Category: Customer Service

When a small business owner says they hate their customers, and I’ve heard this on several occasions, it’s time to find out why and make that hard decision to change direction or go out of business. 

Many years ago, I met and became friends with an enterprising couple who started an ‘old-world style’ deli in an upscale resort community. This was no ordinary deli, but a mini version of the prestigious English Fortnum & Mason food hall; unusual and  often expensive gourmet fare, usually only obtainable in sophisticated top-tier big city establishments.

By the time I met the owners it was obvious that disillusionment had set in. The business was more or less holding its own, but after 3 years really hadn’t taken off, as the owners had hoped.  To showcase the gourmet offerings, they served lunch onsite (a break-even or less proposition I later found out), an opportunity taken advantage of by many, who came for lunch, but didn’t feel inclined to take home any of the gourmet offerings to their waterfront mansions.

It gets worse; Roberto, the more vocal of the two owners, was actually voicing his displeasure of his affluent customers; calling them cheapskates! (among other things less printable). After I heard this, I pointed out over a late lunch where I was the only customer in the café/deli, that if he really felt this way should he even continue in business?

More recently I met a very accomplished horticulturalist who had started  a nursery & landscaping business in another upscale waterfront community, where many successful and newly affluent dot.com millionaires were building summer homes.

Her rant went along these lines….”they just sold their company for several 100 million and they complain they can get the exact same plant at HomeDepot cheaper, even though the box store is 50 miles away and my plants are far superior quality”…. My obvious comment was with an anti-customer attitude like that, should you remain in business?

I did the hindsight special, and analysed the start-up process both these businesses went through and I found a common thread:

Customer Profiling

Yes, they had profiled their customer they said, affluent, with funds to buy the very best…. but was this really enough? Check out how to profile your customer.

Customer development

If these two business owners had actually done customer development and circulated in the community, talked to potential customers, and done some testing, would they have opened their businesses in the first place? It’s often helpful to talk to other business owners with a similar focus, and Roberto said he did this a couple of years after he started, and guess what, he heard exactly what he should have found out before he started!

Passion

All of these business owners were passionate about their products; gourmet foods and horticulture, but little thought had been given to really understanding the particular customer they were targeting. Were they passionate about doing business with their customers? Probably not by the end!

Assumptions

In both cases the businesses made the assumption that affluence means their target demographic would pay the price for gourmet food and prime garden products. This proved wrong in both cases. Clearly, they overlooked some other, more important attributes of their audience.

Expectations

Both businesses had expectations that their customers would behave in a certain way and when this proved to be wrong, they felt resentment toward their customers, which eventually came out in their attitude toward the customers.

When you start in a business with a solid understanding of your customer, having done all the research and preparation it takes before you open your doors, you have a far better chance of being successful and not only loving what you sell, but also loving those you sell to. 

(needless to say, both the deli and the plant nursery/landscaper went out of business…..question is; did they learn anything?)

Clients are the backbone of every solo service professional’s business. If you don’t have any, or enough, clients then you’re going to struggle to grow and build a profitable business. Therefore business owners are always on the lookout for strategies, tools, resources etc. that will make the client acquiring process much easier.

But there’s one really simple strategy that many business owners don’t even think about … it’s cleaning out your office!

This past break I spent a good few hours cleaning out my office cupboards, desk and PC. You see, over the past year the papers had built up and I needed to make some more space. Not that my office was cluttered or there were paper piles everywhere (that’s a different article!), it’s just that through the day-to-day management of running two businesses, I’d let things build up.

So, I took myself off into my office for the afternoon and just simply started sorting, sifting, and trashing. I filled up with two black bags of trash … and I found some hidden gems too.

Cleaning out your office allows you to:

1. Review past client files and reconnect. If, like I do, you tend to work with clients for a specific project, or over a certain length of time (say a six-month program), then chances are you haven’t connected with them for a while, especially if your work together happened at the start of the year. In going through all of your client files, you can revisit the work you did together, and use it as an opportunity to check back in with them, see how they’re doing, and ask if there’s anything you can do to help them.

2. Go through those papers/products you’d created or bought to see if they’re still relevant.We’re entrepreneurs, right? So that means we’re always creating something new. There are many files in my cabinets where I’ve started working on an idea only to end up not taking it further; or I’ve delivered a program and have decided not to deliver it again; or I’ve bought a product or program, taken part in it at the time, and then not looked at the file again. This is a great time to go through all of those files and see what you can find. I discovered:

• A few great templates and cheat sheets that I’d created several years ago that would be perfect for my current signature program.
• Some wonderful golden nuggets of information from a product or program that I’d purchased that I’d simply forgotten about and are really relevant and helpful to what’s going on in my business today.

3. Refocus your business. Seeing what you’ve worked on this past year makes you ask yourself “do I want more of the same this coming year or am I ready for something different?” It’s a great way to do some business planning. What direction do you want to take your business this year? What new products or programs do you want to offer? Looking back over the past twelve months can be exactly what you need to do to plan for the coming twelve months.

4. Generate new ideas for products/programs/services. When you carry out the process above, especially points 2 and 3, you’ll find you come up with some great ideas for new offerings this year. Through doing this process myself I came up with two brand-new programs that I’ll be offering this year. And because I was excited about these programs I was able to sit down and map them both out easily. I’m not creating anything brand-new here, just simply repurposing what I already do and have, and delivering it in a new format.

My request to you:

Set aside an afternoon/evening or weekend to clear out your office files and cupboards. Also spend some time sorting out your PC files and folders too.

And let me know what this process turns up for you by sharing in the comments section below.

Article Contributed by Morrys Sarmiento

Let’s face it: not all entrepreneurs can afford to outsource their customer service necessities to other companies. If you’re one of the business owners who doesn’t have the capability of farming out your customer assistance just yet, we have good news: it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg just so you could. While outsourcing has a lot of advantages particularly in the convenience side of the business, it’s not the path for everyone to take. There are still a lot of entrepreneurs who are willing to take it upon themselves to learn the ropes by doing every imaginable task involved in making their business flourish and one of those is attending to customers.

So the question is this: If you’re bent on providing exceptional customer experience despite limited funding, what are the techniques that require the least financing? You don’t have to look anywhere else for here are five strategies you can employ to boost your customer service department that are proven effective and easy on the pockets.

1.      Start with a good product.

Contrary to what you might think, customer support doesn’t begin when your customers tap you for assistance or when something goes wrong with the product they bought. Real customer service starts with producing top of the line merchandise. If you think about it, coming up with products that actually meet the needs of your customers minimizes the incidents where your customers approach you to either fix something or file a complaint.

Make this deal sweeter by ensuring that you have a competent team who does the selling and rendering of customer support. Ensure that everyone is properly trained as knowledgeable crew members are essential to making the whole customer experience complete and satisfactory.

2.      Open up a live chat support…

On the other hand, there will still be times when not all odds are in your favor and one or two customers have issues with the product you thought your company has already perfected. This is where other channels of support come in and live chat is one of them. This method involves the installation of a live chat support widget on your website and from there accommodate any concerns your customers might have. You can either run this channel 24/7 or you can simply allot a specific period for accepting customer inquiries.

Though the integration of live chat support in your customer service arsenal may require you to shell out some money, the returns are definitely worth every cent. By catering to your customers this way, you afford them the convenience that phone calls and emails may not be able to give immediately. As such, you don’t risk losing customers just because you weren’t able to attend to them right away. Live chat support also eliminates your need to outsource your customer service arm since you or a portion of your staff can simply do it in the office.

3.      …as well as email support.

Despite quicker responses through live chat and phone, sending emails remain a viable means to offer customer support. In fact, this is a proactive method of providing customer service since a lot of business owners adapt the practice of sending their customers’ emails, whether they wish to inform, promote, or answer queries. 

Just like live chat, email support can be done while attending to more than one customer at a time, making your investment in technology and labor be commensurate with the yield. The thing with email assistance is that there are some entrepreneurs who are not able to reply to customers immediately. If you must enlist this option in your chosen customer service channels, do your best to answer your customers’ questions or concerns the soonest possible time.

4.      Employ your social media networks.

Nearly every social networking site offers free membership and a wealth of features to boot making it a reasonable and practical method to sustain your customer service pursuits. In addition, a lot of people depend on social media counterparts of the brands they patronize to stay updated, make inquiries, and alas, recount grievances. 

If you really want to save on providing assistance to customers, social media is one of the best outlets you can find. The mobility feature of social media is also an asset you can take advantage of. If, for instance, you have customers sending questions to you using a social platform, you can easily respond by using your smartphone or a similar device.

5.      Put up a blog and FAQ page on your site.

If you don’t have the luxury of time to answer queries the moment they come in, you can still secure go-to pages on your website to take care of your customers while you’re still away. Do this by assigning a resources category in your website and put up an FAQ page that your customers can check for self-administered troubleshooting. Depending on the products you’re selling, you can create a variation of tutorials, user guides, and tip articles which you can compile in the resources section; just make sure that it’s prominently displayed on your site and that you’ve mentioned its existence adequately on social media and email correspondences. Furthermore, you can also write blogs teaching your customers how to maximize the merchandise they bought from you. This way, you can still be of assistance even if you’re offline.

Customer service is all about giving your patrons the best product and gratifying aftersales aid. As such, it’s always best to take in the perspective of customers whether you’re designing for them a whole new range of merchandise or a means to attend to their needs once the purchase is made.

About the author:

Morrys Sarmiento is a business writer whose main interests are small businesses and online marketing. Among his interests outside the profession are football (Andrea Pirlo and Arsenal F.C fan here), theories of personality, philosophy, gaming, and creepy stories. Follow him on twitter @morrysxi

Article Contributed by Jay Manangan

Attracting a good number of customers to your online store was a challenge, but the work doesn’t stop there. You don’t want them to just make one-time purchases then never come back, and you can’t just always rely on the quality of your products as the sole reason for them to stay loyal.

Thankfully, retaining customers is relatively cheaper and easier since you’ve already done the hard part of catching their attention. However, you will have to adopt new tactics that are markedly different from attracting new patrons and require more focus on the customer than ever.

Make Registration Easy

One of the biggest barriers to retaining customers is a messy registration process. You need to make it as easy as possible for visitors to create an account. That means keeping the amount of steps and pages to click through to a minimum.  Your text box labels should also be clear with marks to denote required info. Provide examples for tricky parts like credit card numbers so they don’t make any mistakes.

Tell them what they’re missing when they don’t register such as the option to track their orders while they’re being delivered, promos exclusive to members, and quicker transactions. You can write short bullet point copy for this near the registration button, or you can go into detail in your FAQ section.

Personalize Their Shopping Experience

An advantage to having registered customers is being able to track all the purchases they’ve made. Such information allows you to update your marketing strategy for a more targeted approach. One way of applying that is having a recommendation system in place that gives customers a list of other products that they might be interested in because of their relation to the products they’ve already bought.

When they do order, provide a wide-range of payment methods such as credit card billings and direct online money transfers. On the delivery side of things, you might be just outsourcing that operation to keep costs low, but it does pay to play an active role in such an important step in your business. Give your customers multiple options of shipping their orders. If you have the resources, take the extra step and set up a packaging service that allows for customization for gifts. 

Set Up a Loyalty Program

What better way to show your long-time dedicated customers that you are very grateful for their continued patronage than giving them all sorts of wonderful perks that are only exclusive to them? There are many different ways to reward your loyal customers such as giving away gift checks, early access to new products, and faster delivery options. It’s up to you to decide which particular method will work best for your business.

For those who haven’t been around too long to get into the program, you can still retain them with special offers made available through social media engagement and referrals. Let them spread the word about your store through social follows and shares with the promise of discounts and freebies in return.  

Follow Up Regularly

There will be customers who do sign up and create an account before shopping but don’t come back. Don’t give up on these people because you might miss out on a long-term relationship that will help boost your sales. By this time, you already have their email addresses so take the initiative and follow them up with a notice about what they’re missing. You can try giving them a discount to get them back on track.

You can also avoid having to do that if you send them an email right after they make their very first order so that they’re immediately reminded of what else you have to offer.

Your regular customers shouldn’t be forgotten, too. Drop them a line whenever you have sales or new products available.

Prioritize Customer Service

Arguably the most important key to keeping customers lies in how you treat their issues. If they don’t feel like their problems aren’t being handled properly, you run the risk of losing them out to another brand.

First of all, you need to open as many communication lines as you can properly staff so that customers can easily reach you. Social media is a good platform for dealing with simple questions, but email and phone calls are better for ironing out complex issues. Make sure that you have the right people that can constantly man your stations for quick and professional responses.

Retaining customers is ultimately about making their experience with your business smooth and rewarding. When they feel that you are going out of your way to keep them happy through hassle-free processes and exclusive bonuses, they will show their gratitude by staying loyal to your brand.

About the Author:

Jay Manangan is an active blogger and marketing strategist for Salehoo. He’s also trying to contribute something into the “WWW” (world wide web.).

So it finally happened, you got stuck with a non-paying client. This is probably one of the worst aspects of being an entrepreneur. You no doubt rely on income from clients to pay yourself and cover overhead expenses, and when a client does not pay, this can impact the financial state of your company. Unfortunately, you can’t always control when and if clients pay you. However, there are things you can do to recover money for services rendered.

1. Do not ignore the problem

Understandably, you want to retain a good relationship with all your clients. This results in repeat business and helps your business thrive. But if you send an invoice with a clearly stated due date and the client ignores the invoice, take action. You worked hard and deserve to be compensated for your time and effort.

2. Contact the client 

The idea of confronting a client about a past due invoice might leave a bad taste in your mouth. But hey, nobody ever said running a business would always be easy. Contact the client as soon as an invoice is past due. Send a payment reminder by email or mail. In all likelihood, the client simply overlooked the invoice, and once receiving the second notice, the client may quickly pay. Always be courteous and professional, and never assume that the client is purposely ignoring you. Like you, he’s probably swamped with work.

3. Offer assistance

Never make a client feel bad for not paying an invoice. Every business – large and small – can run into hardships. If a client does not respond to a second invoice or an email, call the client on the telephone. Ask if you can assist the client in any way. For example, the client may need a payment extension, or because of cash flow issues, the client may need to spread his payment over several months. Recognizing their financial hardships and yielding to the client’s current financial needs is excellent customer service. This creates a positive impression of your company, helping you retain their business.

4. Accept the inevitable

Unfortunately, you will deal with a few clients who simply refuse to pay – it is part of any business. Anger is an understandable emotion, but don’t let it get the best of you. Calling up clients and yelling is not the way to handle the situation. You have a choice – either let the issue go and take a loss, or take further steps to collect payment. Depending on the size of the debt, consider working with a debt recovery company like cavalry portfolio services. These professionals can take over collection attempts, usually in exchange for a fee or a percentage of the debt. They know the best ways to approach the situation, plus this removes a burden from your shoulder.

You will deal with all types of clients when you are in business for yourself. But fortunately they are plenty of tips and tricks to help you deal with a non-paying client.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith