point by referring his client to other relevant providers. Taking into account that the offers for endangered companies are not always clearly visible for a layman, this brings the client a big step forward.