Customer Service

It might seem strange to consider customer service as part of marketing, but it absolutely is. After all, where would you be without your customers?

If you have profiles on review sites like Yelp, be sure to encourage customers to review you there (while staying within guidelines about how you can and cannot solicit reviews).

Make sure your customers have multiple channels to reach you. Calling customer service lines is all but archaic these days, as technologies like chatbots are rapidly replacing them. Social media,too, is a great way to connect with customers where they’re already spending time.

Whatever channels you use to connect with customers, make sure you’re prompt at responding to them, and that you do your very best to remedy a bad experience they’ve had with your brand. How a customer feels after walking away from this interaction will determine whether she buys from you again or refers new business to you.

Marketing to Millennials: How to Get the Gen-Y Demographic to Buy

Do a quick search and you’ll find an overwhelming amount of generalizations about Millennials. The most common include:

  • They still live at home (or are very, very close to their parents)
  • They hate management and love to take charge in their own direction
  • They spend their money on technology and nothing else
  • They are sensitive souls who require a ridiculous amount of coddling

These sweeping statements might have a speck of validity to them, but should marketers take them to heart?

Millennials are people born after 1980. This demographic is also known as Gen-Y. With approximately 80 million people in the Millennial generation (3 million more than were in the Baby Boomer generation) businesses can’t ignore this market.

Picking up the Phone: Can You Bring Something New to Your Business?

It’s always going to be easier to communicate with clients face-to-face than it is on the phone. It’s the reason why boardrooms still exist; people like to talk in person, for maximized clarity and transparency.

This is no excuse, however, for neglecting other forms of communication. The reality is that the telephone is the one appliance in the office that can help grow your business as much as, if not more than, your computer or even your sheer professional charisma. Research carried out by NICE Systems shows that 88% of consumers would still rather pick up the phone to talk to a business than use any other mode of electronic communication. You have to make every call count.

5 Ways to Schmooze a Client

Developing and managing client relationships are the lifeblood of your business. You’d rather your existing clients continue to buy from you than to have to go out and hunt for new ones. Part of maintaining that relationship involves constant attention on your part.

Here’s how to better connect with clients.

1. Take Them Out to Lunch

Everyone likes a free lunch! Remember that your objective here isn’t to sell, but just to have a relaxing meal (or coffee) with a client. You don’t even have to talk business, but it might be beneficial to you to check in and make sure the client is satisfied with your services. Is there anything you could do to improve?

Bonus Tip:  Pay attention to those personal details, like when your client mentions an upcoming anniversary or his kid’s baseball tournament. This is fodder for future conversations. Email a followup note and congratulate him on that anniversary or ask how the game went.

Did Your Company Get a Bad Online Review? Here’s What NOT to Do

It’s something all business owners fear facing at some point in their career-getting a bad online review. Sticks and stones, right? Wrong! Let’s face it: nasty words hurt when you were a kid and they still sting as an adult business owner. While it’s true that some people are just impossible to please and you can’t make everyone happy, negative reviews can hurt your business’ reputation. What’s worse than a negative review? Reacting the wrong way to a negative review.

What do you do when you’re faced with a not-so-stellar review or comment? Take a calming deep breath and read on.

Don’t Be a (Knee) Jerk Reactor to a Nasty Online Review

After reading a negative online review, your emotions immediately take over and your first thought may be to strike back with an emotionally-charged response. Don’t! Doing so will make you appear unprofessional and petty (even if the accusations are completely false). Instead, calmly reach out as soon as possible to the person and acknowledge that their opinions were heard loud and clear and that you’re truly sorry they weren’t satisfied with your business. Offer to speak to them privately (by phone or email) to discuss the situation and to make things right.

How Much Energy Do You REALLY Put Toward Making Your Customers Happy?

I’m writing this post from the customer service lobby of a MINI dealership in my city. No, I don’t own a MINI. I own an Acura. But the Wi-Fi at the dealership (next door) that’s working on my vehicle isn’t working. And so they sent me here.

It’s a little thing. After all, I’m still using free Wi-Fi while waiting for my car. But simply having to walk across the parking lot and settling into another lounge area is enough to get me thinking: how hard did my dealership work to get its Wi-Fi fixed?

5 Ways the Solo Entrepreneur Can Provide Dynamite Customer Service

When running the show, an entrepreneur will have a hard time keeping up with some things. For example,  when dealing with clients, some will have a difficult time keeping them satisfied. This is often a serious issue for people who run their own company as it is hard to make money with unhappy clients. However, this is not impossible if a hardworking entrepreneur follows these five tips to provide dynamite customer service to clients.

Reviews:

First and foremost, a company should have a lot of reviews and testimonials on its website. One way to get them is to go to OpenTell. With verified customer reviews by OpenTell, or similar company, an entrepreneur can impress potential customers with little effort. This is one of the most important things one should have on the website as most potential clients will go to the testimonial page to read about the firm. When discovering excellent reviews, a customer is likely to spend money and come back to the business.

5 Ways to Ensure GREAT Customers Don’t Slip Through the Cracks

If you’re like me, gaining new clients is one of your biggest challenges. I don’t have a sales team to go out and find new business, so the burden falls to me. And I’m often mired in my own work and don’t have time to focus on getting new business.

So rather than taking more time to constantly look for new customers, I put more energy into keeping existing, great customers happy.

1. Exceed Expectations

We’ve all been on the receiving end of underdelivered expectations. Maybe your roofer said he’d be done in a week and it took three. But what happens when you as a business owner do the opposite and overdeliver? For me, as a writer, that might mean turning in an assignment a day or two before the client expects it.

10 Steps to Using CRM Smartly

If you’re still logging customer contact information in a spreadsheet, let me introduce you to a tool that’s going to change the way you do business:

Customer Relationship Management software.

Also called CRM, this software is designed to help you easily maintain a database of all your clients and contacts, as well as keep notes on conversations you have, link to emails, and track where you are in closing a lead.

Small business owners are, by definition, usually juggling a lot, so it can be easy to let things slip through the cracks. But by using CRM, you can set up tasks and reminders to follow up on a lead so that you are more organized and close more sales.

5 Dummy-Simple Ways to Offer the Best Customer Service in the Biz

One of the best ways to grow your business is to keep customers coming back for more. But how, exactly, are you supposed to do you do that?

Focus on delivering not just the best products but also the best customer experience possible.

Whether you’re involved in the daily interaction with customers or not, here are the easiest ways to ensure you offer the best customer service possible.

Press CTRL-ALT-DEL  

1. Listen to Your Customers.  Read that again, please. I didn’t say make assumptions about what your customers want. I said ser listen to them.  That means if they complain about your product, hear them out when they tell you what’s wrong with it (and act on it). If they tell you what they want from your product, make a note. The best way to serve your customers better is by really paying attention to what they’re telling you.

2. Act Quickly.  There nothing more pet-peevish than a company that encourages you to email its customer service department, only to not respond or wait weeks to respond to your inquiry.

Why Do Your Customers Choose YOU?

If you don’t have a solid understanding of why your customers buy from you, how can you expect to continue to attract new customers?

 

I thought I knew why my clients turned to Egg, and why they stay with us for years, but just to be sure, I polled them with the following questions, borrowed from John Jantsch’s book,  The Commitment Engine.

  • What made you decide to hire us in the first place?
  • What’s one thing we do better than others you do business with? What’s the one thing you love the most about what we do for you?
  • What’s the one thing you don’t have from any other source that you wish you could find (as it applies to marketing/content)?
  • Do you refer us to others, and how do you describe us, if so?
  • What would you Google to find a business like ours?

I sent these questions to a handful of my best clients who’d been with me for more than a year. I wasn’t completely surprised at the responses, but it did make me happy to see that we’re consistently delivering prompt turnaround, quality work, and a smooth customer experience. Here’s what I learned:

Why You Need to Know Thy Customer

This is modified from my post on Bizlaunch.

One Click Or Two?

Looking to sell more? Pay attention to your customer. She’ll tell you everything she  wants and needs, as well as how can you deliver products or market to her in a way that speaks her language, if you know how to listen.

How to Find Out What Your Customer Wants

Think you can’t afford to research what your customer is thinking? Wrong.

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