Author Archive
Online Customer Service-An Oxymoron?
Online customer service is not as hard as you think. It’s not quite as simple as smiling when someone enters a retail store, but you certainly can convey that your business is focused on meeting customer needs.
Websites have been around long enough that it’s easy to compare and see which ones make it easy to do business and which are causing their customers grief. Try it yourself. Go to a few sites you have never visited before and see how easy it is to locate specific information. Then go to a few of the rock star online retailers and see how they do the job.
There are a lot of rules to good online customer service. Here are a couple of my favourites.
- First stop, create a site that is easy to use. And I don’t mean easy for you or your coder. I mean it needs to be dead easy for your site visitors to use. Frankly, even if you’re the one building it, your opinion doesn’t matter nearly as much as your prospective visitors’ needs do.
- Make sure there is a way to contact your company available from the home page and every other page in the site. And don’t bury it in text at the bottom! Make it bright yellow if you have to, but make it stand out. Often this is done somewhere in the top right quadrant of the page and many site visitors look here first.
- If you’re selling online, let people know the price before they input their personal information. Would you pull out your credit card and ring through a purchase before you know the price in a bricks and mortar store? Many site visitors will opt out of the selling process if they have to provide their personal data before seeing the full price of the product, including shipping.
In a nutshell, make it easy and you’re more likely to make the sale.
Look Out for Domain Renewal Scam
I received a very official looking Domain Name Expiration Notice a little while ago. It looked like the real thing and I might have fallen for it if I hadn’t been (a) wary that the notice was so far in advance of the actual expiry date; and (b) already aware of phantom invoice scams.
Back when I worked in big companies, it was a fairly regular occurrence to get an official-looking invoice for overdue payment that upon closer inspection was fraudulent. Sometimes it was for copier toner, other times for a directory listing or other common supplies. Now the scam has gone high tech.
I believe in knowing what I’m paying for (I prefer not to be described as “cheap” thank you) so I always looked into what I was signing off on. That’s how I uncovered the scam and learned just how persistent and unscrupulous these companies can be.
- The invoices are often to the attention of a former employee
- They always look very official
- There was always a sense of urgency
- The invoices keep coming even if you call the source and confront them
If I was like the many small business owners who do not keep close tabs on their domain name registrations and are too busy to read the fine print, I’d have paid over 4 times what I should have to renew those domain names AND I would have transferred them to a disreputable registrar.
Like spam, the phantom invoice scam must work or it wouldn’t keep appearing. I caution you to keep an eye on your domain names and pay attention to the details.
Say A Lot Without Speaking A Word
I may have mentioned this before, but what I like about a website is that it can do a lot of stuff for you. For instance, you don’t actually have to talk to people in order to speak to them.
Liz from Market Navigators tells the following interesting story:
“I’ll never forget the first time it happened to me. I got a call from a woman asking about my entrepreneurs marketing program, wanting to sign up. I’m pretty good with names, but I didn’t recognize hers, so I asked how she’d found me.
Turns out someone had referred her, she checked out my website, and decided to buy. Just like that.
I didn’t have to explain, meet with her first, sell her on the value…none of that. The website did it all for me.
That was easy! Hmmm, I think I’ll give that online sales guy a raise…”
Websites: Marketing Without Being There
Have I ever mentioned that what I like about websites is all the stuff they can do for you?
I saw a commercial a while back where a fellow arrived at the office first thing in the morning, put a fake steaming cup of coffee on this desk and then left for the day. All day long that cup sat there steaming. Everyone who stopped by his office to speak with him assumed they had just missed him. They thought he’d be “back in a minute” meanwhile he was out having fun, enjoying the sunshine.
A website is a little like that. You don’t actually have to be there, to be there.
Websites Can Do A Lot of Stuff
With the end of 2007 approaching fast, it’s time to reflect on this years’ ups and downs. Business at Bluelime Media has shifted dramatically (more about that later) and grown exponentially and our blog has evolved to include posts by Tzaddi and Mhairi. Since I’m not an expert in everything, having guest authors allows me to offer you more website tricks. I’ve decided to extend this invitation to a few more colleagues and present to you the first post by marketing maven, Liz Gaige.
–Christine
The thing I like about websites is that they can do a lot of stuff for you — kind of like an assistant.
I chatted recently with a woman who launched a business and is now about to “launch” a family. She spent the past year building her consulting practice and is now stepping away to devote time to her new addition. “So, no need to bother with a website,” was her thought.
Here’s the thing. If she steps away from the marketplace completely, she truly disappears. All the momentum gained by getting out in front of the people and telling her story in the past year will be lost. And when she does come back, it’ll be from scratch. Again.
Everyone knows from science class long ago that the hardest part of rolling a heavy boulder is getting it moving to start. Better to keep it going, even at a slow roll, than stop and try to restart from a state of rest. (Hah, I was listening in class Mr. Carlson!)
The point is, with a minimum of effort your website becomes your agent, representing you in your absence. And when you are ready to come back, it won’t be like you’ve disappeared altogether and are starting from zero.