Category: Customer Service

Outsourcing all your calls to an answering service can help aid towards the growth of your business. It can make your employees manage their tasks and time better, save on money, and improve the overall client servicing. A business telephone answering service can also leave a good impression on your clients as this will allow them easy access and you will never miss an important call from them.

To understand how an answering service can really work wonders for your business growth and development, we have compiled a list of important pros that will enable you to get this service.

1. Cost Savings–Your business answering service can help you save costs. You will soon learn that by outsourcing your calls, you have become more accustomed to being responsible for more critical aspects of your business. By getting this service, you will no longer have to worry about hiring a full-time help desk professional for the job of attending calls and taking messages. The service will take care of all these tasks and much more.

2. Improvement in Customer Service–You may have worked hard at maintaining a valuable customer base and it may seem difficult to outsource your customer service responsibilities. But consider how immensely helpful it would be for your customer care representatives who are not able to devote their hundred percent towards achieving customer satisfaction. Here, the service can come extremely useful and fill all the gaps to exceed customer expectations.

3. Round the Clock Service–This service will help you remain accessible to your customers as and when they call. Your answering service can accept and record important messages in case the required person is not available to attend the call. Also, the service can screen, filter, and forward important calls to a few select pre-recorded mobile numbers. This way, it is always ensured that your employees never lose any important calls that may prove valuable for your business.

4. Employee Free Time–Inbound calls can be extremely time-consuming and distracting for employees. This telephone service can handle these calls effectively, take messages, screen cold calls and not forward them to the employees. This way, employees can focus better on their work tasks and not get disturbed by unwanted callers. All of this will ensure that your business productivity and employee performance remain intact.

By getting a business telephone service, you will be eliminating calls that eat away at the precious time your employees need to focus on more critical aspects of the business. This service can help everyone in your business to reduce focus on irrelevant calls and direct their attention on other business priorities. This way you will invariably enjoy better business growth and enjoy an enhanced competitive edge in the market.

Leave your comments below if you have any thoughts and opinions that you would like to share with us.

For more information on this article, visit think here – answering service provider company.

Shoppers will crowd the super centers and malls starting Thanksgiving evening in the U.S. In fact, over the next several weeks, retail stores will do 50% or more of their business for the year.

So where will you go? And who will you do business with?

Here are three positive reasons to shop local especially this Saturday, November 29, which is Small Business Saturday.

Personal Service

You receive personal service from the relationships you form with these retailers who really want to help you find that just-right gift for your special someone.

I can remember shopping as a kid with my parents. We went to see Mr. Alford at Clarks Department Store when I outgrew my dress clothes.  He was a friend of ours and the store was locally owned.  Mr. Alford always seemed to know what I looked best in.

We also bought our gas and had our cars serviced by J.B. Webb at the Esso station.  J.B. was our neighbor, and took excellent care of our vehicles. We trusted him.

In today’s world where so much of everything is virtual, visit a local, small business retailer this weekend and enjoy the real-time, personal service.

Personal Support

Have you ever thought about where your money goes once your purchase is completed?

When you shop with a locally-owned, small business retailer, about $68 of every $100 you spend returns to your local community. The obvious ways it returns are sales, payroll, and property taxes. Those taxes pay teachers’ salaries who educate our children, municipal utility crews who go out in ice storms and restore our electricity, water treatment plant operators who keep our drinking water safe, and other services.

And what about the sales clerk who receives her paycheck and gives a donation to the local Salvation Army’s Angel Tree? Or, buys her groceries from the local, fresh produce market? Those local dollars turn over many, many times.

Yes, we live in a global village. Spending your holiday gift money at a locally-owned, small business retailer positively profits your own village.

Personal Satisfaction

Discover locally produced or themed products that carry with them an emotional attachment for the recipient. Such a unique gift carries with it a personal satisfaction that displays more intimacy and care than an “Oh yea” gift from a big box retailer.

For instance, my brother gave me two historic, framed postcards depicting scenes from the town I grew up in. His forethought, consideration, and knowledge of how much I miss that little town made that gift one I treasure to this day.

Find a local artist who paints regional scenes. Buy a painting and send it to a family member or friend who moved away.

Look around for other unique, locally-produced or themed gifts. They mean so much more than just another mass-made product.

So where will you shop this weekend? With a local small business retailer?

Since you’ll be out shopping anyway, visit your local small businesses and discover personal service, offer some personal support, and give some personal satisfaction. You’ll positively be glad you did!

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they get out of the office earlier. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

My cranberry experience was one of the worst online shopping experiences I have had this year! And it did make me realize that it’s a big step for any business, and perhaps an even bigger step for their customers, to make online shopping the only option. The question arises; should e-commerce be the only option? And what about the customers who don’t use computers; yes, they still exist; do they just fall by the wayside? How is your cranberry customer experience?

This is a real life story:

The company which sells the best dried cranberries is Davis Lewis Orchards. The customer was my neighbor Mary Anne, who though she inherited her partner’s MacBook, only reads the news, and surfs modestly, and even today does not do email or any online ordering! She insists on a live person and telephone contact, and when asked for her email, smiles and says “Hello?” There is a segment of the population, usually over “a certain age” that does not use computers as we do. I’ve been doing email for close to 20 years and e-commerce for almost as long; in fact I tested some of the first e-commerce websites as a beta customer!

Mary Anne had been ordering dried cranberries by phone from competitors for years, but when she called Davis Lewis Orchards she was told “only online ordering”. Not using a computer for email or online ordering, she was dead in the water; so I told her that the first time she needed to order cranberries online I would take care of it, but in future I’d show her how to do the ordering process herself. I think the incentive and stakes are high enough for her to learn (she loves cranberries), and anyway I’ll still be available to help.

I searched Google for Davis Lewis Orchards, and found the 5lb bags of cranberries, and added one bag to my shopping cart. I filled out the usual form, billing and shipping address (twice, as the form did not remember my input) and when the shipping costs came to $18.00 for a $17.00 bag of cranberries, I hesitated and called Mary Anne. She decided that if 2 bags cost the same shipping, she could go for it and this would tide her over to find another supplier who did not have such exhorbitant shipping costs.

In order to change the quantity to 2 bags, I returned to the website and updated the order to 2 (so I thought) then I went through the checkout process again, and as the shipping charges appeared to be OK, I concluded the transaction. When the email arrived confirming the order, I noticed it had not updated to the 2 bags and shipping was still $18. I tried to cancel the order; not happening! Next I called their 800 number and got a live person, though by then it was Friday afternoon. The 800 customer service person was unable to help, but she took my message: ”2 bags, only if shipping is still $18.00, otherwise cancel the order!” She informed me that nothing could be done until Monday when the person who processed the orders would be back in the office and would call me.

Monday morning I received an email from Diane at Davis Lewis Orchards, the order for one bag and $18.00 shipping had been processed. Uh oh…. I called Diane and the fact that she answered and knew what was going on made up for a lot of the negative customer experience to that point. A live person can do that!

Diane had not received my message from her 800 service. Not a good thing! Next I found out that 2 bags of cranberries would be $36 shipping!!! Now I was ready to cancel, but then Diane mentioned that orders over $50 get free shipping! I had not seen this  mentioned anywhere on the website! So now I changed the order to 3 bags and free shipping. But Diane was unable to make this order change for me! She said I needed to go back to the website and cancel my original order (which I had previously been unable to do). She finally agreed to cancel my order at her end. I waited and waited, as she had difficulty doing the cancellation herself, and then she suggested she call me back; which she did after about 30 minutes; original order finally cancelled.

I then returned to the website, put three bags in the cart, filled out the forms (fourth time!) and voila(!) estimated shipping now gave me the free shipping option; first time I had seen it, end of order story. The buying process thus far had taken me close to two hours including the phone calls, and made it quite clear to me that teaching Mary Anne to order from that particular website is going to be a challenge, since things were not the least bit intuitive, even for me, an online ordering veteran.

What should companies like Davis Lewis Orchards consider to keep their customers, and make the transition to online ordering a viable option:

1- Consider having more than only the online ordering option.
The reason Diane gave why the were focused on “only” online ordering was that they had no payment option available to them for phone orders; which I translated into: they didn’t have an “affordable” telephone credit card option. I’m sure there are payment companies that have options for companies like Davis Lewis Orchards to take credit cards by phone, and not be killed by high processing fees. Maybe some of you can mention these payment options in the comments below.

2 – Consider a visual timeline for step-by-step ordering.
To accommodate new customers and those grooved into “phone” ordering, give a step-by-step visual help process (guidelines), which takes you through the ordering procedure from soup to nuts (or cranberries). Visual timelines with numbered progress steps would have been very useful for me as a first time visitor to David Lewis Orchards.

3 – Consider accommodating those unaccustomed to online ordering.
Think through all the aspects of your website that will make it user friendly to those new to online ordering. I don’t want to find out about free shipping for orders over $50 at the last moment. I don’t want to fill out my billing and shipping information 4 times. Consider retaining a customer experience consultant to go through the process with you from the customer’s point of view.

4 – Consider having an 800 helpline that really helps.
I know Diane was perturbed when I asked her if she had received the message I left on Friday, and she realized she hadn’t! It’s unlikely a small company with comparatively small 800 usage will have round the clock trained personal to help customers and take orders, so they retain services that accommodate multiple customers, who naturally are unfamiliar with every product. However, not passing on a message is inexcusable.

I personally will not return to a website where I have an annoying or time consuming experience finding information or ordering a product. Your customers need to leave your website with their goals quickly and easily accomplished (whether purchase or finding information), and they need to look forward to returning again. This is some insight on designing a website I wrote about, which many small businesses and companies have used to get started. 12 Most Useful Insights Every Designer Needs to Know About People.

Small business online does not have the infrastructure capabilities of the big guys like Amazon, however it can be a learning experience to go through their seamless ordering process, and do your best to replicate it.

If you take it from the customer experience point of view, which means understanding your customers, even those unaccustomed to online ordering, or those visiting your website for the first time, you will be well on your way to designing a website experience which will keep loyal customers and attract new ones.

The post was first seen on Designing Success as How is Your Cranberry Customer Experience?  http://casudi.esse-group.com/customer-experience/customer-cranberry-experience/

New Webcomics series brought to you by #entrepreneurfail and GetEntrepreneurial.com. Enjoy!

It’s an epidemic out there in the entrepreneurial world.  

Anyone out there suffering from CAPS (Customer Acquisition Procrastination Syndrome)? Symptoms include the eager urge to work on ANYTHING and EVERYTHING except finding customers to build a new business. Your doctor (or mentor) doesn’t need to tell you that building a business is contingent on finding paying customers, yet new entrepreneurs often dive into the more fun, less important tasks first!

Here is a list of symptoms that show that you may be suffering from CAPS. If you are an entrepreneur that has done any of these before or instead of finding customers, you may need intervention:

1. Are you tackling social media completely manually? Or consuming it constantly?
2. Do you have a constant, burning urge to check your stats: Facebook likes, Twitter followers, email list subscribes and unsubscribes.
3. Do you find yourself running errands ALL. THE. TIME?
4. Are you bogged down by clerical tasks instead of growing your business?
5. Did you find and rent a fancy office space, before you had clients?
6. Are you on a hiring binge – before you have actual work for the new talent?
7. Did you throw a red carpet launch party, before actually finding a customer?
8. Are you spending all day browsing email newsletters, reading blogs, watching videos, and skimming books?
9. Did you work months creating a fancy logo, slick business cards and a fancy feature-and-content-filled website before you were certain about the product you were offering and the customer you were offering it to?
10. Are you letting daily stimuli sway your day instead of spending the day focusing on building actual leads and customers?
11. Are you feverishly attending random networking events in the hopes you will meet the right people that may help spread the word about your business? 

The only cure for this severe ailment is to find your first paying customer! And after that, rinse and repeat as often as you can, every day. 

Have you procrastinated in finding a customer? Please share your experiences in the comments below! 

This was originally posted by Kriti Vichare on #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success.

I AM A CUSTOMER. In the last month, I have contacted a number of small businesses and companies to get information and pricing for a soup-to-nuts residential design project. Overall my customer experience has been extremely varied, but one thing I know for sure; I will not do business with you and this is why!

Slow response time

I make it very clear that I am looking for information to make a final selection for products and services for an architectural project, where the plans are being submitted to the planning department at the end of the month. Timely response requested, please! Some of my requests are for large ticket items, which can positively impact a small business or even a larger company.

When I don’t hear back after my initial email, web contact or tweet inquiry within 24 hours, I am already doubtful if we will be able to do business. This has proven to be the case when I have continued a dialog with those whose first response arrived one or two weeks! later? Everything seems to continue at the pace set by our first exchange, and I can expect bids to take two weeks or more….

Something especially frustrating, is when making inquiries to a company about their product, you are directed to a dealer, who sometimes takes more than two weeks to reply, and when they finally contact me they try to sell me something else! Hello?

Some companies have learned that when a customer inquiry comes to them directly, even though they only sell through dealers, they give the information, answer questions, and in some instances even give pricing estimates, sometimes within 24 hours! I love that! And I’m happy to buy from their dealer too (assuming I get the same follow through).

Not answering the question I ask

If you are not going to provide ma a clear answer to my the questions at the beginning of the sales dialog, how are we going to work together on a complex project?

Recently, after an initial phone conversation where I was researching to find out if a company carried the specific type of product I was interested in, and could they also do the installation, I emailed them with specific questions; I wanted a list of the components and a breakdown of all the costs, including installation. The response was a long email expounding the virtues of the company, including the prestigious recent architectural projects using the product and services I was interested in.

What the salesman didn’t realize was that I was already sold on the product when I called, and wanted more detailed components & pricing answers to my questions! Lots of time wasted there (and I’m still waiting for my info!)

Not producing the information I need

Some people feel that educating me will result in my taking the information, but not buying product. Well; the exact opposite works for me. The more I am educated and learn about the product(s) and services from the sales person, the more likely I am to do business with that person and their company; provided of course it’s the right product for my specific design. It’s the educational learning process, getting the information I need in order to make the right purchase decisions. that is the deciding factor, both for the product, and where to buy it.

A sales person who at the first point of contact is helpful and informative is more likely to support me and be part of a company that contributes throughout my project. The opposite is usually true; an unhelpful person, unwilling to share information is unlikely to be a useful part of my team.

Failing to break down costs

This is a deal breaker, especially in complex scenarios. In order to budget a project that is not plagued with budget overruns, I need to understand every component and its cost. Yet many businesses are reluctant to even give a price range at the beginning of the process. And it’s not as though I am a price-shopper, I make that very clear at the onset; I want to know that what I want is in the range of the preliminary budget I created, or do I need to modify my budget to get what I want for a project.

I mentor businesses, and this is often a dilemma. How to present cost breakdowns so the customer understands the costs, and does not begrudge the profit a business is entitled to make. However, non-transparent costs raise red flags for me!

Every business owner can learn from this web page with two million views, “How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost?”

Giving the impression that you don’t care

This one is hard to believe, but it happens more often than you might think. You can only make that first impression once, as the saying goes, so why don’t you show me that you care about my project, and care about having me as a customer?

I think this attitude sometimes comes from businesses who focus on doing business with big name or  ‘name-brand’ customers only. In my experience, building businesses from the ground up, I learned to take care of big and small equally, as a small customer could grow to become your most important one!

Disclosure: I often check a vendor out with a small project, to see how we work together before offering that huge contract!

This is the customer experience assessment list that I use when I first contact a business, and it’s from the customer point of view, ME. It has helped in my decision process of who will I be comfortable doing business with for the duration of the project and potentially on future projects. Perhaps even more than comfort, it gives an indication of work ethic, timeliness and caring about me the customer before we get in too deep.

I frankly don’t believe that in today’s competitive environment the businesses that turned me off and caused me to go elsewhere did so intentionally. So why did it happen? Can any of my readers who are deeply committed to customer experience shed any light on this?  Or please add an item to the list of reasons why businesses lose customers. 

Needless to say, for every business that was a turn off, I found one that I will do business with, and whom I am confident will be a contributing and integral part of my current architectural project team.

Article originally posted on Designing Success.