Posts Tagged ‘customer service’

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The first six building blocks in creating a Destination Website; expert information, usability, website design, unique value proposition, time and presence, and voice are all things that we, more or less, have direct control over. The exception is time. We don’t control time but we do control how we build up our presence over time.

Trust and credibility are also partly in our control but also one of the most difficult things to achieve. We determine whether we move forward in a trustworthy way, and whether or not to act in a credible manner, but no matter how hard we try, we cannot wish those two things into existence. We cannot force someone else to trust us. We cannot tell someone to find us credible and expect them to do so on our word.

We can go about doing all we can to build both trust and credibility, but, in the end, whether we are trusted or not lies not with our own efforts but other people’s perceptions. If you spend months and years showing you can be trusted and proving that you’re credible, but one one knows or believes it to be true, then you just aren’t. These are not physical things that can be touched, they simply must be understood to be true.

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I’ve been a Netflix subscriber since they went by the name Netflix.com and were boasting 7,000 titles in stock. They now claim to have over 100,000. That was many moons ago. But I haven’t necessarily been a Netflix loyalist. Over the years I’ve tried other online movie rental services only to keep finding my way back to Netflix.

But over the years Netflix has begun cutting out key customer features. They say it’s to improve their system, customer service and the traditional yada, yada, but I’m not so sure. But with each feature they eliminate, instead of differentiating themselves from the competition, they are systematically eliminating the benefits of being a Netflix customer.

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It is often said that it is important to write for your audience. But what does that really mean? How do you determine who your audience is?

If you write for whom you think your audience is, you might be missing out on a completely different crowd.

Consider Your Audience - Three Major Members

1. Write for the researchers. The people in the beginning phases of purchasing are researching to learn more about the products or services that they’re looking for. They may not even really know what they’re looking for at all, so it’s crucial to be very general and to refrain from using jargon or other industry-specific terminology.

   Someone well-versed in internet marketing is very familiar with search engine optimization (SEO), but for a small business owner who just started a website, they need more broad references that make sense to them. Explain everything in layman’s terms, and you’re likely to get a repeat visitor when they move to the next phase of audience participation.

2. Write for the shoppers. The next member of your reading audience is the shopper. This is the person who has done the research on the topics and has a pretty good understanding of what it is they’re looking for. Now that they know enough about the product or service, they’re ready to do some comparison shopping.

   Target your shopping readers by including more industry-specific terms and arm them with information that will make them want to pick your product or services over your competitors. You can include side-by-side comparison charts that show the benefits so that they want to come to you when they’re ultimately ready to buy.

3. Write for the buyers. After they have done the research and have made comparisons between competitors, the buyers are ready to convert. They know enough about what they’re looking for, so your writing can be very specific and can include a lot of terminology and facts that will make them want to buy your product or service.

   Your buyers want quick information that makes them want to convert, so give them the info they want quickly. When writing for your buyers, consider giving them links to any customer service, warranty, shipping, or refund information as applicable.

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SEO

• Part Two: Why Use Yahoo! Answers
• Part Three: How To Use Yahoo! Answers
• What is your robots.txt file telling your competitors about you?
• How to SEO Your Site in Less Than 120 Minutes
• 6 Reasons Why Your Awesome Site Isn’t Indexed

Copywriting

• Why Brains Crave Beneficial Copy
• Why It’s Imporant to Be In Touch With Other Writers
• Criticism: Can You Handle It or Are You a Slave to Your Ego?
• Getting Creative With Your Content

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SEO

• Makeshift Anchor Text… Link Title Attribute vs Image Alt Tags: Which is Better?
• Rewriting URLs: SEO for CMS, E-Commerce, and Dynamic Sites
• Create Forms in Google Docs Spreadsheet
• Optimizing site structures through diverse navigation

Copywriting

• How to Hook (More) Copywriting Prospects
• Just Write: Find the Confidence to Write More
• Juicy Writing: 5 Ways to Glue Readers to the Page
• 3 Tips When Writing Benefits
• Beat Blank Page Syndrome: 10 Tricks to Get Your Writing Started
• Make Your Message Bounce With a Game of Verbal Tennis
• Blogging. An excuse for poor communication?

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Sites that are designed to sell products and/or services must go the extra mile to enhance the visitor’s engagement with the website. Shopping cart abandonment (shoppers abandoning their carts before deciding to pay for the “items” they’ve added to their cart) can result in a significant loss in potential sales. But much of that can be reduced when the shopping process is streamlined and geared for shopper satisfaction.

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Stoney has a relatively hands-off policy regarding what the team blogs about on (EMP). Occasionally he’ll give us some general direction or guidance (Titles, people! It’s all about titles!!!) and he tell us to always keep it relevant to business and marketing, but other than that we pretty much have free reign. And while he doesn’t like to write negative posts about other small businesses, he’s never specifically said we can’t, so I’m going to vent a little and, well, if a particular local web hosting company gets in the way, that’ll be their problem, not mine.

Some of you may have noticed that our CodeMonitor tool has not been working properly for several weeks (actually it’s been over a few months now!). A while back we started having some issues with our web host. At the time, it was on the same account (1and1 Hosting) as our client reporting suite, task management system and this blog. Our site’s started going down periodically and the customer support we received was less than stellar.

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We all have had our share of good and poor customer service, but my experience with Wal-Mart is one that I will not forget, and I was appalled to receive such unpleasant customer service.
I went to Wal-Mart to purchase a cover for my electric blanket but was unable to find it in the department that carries all the blankets. I finally found someone who I thought would be able to assist me, but I should remind you that I put emphasis on the word “thought.” I guess it just wasn’t her day, because when I asked her where I could find the covers for an electric blanket, she told me I needed to look in the aisle with all the blankets. I explained to her that I was unable to locate one, and needed her assistance. She just groaned and told me to follow her. On the way over to the department, two people were looking at some yarn and knocked a ball off the shelf. She said in a very stern voice, “You better pick that yarn up.”
The woman who was ‘assisting’ me said she would be right back because she would ask the associate who worked in bedding where we could find the covers. She finally returned with the answer that they were sold out of electric blankets and covers. I tried to ask her where I could find the covers, but she just ignored me and walked off…guess she was done with me.
In that situation, to better assist a customer, I would have tried to locate the cover for the electric blanket in another Wal-Mart. The associate could have called around to other Wal-Mart stores to see if they were stocked with the covers, at least to please me, the customer. Having a happy customer is more beneficial than an unhappy customer because an unhappy customer is like a domino effect; that unhappy customer tells five people what happened then those people tell others, and so on. It can hurt one’s business. All I have to say is do what you can to please the customer. I know this from my 10 years of experience in customer service.

When was the last time someone received a thank you note from you? Been a while? Don’t assume that people know you appreciate them or their help. Tell them. You know yourself how much a thank you means — and how good it makes you feel when someone says it. Take the time to thank people no matter how busy you are.

There are countless articles and business tycoons that swear by the mighty thank you note. Management guru Peter F. Drucker, honorary chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, attributes much of his success in life to his early habit of writing 10 to 12 thank you notes a day. Ken Langone, VC and Home Depot Founder states “The two most powerful things in existence: a kind word and a thoughtful gesture.” Southwest requires it in their hiring criteria, “We look for listening, caring, smiling, saying ‘Thank you,’ being warm.”— Colleen Barrett, president, Southwest Airlines.

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Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of your my favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that “give back” to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and the list goes on.

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