Small Business Growth Solutions

Don’t let Poor Customer Service Kill Your Business

One of the quickest ways to kill your internet business, or any business for that matter, is to offer poor customer service. When people take the time to complain about some part of your product or service they will have been stewing away for a while before they decided to contact you. If they can’t get hold of your or you don’t respond to their communication, you’ll end up with a very angry customer. When that angry customer has had enough and decides to let the world know about your terrible product they’ll attract attention like bees to a honey pot.

The last thing you want for your business is bad press. Bad news spreads quicker than good news… People love to have something to gripe about and if that gripe is about your product, you’re going to loose sales very quickly.

Before you can decide on a good customer service system, you need to be absolutely certain your product is top quality and will exceed your customer’s expectations. Once you are sure of your product you can be fairly certain that customer service issues will be related to:

• Payment problems.

• The customer purchased the wrong product.

• Installation issues for software products.

• Setup problems for a web service.

• Delivery problems for a physical product.

You need to decide on some basic ground rules for your customer service department. For example:

• Will you handle all customer service issues yourself, or will you hire somebody to do it for you?

• How quickly will you reply? If it is going to be longer than a few hours, you need to send an immediate email acknowledging the issue and stating that you will reply within 12, 24 or 48 hours, what ever you decide on.

Next you need to decide on the actual method you will use to receive and reply to customer service issues. The three most popular customer support systems are:

1) Normal Email.

As part of your website you could have a web page with your contact details and simply state your email address as one of the methods to get hold of you.

Bear in mind that email harvesting programs will get your email address and over time you will be inundated with spam. To get around this you could use a small graphic which contains your email address, or you could display it in this format: “me [AT] mywesite.com” with a note to your customers to replace [AT] with @.

Another point to consider is using a unique email address for customer service issues. You don’t want to mix this email with any other accounts, keep it separate so you can keep track of it.

2) Feedback scripts.

There are simple feedback scripts which are freely available online and which allow your customers to contact you without you having to display an email address anywhere on your website. Your email address will not even be embedded in hidden form fields or other HTML tags.

These scripts allow you to use a form on a contact page into which your customer can enter their contact details and the nature of their customer service issue. The script will then email these details to your email address.

While these scripts are more secure than leaving your email address visible on a web page, they don’t offer a means of tracking support issues.

3) Help Desk scripts.

By far the most professional method of providing effective customer support is to use a help desk system. Your customer will have to open an account before they can log a support request which eliminates most non-genuine support issues. After opening an account, they can log a support issue which is automatically given a unique identification and the details stored in a database. The customer is immediately sent an email explaining that their support issue has been logged and they can expect a reply in 12, 24, or 48 hours, or whatever time span you set.

The beauty of a help desk support system is that even if your email fails for some reason, you won’t miss any support requests. All you have to do is login to your support desk administration panel and all the unanswered support requests received will be displayed. Your task is then to answer each support issue and the system will automatically mark the issue as closed.

Small Business Marketing : Are We There Yet?
Author: Kevin P. Dervin

Small business marketing is not like taking a family vacation.

Did anybody take a family vacation this summer? Do you have children of your own, or do you remember what it was like when you were a kid taking a trip somewhere?

I can still remember the family vacations as a youngster growing up. Our famous treks across America in the family station wagon or the rented RV, when the station wagon became impractical. Now with my own family we’ve taken some similar but generally smaller scale trips.

It seems like one of the most asked questions from a child - “Are we there yet?” Or the other favorite is, “How much longer?” Even families that fly to their vacation destination I’m sure can relate.

What does this have to do with marketing?

I think sometimes (maybe many times) service business owners can become like that child in regards to their marketing. Are we there yet? How much longer?

You work on a web site, or a brochure, or go to networking events and send out letters. Then you wonder when you’re going to start getting results. When does the fun start? You know, the fun — when prospects start calling and others refer and send business your way.

And much like the family vacation, continual asking of are we there yet or how much longer often leads to unplanned stops or detours. You stop to work on other things because there is so much to do and it’s sometimes hard to see how this marketing is going to work.

Marketing shouldn’t start and stop.

Most people say they understand, even if their actions say differently, that marketing is an ongoing activity. Marketing isn’t like a vacation where you have a final destination and then you stop traveling because you’re there.

Unfortunately, many small businesses get frustrated or burned out when they work on their marketing. They want to know, “how long this is going to take”. Are we there yet?

And far too many times, they abandon their marketing “campaign” because it wasn’t getting them results and taking them where they wanted to go. But even worse than that, many times the “are we there yet” mentality didn’t even let them finish planning or put the idea into action.

Eventually they start planning, or maybe just take off on, another marketing trip. Once again, they start wondering how much longer it will be. Are we there yet?

Marketing needs to be an ongoing, lifelong kind of journey for your business. It takes regular and consistent effort to keep your pipeline full of good, high-quality leads and to keep moving your prospects forward until they become paying clients. That means continuously marketing even when you have clients you’re busy working with.

Keep Moving On.

The question “are we there yet?” needs to become “how do we keep going?” Yes, you do need to monitor results so you can assess how well things are working to get you where you want to go. When your measurements show you that something is working, keep doing it. In fact, do more of it.

But you can also keep striving to reach new heights as well. How can you continuously improve even the things that are working to get even better, more consistent results?

If you continue to ask the question, “Are we there yet?” you might just stall out on your journey. You see, eventually you’ll discover some marketing strategies that will start to attract attention and generate the response you’ve been hoping for. It might seem like in fact, “you are there” and so you put the marketing on cruise control.

How to keep moving forward.

When you find yourself asking this most asked question, consider any or all of the following ideas to keep you continuously moving forward.

Study up on marketing. There is no shortage of resources out there. You need to find them and begin consuming them. There are lots of books available on the subject. Look for the ones that offer proven, hands-on strategies and tactics. Remember, one or two good ideas now and then could make a significant difference to your business.

Form or join a “think tank” or mastermind group. Find a group of people who care just as much about your success as you do, just as you’ll care about their success. This is not a group of friends who will simply stroke your ego. Look for an honest group who will ask the tough questions and demand accountability from each other while supporting each others’ efforts.

Attend talks and workshops. If you go and participate fully, you’ll often get just as much from the other participants as you will from the session itself.

Get hands-on assistance. Working with a coach or marketing consultant who can help you focus, set goals, prioritize, create action plans and help hold you accountable could be an invaluable experience for your business.

Support from outside resources like this can help you shift from a mindset of “are we there yet” to a mindset of “how can we keep going.” They’ll help you continue to see possibilities beyond where things currently stand in your business.

(c) - Kevin Dervin, KPD Marketing

About the Author:

Kevin Dervin is focused on helping small businesses that are ready to grow, but struggle with how to consistently attract more clients. Visit http://www.proven-small-business-marketing-solutions.com for more great marketing information you can put to use in growing your business today.

Find Kevin’s Kansas City based KPD Marketing practice at http://www.ABCDgrowth.com and subscribe to his free ezine called ABCD Grow.

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