Oct 24 2008
Keeping more clients with better customer service
Keeping more clients with better customer service
Keeping more clients with better customer service One thing we have to keep in the forefront of our minds as our business begins to grow is the power of customer service. After all, we are all in the business of fixing problems. Every client you have right now is your client because he or she had a problem and you fixed it, simply put. Never thought of it that way, this fact is true, and the reason you are reading this right now is, there is something you want to do better, or want to begin doing so in essence you are looking for a solution as all your clients are, when they call you. If we can remember this from the company level then we will look at customer complaints from a different perspective. When a customer complains, about a service or product, he/she does not really care about your product or service, what they care about is the problem they were, having in the first place that is as of yet unresolved. Your client has made a purchase from you, for you to fix there particular problem and your solution has come up short. The only thing that the client is looking for is to have his original problem fixed. Below is and example of customer service explained and how it has saved one client and created an onslaught of referrals from this client. Let us assume one of our clients calls in and begins to complain about how long it took our company to repair his pc. He also tells us there is another company online that does remote support and they have a 24×7 30 sec response time. In addition, it took us 1 hour to respond and 15 minutes for repair. So what do we do, the product he purchased (DirectTek core) clearly states response time to calls are 2-4 hours and our (DirectTek pro) has a 30 second response time and repairs average 8 minutes. Clearly, our client has purchased the wrong product and what he is upset about is the solution we presented does not fit his needs. The biggest mistake we could make at this point is putting the blame on the client. We could tell him that when we presented our solution to you, it was your company that chose the core product; furthermore, our response times are clearly indicated. We would be right in telling him that but we would probably be with one less client. Instead, we choose to use the opportunity as an up sell versus a loss of a client. we would tell the client in this example, “Sir we are sorry we did not live up to your expectations, but we do have a product that is better suited to you needs and at this time we would like to offer you our DirectTek pro. This solution will resolve your downtime issues and due to you being unsatisfied with our other product we will offer it to you at a 10% discount rate with one month free”. For us to do this our profit margin on that sale will be less then usual. We also have to give him a month free (more loss) but remember the client has already purchased the first product(profit) now he purchases a second product (profit) and he will tell his colleagues about how great our company is, (word of mouth) all in all I think the customer service went a long way. Good customer service does not have to be performed only in the face of problems though. One of the most profitable forms of customer service comes in the form of cross selling. Let’s use our insurance broker as an example. One of our clients (Associated Management) implemented a cross sale, customer service plan here’s how it works. They specialize in worker’s compensation they also carry automobile, fleet, and life insurance. They implemented a customer service call center which would call there existing customer to make sure they were happy with there current insurance solutions. They then began the up sell process of explaining to them the discount they would receive by converting there fleet, life and automobile insurance over to them. As well as making it more convenient to the client by having to only, keep track of one company instead of dealing with multiple companies. It lead to an 11.3% increase in revenue (recently implemented give us some time) Conclusion: Stay in the business of fixing problems and you will stand a better chance of staying in business.
12 Years as an I.T. professional, jobs involve but not limited to Help Desk manager,Jr Admin, Sr.Admin,MIS Director,MIS Account Manager/purchaser,Technical Outsource Coordinator,Software Trainer,Network Design. Currently I.T. Consultant
The Best Deal with Online Auction!
If you list a few items “here and there” at online auctions, it only takes a few minutes to get your items up for sell. However, if you build an online auction big business with hundreds of items for sale, you’ll run out of time and energy fast. That’s why automation is so important. Even if you find the wonderful one stop online auction shop where you can sell all your items in one place, automation will still be necessary to keep the business going - and keep your sanity! Here are some great ways to automate your auction tasks. There are software programs that are specially made for auctions. These programs will store all your listings in a database along with titles, descriptions, photos, pricing and shipping details. Some programs have a feature where you can save templates for certain categories. For example, if you sell household products, you might use the same template for all household items. Then, you might use a completely dissimilar template for your wholesale products. Therefore, you can save each template and have them available when you need them. A great benefit of using auction software is you can list more items in less amount of time or visit www.auctions-profits.com Here’s how it works: Type in your listings and accompanying details. Upload photos or banners for your listings. Submit the items to the auction site for listing. It’s that simple. Without this software, you will likely have to submit each item by hand through an online form with some screens. This could take several minutes or longer per listing. To get this software, check with your one stop online auction shop first. They might offer the software as a free tool. Use the search engines to search for “auction software” or “auction listing automation.” Once items have been sold, you should have some email templates ready to go for “thank you” messages, up-sell messages, etc. Create several “thank you” emails for the types of goods you offer, each being customized for those customers. Also, create several “special offer” emails to send buyers throughout the year. Some one stop online auction shops provide automated email systems for you. It’s free and easy to set up a system like this, and the rewards are tremendous! Keep shipping supplies on-hand at all times you can visit www.auction-o-matics.com Prepare envelopes, boxes or bags ahead of time with labels, packaging materials, etc. Develop a system that you will use every time you receive an order so you won’t get disorganized. Take advantage of shipping “tools” supplied by your one stop online auction shop or sum processing company. Some auction sites or payment processors will provide packing slips for every order with the customer’s buy details already printed for you. Schedule your items to end around the same time so you can easily deal with them once the auctions end. If you schedule auctions to end on weekends, you can concentrate on shipping the items at the beginning of the week. Those who run auctions weekly usually go through a cycle of listing, ending and shipping about the same times every week. Automation will help you save time and money. You can list and deal with more items through automation. Also, you’ll have a better chance at getting repeat business by sending regular mailings or e-mails to buyers. The more money you can save the superior bargains your customers will receive.
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Reasons Why to Include Images in your eBay Auction Listings
When you put an item up on sale on eBay don’t forget to include some product images in your listing. By not doing so you will lose a lot of bids. Even if you write a detailed description of your item, product images are still essential. Despite your past history as eBay seller and even if you have a very positive feedback score, people are always somewhat reluctant to buy online due to the lack of a personal contact with the seller. And I couldn’t honestly say that this attitude is unjustified because unfortunately eBay frauds do exist! Images will help you demonstrate that you aren’t hiding anything with regards to the quality of the product you sell. Depending by the nature of the item you sell, several pictures from different angles can be the optimal choice. EBay sellers often offer slightly defective items at a greatly discounted price. If this happens to you and even if you have well documented the item conditions in your listing, try to include a detailed picture of the flaw. You will show to a potential buyer that you are completely honest about the nature of the item you sell. Selling tutorials available on eBay site will give you some tips on the best way to take picture of your eBay items with a digital camera or a scanner. For more details visit www.auction-entrepreneur-kit-com. They are very basic advices, but still useful if you are completely inexperienced with digital photography. - Optimize your images Images have also some drawbacks. You should always try to find a good compromise between details and image size as biggest images can considerably slow down your eBay listing page and make you lose some bids. Buyers are impatient and not everyone has a fast Internet connection. Usually digital cameras or scanners are sold with a photo retouching software that allows you to convert images in a file format suitable for the Web (JPEG) and reduce the file size by reducing image dimensions or the number of colors. - No broken images please Nothing will drive potential buyers away from your eBay listing page more quickly than a broken image. When you create your listing you are allowed to load images from your hard disk and store it on eBay server. This is the safest choice because your images will be surely available when people visit your listing. But you can also include externally hosted images by using the HTML imp tag in your listing. If you choose to do so, be sure to host your image files with a reliable service. If the host where your images reside becomes inaccessible for any reason, eBay users visiting your listing will see a broken image. If you run your own website you can save the images in a directory on your hosting account. For more details visit www.auction-extreme-package.com. Be aware that some web hosting services don’t allow remote linking of images, i.e. using your host web space as a storage area for images you use on other sites, in this case eBay. This is usually true for free hosting services, so if you have a paid hosting account you should not have problems. Alternatively you can utilize one of the many image hosting services. You can find many of these services with a simple search on Google. Usually every site offers clear instructions that will make the entire procedure really simple even for the most inexperienced users. An image is worth a thousand words. This is true also when you sell on eBay. Make good use of images in your auction listings and you will always receive more bids.
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How to Get Links from Auction Sites?
Internet auctions have emerged as one dynamic and effective economic force where millions of buyers and sellers are entering regularly. Online auctions provide a comfortable source of income to various webmasters. And for the customers, the auctions provide the platform to identify with the specific and discounted merchandise. Having your link in the auction sites proves to be an extremely beneficial deal in terms of traffic building and link popularity. If you want to go deep into how links from auction sites can help you build link popularity, read on the article further. First things first, when it comes to target traffic, auction sites prove to be amongst the best available options for your products. With all types of buyers and sellers conglomerating on the auction sites, the link popularity of your website also gains the propitious levels. Now the most important question pops up: How to Get Links from Auction Sites? To get your links on the auction site, you would have to first register with that site. The registration process is simple. You are required to fill in some mandatory details. These details include your name, your email address, your website address, and your phone number. After this an email would be sent in your account. It would require you to fill the details of the preferred payment method, product details and company details. Then with the final affirmation of the auction sites you would receive a confirmation of an official member of the website. After you have successfully registered with the website, you can start placing the products for auction. This would include a link to your website with the product. You can go for multiple links to your websites for even a single product. Getting a link with auction sites proves to be highly beneficial for you in two prominent ways. The first and the foremost benefit that you would get after getting linked to an auction site is the link popularity. The auction sites provide you with a temporary web space where you can provide multiple links to your product, its description and additional features. As you provide more links to the website, people would click frequently on the link, and it would gain higher ranking in the search engines. As more and more people would click on your link, the sales would definitely boost up. The second thing from which you would benefit is the traffic. As more and more visitors would click on your links to get the details of the products, their features and even their photos, the traffic would definitely increase. When the visitors would get to know fully about the products, they would prefer to buy them. This would again benefit you. As your website gets more popular, visitors would insist on directly coming to your website instead via the links. By doing these they would explore various new products and if they match their requirements, they can purchase them too. This would again benefit you as a website owner. Creating your link at an auction sites also gives you another benefit. You won’t have to ask for permission or a link back-up. You just have to pay a fee and you are free to proceed with your products posting.
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