Imagine being able to get on with your normal work while customers and leads just happen. It can be done. I do it. Ask me how and I will tell you.
There are lots of aspects to it. One of them is making sure your customer is king or queen. We all hear it that customer service is everything. How important is your customer? Do you make it easy for them?
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It’s all these little tiny one percent that compound and make everything better and better. And some of them are dead easy and totally free. They don’t cost you a penny.
Phoning a Customer
Things like contacting a customer — do you contact when it’s convenient for them?
Or do they have to contact you when it’s convenient for you? So in other words after they’ve been at work all day, they want to call you, maybe you’ve been at work all day, and you’ve gone home, what are they going to do?
You might have an answer phone or voicemail but have you considered an out of house answering service?
They really do not cost much. Look up services such as evoice and things like that, RingCentral or Grasshopper and other virtual sort of online systems where other people answer your phones 24/7 and they can either redirect the call to you or take a message or give a message.
Doesn’t cost much if you’re thinking that’s expensive. Some of these are free and some are not. I used to use them when I started my fire safety company and I was living in France when I started it and it’s based in the UK.
Ii had a service in Northern Ireland in Belfast that answered every call and they said something like “Sorry Jon isn’t available at the moment but I’ll get a message to him and he’ll call you back in the next five or ten minutes.” It is an amazing service.
Then they text me wherever I am and then I call. Simple. How about that?
Prices
How easy is it for them to find out your prices? Do you hide them until they get face to face with you? What are you scared of? Are you’re scared of your competition finding out how much your stuff costs?
Don’t you think they already know? Don’t you think they can just pretend to be a customer and really find out? Pay a researcher to pretend to be a leader or inquiry and find out.
What have you got to hide? Do you think you’re expensive? Don’t you think you offer enough value? You got to tell them at some point. Why not tell them now?
Do you think that when you’re sitting in front of them face to face and you finally have to tell them how much it’s going to cost, do you think that because they’re right in front of you, that might somehow be able to trick them into buying if they think it’s too expensive?
Believe in yourself. Have belief, make it easy for the customer.
Buying
What about buying with any method? I personally carry American Express, Visa, and I carry debit cards and everything else but I always want to pay with my American Express.
It kills me when I go into a national restaurant chain or a shop chain and they don’t take American Express. The answer is (which is what the management has always told the staff) is that it is too expensive. Too expensive?
How come everyone else takes it then?
Now let’s take an example, say a credit card costs, say you pay two percent for a credit card, okay so that means someone buys something for one thousand pounds.
Iit’s going to cost you twenty pounds in fees. Now if they, say American express is two and a half percent,if they spend a thousand pounds, it’s going to cost you twenty five pounds in fees.
Yeah, that’s a thousand quid, and the product cost you another five. It is not expensive but people like me purposefully avoid if possible those that don’t take it because we can’t get our points.
People with American Express quite often spend more money, that’s why they’ve got American Express. So if you lose me and I don’t spend my thousand pounds because you wanted to save a fiver, how many more customers have you got to lose to get to make up for that?
Just think about it, I’m the customer, you might think it’s not good for you but it’s better than you think.
Returning Goods
How about making it possible or easy to return goods? Not that you’ve got to return it within three days, you’ve got to return it in its original packaging which by the way is against consumer rules in U.K. Did you know that?
You can’t demand that it come back in the original packaging. How about just making it easy to return? You’re going to make them go and pay for it to come back.
How about if you just said, “Send it back and we’ll refund everything.” You can do that surely. How about telling your customer to take it to the post office, whatever it is, and send it back to you. Be sure to let the customer know you will include the postage in the refund.
What difference is it going to make? You’re thinking — why should you make an effort to give people back their money when you’re not going to end up with the sale but imagine how impressed that person is when they may want to return it because it’s not suitable.
They wanted it in the first place so you’re doing something well. Be nice to them, make it easy don’t make it difficult, don’t make them resent you, don’t make them think well I’m never ever using them again.
When a Customer Changes Their Mind
There are a number of times that I’ve ordered something and then contacted someone because I’ve changed my mind and they give all kinds of reasons why it’s difficult. No it isn’t.
Quite often I have to say to them, “Look, I run a business like this, and I know how it works. It’s not hard, just go do this and go do that, because it takes you five minutes.”
Why annoy me? I’m the customer. You think you’re annoyed? It’s my money, I’m choosing to trust you and spend money so think of all these things. Make it easy for the customer because that makes you then referable.
If it’s not easy, who’s going to tell anyone how easy it is to deal with you. Who’s going to say how nice you are? They are just going to resent you and forget about you because you’re just the same as everyone else.
You haven’t stood out, you haven’t impressed, you’ve just done what they assumed you would do, and you haven’t gone above and beyond. And in this day and age of competition, and everything else, you need to stand out.
Go above and beyond. I’m sure I’ll be mentioning this again in the future.
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
Now today is a Tuesday. It’s time for a toolbox tip and here’s something to save you time. Now this one isn’t free. It’s going to cost. I think their minimum fee is $15 a month or .50 a day.
Imagine the time it’s going to save. Its coschedule. It is a content tool that is used by over ten thousand bloggers and that means its pretty good.
Top people recommend it and swear by it saying all kinds of stuff. It is going to organize and plan your editorial calendar from your blog and from your writing.
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It enables you to share on social media direct form within your blog and it enables you re-post old stuff and to just drag and drop around a calendar. It’s so easy.
Go to the website, look at their video demo, doesn’t cost you a cent and think how much time that could save you. You’ll enjoy it. I’ll see you tomorrow.
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What do you need to work on to make it easier for your customer?
