The Key To Online Success - Customer Service

The Key to Online Success - Customer Service
Table of Contents
1. The Fine Art of Business Follow-up 2. 'How come you do me like you do, do, do?' What your customers are saying about YOU! 3. 5 Things You Should Do When Your Customer Buys (if you want more business in the future!) 4. After 17 successful years online, I know the secret of Internet success. I'm spilling the beans right here. 5. Don't make the crucial customer disservice error Hale Groves is making. Pay attention! This article can save you thousands and a lot of customers, too. 6. Relationship Building is Good Business, here's why. 7. 100% sales. The 'must read' for business people who want more money and want it NOW! 8. Running your own business? Think you're listening to and serving your customers? You may be surprised what these customers think about that. You may be surprised what these customers think. about that.
The Fine Art of Business Follow-up

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant If you are using your business to get rich (the objective of the smartest entrepreneurs), you'll devour this article. Why? Because follow-up is what differentiates those who get rich... from those who just barely scrape by. In short, the stakes couldn't be higher. Face it, people -- and every single one of your customers -- need follow-up Consider this. You've been in contact with a customer. You have explained the benefits of what you're selling and made a motivating offer. The customer has expressed an interest and asked for time to consider. To you, it seems that the order is in the bag, with nothing left to do beyond banking the profits. Thus, you sit back, relax... and keeping waiting for... the order that never comes. What went wrong? Lack of follow-up is what went wrong. And until you become the master of essential customer follow-up, you'll leave deal after deal on the table and allow loss after debilitating loss. 1) Make sure you have all the customer information you need for follow-up Do you have an organized, inviolate procedure for collecting customer data, including name, street address, phone number(s) (including land line and cell phone), and e-mail address? Business people who have mastered the art of follow-up first made sure they have all the details needed to make this follow-up possible. 2) Review your business to determine just when follow-up is necessary and will be most effective. Every business is different. The follow-up calendar for one may not be most effective for another. That's why you must review what you do, to determine on follow-up procedures with maximum effectiveness. What you need to determine is how long to give the customer before following up. It's a fine point. You must give the customer enough time to consider what you have provided... yet not too much so that the customer loses focus and forgets. 3) First follow-up call: make sure customer has received what you want her to have Sending material by email? Whenever possible, call within the hour to confirm receipt. Remember, sending e-mail and receiving e-mail are two separate things! Sending material by post? For folks who are local, call 48-72 hours following mailing; for those who are out-of-town check with the post office to see how long receipt should take. Then add 48 hours to this time for follow-up. 4) What happens when you have difficulty reaching the customer when you follow-up? First, if there is no answer when you call, make sure you ask the customer to respond to your message. Always leave all the details the customer needs to respond; never assume the customer has them or that they are readily at hand. Leave such a detailed message twice in the first week; then once a week for the next 3 weeks. (If there is still no customer response by that time, put in a tickler file to call and email again in 30 http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 3 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service days.) When you reach the customer, be sure to ask for the sale. Never assume that you will get it. Work for it; after all, YOU are getting the profit. If the customer declines your offer, ask why. Most often, particularly in times of economic confusion, people take longer to make decisions, even if the benefits are clear and substantial. Your job is to find out why the customer has declined or postponed a decision... and to both improve the offer whenever possible... or, at the very least, ask when the customer expects to be able to proceed, in which case further follow-up is necessary. Last Words Make this your rule: don't initiate any customer contact unless you are fully prepared to follow it up. Remind yourself that customer follow-up is what makes you the money. Follow-up will distinguish you in your customer's mind as a person of energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and good habits. Which is just how you want them to see you.
http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com
Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012
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'How come you do me like you do, do, do?' What your customers are saying about YOU!
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant In 1924 America's first crooner, red-hot pop star Rudy Vallee (and his Connecticut Yankees band) had the nation humming along with the catchy rhythm of his latest hit: "How come you do me like you do, do, do?" The legions of liberated "flappers" who followed Vallee everywhere (unleashing a national debate about the "new woman") sang along with America's boy next door: "Why do you try to make me feel so blue? I ain't done nothing to do!" "You better treat me right, or let me be! 'cause I can beat you doing what you're doing to me." It was a phenomenon, and a golden marketing model was born that in due course produced Crosby, Como, and Sinatra. The flappers, and Vallee himself, are now history... but the song's lyrics carry on as insistent questions customers ask business owners worldwide: "WHY do you do me like you do, do, do? WHY do you do me like you do?" Your customers are talking about you. Do you like what they're saying? Now hear this: EVERY customer who steps through your door, calls you on the telephone, writes or emails you is going to talk about what happened. Were they treated properly, professionally, promptly.... or was it a case of "Why do you do me like you do, do, do?" Remember, what they say is a direct result of what you do. Thus, you have it in your power to ensure that they never say -- and you never suffer from them saying -- ANY of these: 1) "They never returned my call!" Not so long ago, every business made it a point to return calls promptly and have the information the customer needed readily at hand when they did. No longer. Now, there is not even the pretense by most businesses that they return every telephone call... much less promptly and thoroughly. Yet, let's be clear, customers WANT their calls returned... and they are certain to complain to friends and family when YOU don't! Make it a point to return all calls within 24 hours, even if you only report that you are working to get what the customer wants. The returned call itself signifies volumes! 2) "I filled out their online questionnaire and heard nothing." This really bugs your customers... and rightly so. This is how the customer reckons: "you posted a questionnaire on your web site. I took the time and trouble to complete it. Then nothing, absolutely nothing, from you." Oh, yes, you can be sure the customer will tell the people he knows with a "can you believe this?" slant to a tale which you may be sure will lose nothing in the telling. 3) "They promised to send me... but never did!" Customers are literal. They expect you to do what you say you're going to do... and they will shout it from the mountain tops when you don't. So, do. If you can handle the customer's request today, do so. If you can't, then explain to the customer when http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 5 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service If you can handle the customer's request today, do so. If you can't, then explain to the customer when she may expect to hear from you. Don't just promise action, however; deliver it. Otherwise, in the words of the song "why do you try to make me feel so blue? I ain't done nothing to you." Believe me; they will start doing something, something you won't like, if you don't come through! 4) "They never told me what was happening." When a customer says this, what they are really saying is this: "Can you believe this? Can you believe that those yahoos would treat ME like this... ME the all-important customer?" In short, the customer will make it clear to everyone who will listen that you are little better than a jerk and certainly far from delivering the prompt professional service they have every right to expect. Ouch! Solution? If you want to impress your customer, instead of providing the fuel for the fire that ends up scorching you, then follow-up and keep the customer in the loop. Always. 5) "I waited and waited for service while the staff gossiped about what they did over the week-end." Want your customers to see red... and tell the world? Then ignore them. Don't bother to show your staff how to treat customers; don't treat them properly yourself. Just continue to ignore them while chatting away. This is an absolutely sure-fire way to lose a customer and launch a stream of comments, the worse because they are absolutely true. You and your staff do gossip in front of customers. Indeed, you seem to not even see the customers, much less regard them. As a result, thoughtless, avoidable rudeness by rudeness you are helping your customers create the negative image that kills your profits and enriches your competitors. Ouch again! 6) "He was texting his girl friend while I waited for assistance!" Inappropriate and untimely text messaging has become a worldwide problem and a sure-fire way to get your customers to bad-mouth you and your business. Be assured that if you text message in front of customers, particularly about personal matters, you will tap into the rich, inexhaustible vein of customer irritation, exasperation, and rage. Text in front of customers, and you can be sure the customer will retaliate in ways that hurt your bottom line. Count on it! "cause I can beat you doing what you're doing to me!" 7) "He left for a break right in the middle of 'helping' me!" More avoidable customer exasperation and disbelief. OK, so you want your break! OK, you "need" that cigarette... or that sugar high RIGHT NOW. But must you make your feelings about your acute boredom with and disdain for customers quite as clear as you do by walking away from them when you're supposed to be assisting? We live in rude, vulgar, selfish, acute me-centered times. These are getting worse and worse as general acceptance of boorish behavior grows. Customers, however, continue to expect businesses like yours to exhibit service and civility... the more so since they get so little of it otherwise. Last Words So, WHY do you do your customers like you do, do, do when they are the life blood of your business? WHY do you allow behaviors and actions which not only irritate customers but hurt yourself and your business? You see, every negative situation cited above is entirely avoidable. http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 6 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service Instead of doing things which infuriate customers, start singing them Rudy Vallee's greatest hit -"My time is your time" . With that as your focus, they'll stop moaning "How come you do me like you do, do, do?" and start whistling a tune you'll like a whole lot better. Rudy Vallee's Official Web Site: For biographical details about the man who made the megaphone and raccoon coats fashionable, America's first crooner, visit www.rudyvallee.com
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5 Things You Should Do When Your Customer Buys (if you want more business in the future!)
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant You SAY you want more business and the money that comes thereby. But unless you do these 5 things, you're just whistling "Dixie". 1) Smile & Say Thank You Do a little survey. For the next few days, take a look at how you're treated in the various stores you patronize. When you buy do you get a radiant smile from the check-out clerk and a warm thank-you? Or is the action meagre and perfunctory; or even absent altogether? The warmth of the thank you, the brilliance of the smile are indicators of just how much you value this customer and desire his business. P.S. Whenever possible, use the customer's name. "Thanks so much for your business, Mrs. Smythe. We do it appreciate it you know!" And be SURE to make eye contact. This is essential. 2) Hand the customer a bonus coupon. ALL businesses live or die by repeat customer business. That's why you need to give each customer a bonus coupon, First, make the bonus a valuable one, nothing cheap and insubstantial for your vital customers, please. Second, make sure the bonus coupon has an expiration date. Remember, offers work because they are meaningful in value... and because they expire. Third, hand this valuable gift to the customer and deliver with a smile! 3) Offer to carry the customer's purchase to her car. Want to make an especially good impression... the kind the customer will convey to her social circle? Then carry her purchase to her car! This courtesy may not always be possible; you may be the only one in the store, for instance. Very well. But don't throw the baby out with the bath water. If you cannot always offer this special courtesy, do not for that reason never offer it. And, remember, in offering this special benefit, don't stint on the accompanying smile... or customer's name. 4) E-mail the customer a thank you and bonus offer. What should be awaiting your valuable customer when he gets home? A terrific bonus offer e-mailed at once! Speed here is everything. That offer should be e-mailed right away. The speed with which you send http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 8 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service this bonus offer will be a clear indication to the customer of how much you value her business. You're able to achieve this result if and only if you have created one or (even better) more offers before you need them! It goes without saying that you must have the customer's e-mail address. You do request it from every customer, don't you? Semper paratus is not just a motto for Boy Scouts. 5) If your product runs out, make sure to e-mail the customer when you've estimated he will need more. THAT is your moment to appear supremely customer-centered... and put more money in your pocket, too. Say the average customer uses up this product in 60 days. E-mail a bonus offer 30 days before renewal is necessary... then 15 days... and 7 days. Make SURE you include a special offer with every e-mail and make sure this offer has a clear expiration date: like 5 days from e-mailing. Last Words As every smart business person knows, your success (and comfort) derive mainly from one source: your customers. Right now you SAY this... but you may not run your business properly to derive maximum profit from customers. This article should help. Read it! Print it! Live it! You will start seeing the pay-off at once!
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After 17 successful years online, I know the secret of Internet success. I'm spilling the beans right here.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Because today, August 1, 2011, is such a happy day, I wanted something suitably grand and festive to accompany this article; the kind of music that makes you want to jump up, throw up the sash on your window and, at the top of your voice, shout "Huzzah!", because you want the rest of the too weary and downtrodden world to be as excited as you are. I've found that music. It's a royal German military march called "Hohenfriedberger marsch", and you'll find it in any search engine. Go get it now and let one of the most soaring of marches lift your spirits and put you in the right frame of mind to develop your own online empire into a place where such grandeur is an everyday event... and where you do so well your generosity of heart, mind and spirit match mine on this anniversary day. Over the last 17 years online, I have talked to literally thousands of people who have begged, wheedled and pleaded with me to reveal the "secret" of Internet success. It is now my pleasure to tell you, tell all, withholding nothing. 1) Never say "How do I make money online?". Say instead, "How can I help my customers achieve what they want?" People who succeed online make a fetish of helping people. They know that if you give enough people what they want... you will surely and most assuredly get what you want. This sounds easy enough, doesn't it? A piece of cake. However, you must never underestimate the powerful pull of human ego, selfishness, and self- destructive avarice. In short, humans find it difficult to focus on others, rather than themselves. Yet it is and will always be these others who control your ability to get rich online. I tell my marketing students "Your money is in their pockets," the "their" being your customers. The only way to get it out is by completely changing your focus from yourself to.... them. Cautionary note: Like everyone reading this article, you will pledge your online operations to complete customer centeredness... and for a day or two you will be an empathetic paragon. Then imperceptibly you will slide back into the inveterate selfishness that condemns so many Internet entrepreneurs to humiliating, unnecessary failure. Remember: humans are born selfish, but it is only the customer-centered who succeed. Post this message so that you never forget, for to the extent you do is the extent to which you'll undercut and block your own success. 2) Make it easy for your customers to connect with you. We live in an age of true communication marvels with a myriad of ways to connect, connect fast, connect now. The problem is, we don't use them properly, rather infuriating customers by misusing these tools, or, worse, not using them at all... so that the age of instant contact becomes instead the age of thwarted contact. Are you one of the culprits? First, review each and every means you have for people connecting with you, including email, telephone, fax, etc., etc. Then review them as if you were the customer. Look at how you use them. When you use them. Even whether you use them. http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 10 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service Are you a customer enabler... or are you a customer frustrater and avoider? You'll SAY that you are doing everything humanly possible to expedite and improve customer contact and communication. But in all likelihood you're not. The only way you're going to know is by acting like a customer, ascertaining just how easy (or difficult) you've made things. You're likely to be amazed at the maze and obstacles you've erected to frustrate customer relations. As soon as you know, re-arrange things so that you don't just THINK you are customer-centered, but actually are. 3) Make an offer... then make a better offer. To make money, give things away. To make more money, give more things away. The richest people online are those who give the most away. They spend their days not just creating and discovering useful new products and services. That's necessary and essential for success... but it isn't the key variable. That key variable is the extras, the special offer you're going to give customers for acting NOW! In other words, the all-important offer. Now hear this: OFFERS are what get people to buy now... thus, the better the offer, the faster the sale. It's as simple as that. So, let's see what you're doing now and whether the offers you're making will take you to the financial destiny you desire. First, are you making any offers at all? You'd be surprised at how many entrepreneurs have a "take it or leave it" attitude about what they're selling... punctuated with this killer proposition: "what I'm selling is so good, it sells itself." This is one of the most foolish of propositions. Nothing, absolutely nothing, sells itself. But if you don't have a special enticing, motivating offer with what you're selling then you've cooked your own goose. Immediate re-thinking is necessary. If you're making some kind of offer, good for you. At least, you've got you r foot on the right road. Now let's see whether you've got what it takes to move ahead. Review your offer in the light of what your competitors are doing, easy enough on the Web. If what you're offering to induce immediate sale is only as good as (or less than) what your competitors are offering... then you've got a serious problem... and you need some serious action at once. The offer you make, the offer that delivers the sales and the cash, must be demonstrably better than anything offered by anyone... and the customer must be able to see this at a glance.... 4) Create a customer-centered blog and use it daily. Over the last 17 years online there has been one astonishing development after another. One of the most important is the creation and development of blogging; it's a device that every successful Internet entrepreneur understands and uses daily, the better to achieve more substantial success. You will succeed online only to the extent you understand blogging and blog daily. Let's start by helping you understand why it's so important. A blog gives you the opportunity to send out advertisements daily, without risking your list as people do who email ads and nothing but ads. Your blog is anchored by useful articles and information. These client-centered articles and information protect the integrity of your list. So long as your ads are accompanied by this useful content, you can email your list regularly. Sending ads alone cannot achieve the desired objective; instead you'll list will dwindle into insignificance. Enjoy the game. Successful online entrepreneurs know they've participating in the greatest game of our time, a game that delivers customers and customer sales 24 hours a day and can turn even the smallest home business into an unstoppable cash cow. And isn't that just what you want? Don't wait another minute to get started. Put a smile on your face and set about the task before you, http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 11 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service making liberal reference to these recommendations. It's the way to ensue 17 years of success online, as I've had, with many more successful years after that.
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Don't make the crucial customer disservice error Hale Groves is making. Pay attention! This article can save you thousands and a lot of customers, too.
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Have you heard of a citrus company called Hale Groves of Vero Beach, Florida? If not, you must be living in a cave. Their marketing is everywhere and in all places, online and off. They're spending the ransoms of two or three kings on it. But the poobahs who run the place have made at least one crucial mistake: they haven't tried to order their product.... and as I am here to tell you, the order takers they've got are most assuredly NOT in sync with the hot-shots in the marketing department. In other words, if it is not actually impossible to order some of their tasty product, it is very close to it. That's why I'm using as today's incidental music The Supreme's great tune "You keep me hanging on" because that's what the folks at Hale Groves have done to me... each and every time I've ordered. You'll find this1966 hit in any search engine. You can play it while you're on hold... Still, let's get into the right mood for this situation... and what Hale Groves and every other dysfunctional marketing machine needs to do before they irritate too many more of the most important people on earth -- good paying customers like me! The facts. My family has been buying from Hale Groves for decades... and no wonder. I grew up in the snow belt they call Illinois... I went to college in the snow belt they call Massachusetts... and when I graduated... having had insufficient punishment from snow, sleet, ice and attendant miseries, I stayed on in the very same snow belt that snuffed the Pilgrims. One of the things that made it all bearable was Hale Groves and the utterly delectable citrus... and, of course, I love getting the free citrus spoons, too. I have a drawer full of them. The Hale Groves shuffle. I like to place my citrus orders, indeed all orders, by telephone. Like a good citizen, I have my credit card out... and the special offer I want; the offer I am sure the order taker will want to make sure I get. Like most Americans I order when deals are good and pass when deals are not. But the great thing about Hale Groves is that they always have an offer... and I am always pleased to consider it. I am a citrus freak.... and pink grapefruit are guaranteed to brighten any day or palate, especially when the temperature is below zero and I curse the day I heard of Harvard and a frigid place named Cambridge. Order I would, if order I could. The citrus season begins November 1, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Hale Groves will have a special offer in your hand, an offer so good you wouldn't think of missing it. I want to see that offer... I want to take advantage of that offer IF Hale Groves will let me... for that is by no means a sure thing. Because memory is imperfect, as I dial the number I find my last run-in with them is not the first thing in mind; instead I am tasting in my imagination their citrus perfection... but first I must pay my dues by holding. It is a rule.
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The Key to Online Success - Customer Service Like all good Americans I hate holding.... not just hate it but despise and disdain it. I'd like a choice... hold forever or allow them to call me back in (so many minutes); techies can easily tell them how many: "Your call will be returned in 7.5 minutes sharp." Okay, I'm on hold... and second by second I am working up a good head of steam, the better to craft a snide comment that they well and truly deserve. I mean, I don't begin to have the available time I have to wait for a competent order taker to emerge and assist me. Who does? But my torments have not even begun... Codes. Colors. Confusion. Choler. "I'd like to place an order from a mailing I just received." These are the words I am hoping I don't soon regret. "Do you have the offer there in front of you?" I do... and I say so proudly, even defiantly because I am hopeful history is not about to repeat itself. But we are, the order taker and I, about to enter the twilight zone in which the order I want to place... is the order the order taker cannot seem to take. And so The Rigmarole of ordering from Hale Groves well and truly begins, to the growing irritation of both parties. "Sir, please give me the special order code." Code, code, find the code. I have an envelope full of Hale Groves propaganda... colorful brochures... a special letter from their president extolling their many virtues... I do not see and cannot find a code... and what's worse the order taker cannot direct me by uttering such reassuring words as "you'll find the code in big red letters at the top of page 1." Such essential words, calming to both parties, neither of us can find... and this is what that means. It means some bright folks in the marketing department have not tried to order the product themselves... and have certainly never bothered to train the hapless order takers who are about to feel the sharp lash of my tongue because no one knows who's on first and where to find that flippin' code. And so we sink into muddle, mayhem, a disordered morass. If this were a dance it would be a tango... and that for an order process is completely unacceptable. Finally, I say what I should have said at the first sign of trouble. "Why don't you take down my telephone number and call me when you've discovered where the code is?' But my tenacious order taker won't let go, won't do the sensible thing and will not proceed with the matter of doing what we both want: placing the order. In other words getting that code, no matter that neither she nor I could find it, had become more important than satisfying the customer. And that's why this order "process" is such a mess. But it got even worse... The order taker, unable to direct me to the code, put me on extended hold while she quizzed her colleagues about the location of that code. No one knew, which meant no one had thought it useful to instruct them on this matter... and so while I smoldered they, with every passing minute, proved that the one hand in marketing didn't know and hadn't bothered to advise the other in the order department, thereby generating bad feelings instead of the satisfied customer both parties wanted. Again, I advised the clueless order taker to take my number and call me back when she was http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 14 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service organized and ready. But the poor woman had been instructed, perhaps with severity, to get the code upon pain of death. And she could not, would not get beyond this trifling matter... and so the matter ended in stand-off, no order, no business, and no future. Hale Groves will now bombard me for years with sales messages and tempting offers, too, too little, too late. For I have now discovered an excellent product from Del Monte, Red Grapefruit, SunFresh. No hassle. No waiting. Already peeled. And no need to deal with the misnamed order takers at Hale who, when needed, could not have been less ready. Which is why I suggest you try to order what you sell. It could well be your weakest link. Oh, yes, and call me to finish my order. *** Your response to this article is requested. What do you think? Let us know by posting your comments below.
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Relationship Building is Good Business, here's why.

If you want to set your business apart from your competitors spend some time creating and fostering relationships with your current and prospective customers. Strong business relationship lead to long term customers and this is good for your bottom line. If you have been ignoring social media it's time to recognize that you are turning your back on a vital direct connection to the people who have supported your business and those people who may be your next customers. Your customers are a vital source of information for any company. They can help you understand how to better meet their needs and therefore, retain their business while attracting new business. One of the most powerful ways to tap this valuable resource is by finding more ways to connect with your customers and build lasting relationships. Relationship building is an ongoing process on and offline. Social media makes it easier to start and build relationships with current and prospective customers all over the world. Your marketing plan should include dedicating resources for building your online presence through posts, blogs, backlinks, bookmarks, commenting and more. Your website is simply not enough any more. If you want to speak to your customers and grow your sales you will need to connect with them using popular social media. Social media makes it easy to build relationships with your customers, here's how. - Instantly create connections - Expand your reach to new markets - Ability to jump on customer service issues right away - Better identify gaps in your service provision - Know what people are saying about your company - Increase awareness of what your business offers - Increase referrals and sales - Generate new sales with offers - Post Product or Service Reviews - Improve customer experiences with your company - Generate fresh online frequent content that you control What to do next: Have a look at some of the popular Social Media sites to see which ones are the best fit for your company, products or services. Don't limit yourself to just the large sites, if you can find niche sites directly related to your purposes this can be ideal and easily found with a Google search. Here's just a few of the top ones ranked by Alexa.com YouTube.com Facebook.com Twitter.com LinkedIn.com MySpace.com Yelp.com StumbleUpon Tumblr.com Reddit.com Flickr.com Digg.com Metacafe.com del.icio.us segnalo.com BlogCatalog.com technorati.com mixx.com Rojo.com Kaboodle.com gather.com Folkd.com KillerStartups.com Newsvine.com Faves.com BlinkList.com BuddyMarks.com WireFan.com Mister-Wong.com http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 16 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service Before the Internet, building business relationships meant greeting your customer by name when they came into your store. Today, it means using social media to better connect with your customers and in the process of helping them you help your own company grow stronger. Companies and their customers are connected in a way never seen before and its your job as a business owner to facilitate this process.
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100% sales. The 'must read' for business people who want more money and want it NOW!
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. I have the inestimable privilege of training some of the brightest business people on earth... people of wit, intelligence, good humor... and a fierce determination to be successful, climbing the greasy pole, making more money, and living just the way they want. I find this work enthralling, exhilarating... and (I'll admit it) frequently frustrating... as I watch even the best and the brightest muff it. And so, today, I am writing about the one essential thing these fine folks -- and that now includes YOU -- must do every single minute of every single day that you want more money. For, let's not kid ourselves... if you understand this crucial article and follow its directives... you are going to make more money, lots more, and leave your lackadaisical and languid colleagues in the dust. And won't that be sweet? To put you in the mood for my insistent message, I have selected a dance number that once made you gyrate and awe... "I Want Your Love" by a group named Chic. It hit the charts in 1978, and it made its point early and often: "I want your love. I want your love. I want your love. I want your love." In other words, they kept on message, driving home the point of their endeavors until even the most mentally challenged "got it". As a teacher with a sledgehammer, repetitive delivery, I like that... I like it a lot. And so to set the stage for what follows, look this tune up in any search engine now and move that overweight, arthritic body; because you're about to recapture your alluring youth... and be the person who got what you wanted, oh yeah! Painful, so painful. It happened again yesterday... and it gets me, right in the solar plexus, each and every time I see this fundamental error. The sales person I was training was operating solo. In other words, they had progressed sufficiently far in their instruction to where they get to fly all alone. I am there, of course; I am always there... but I try to remain as silent as the grave and unobtrusive so that I am seeing the student and just the student. And make no mistake about it... this situation (as every parent knows) can make you as nervous and frustrated as all get out. Lights, camera... think! Picture the scene. All parties are on the 'net. I am present in my video box, the student is in his... and the "real life" prospect enters... like a bull at a corrida. Everything happens in real time.... and has real world implications, for good... or for ill. Ok... the student (and, remember, my students are established business people, not wet-behind-the-ears kids) goes into closing mode. This starts by greeting each and every prospect by name; then asking each prospect to watch a 20-minute video packed with the vital data that both excites the prospect and instructs her. These steps are crucial... and the students know I am a stickler for ensuring that they occur. In other words, make SURE the prospect has the critical facts before any further action can occur. The prospect is prepped... are you? http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 18 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service "As soon as you've finished the video, return to me for a spectacular one-time-only offer." These words usher in the next phase of the operation. We make it clear what must be done (watch video) and what is coming thereafter (spectacular offer). So far... so good. Close but no cigar. The first mistake the students make is to present the offer before the prospect has been adequately prepped. This is a critical error. Prospects must have the necessary facts... or they end up asking a ton of unnecessary questions; questions which have already been answered -- and in precise, clear detail, too -- in the video. The video, the whole video, nothing but the video. As soon as you have confirmed that the prospect has watched the ENTIRE video, proceed to the "Big rock candy mountain," your scintillating offer. It IS scintillating, isn't it? For if it doesn't snap, crackle, and pop you've just thrown away a sale. Sales occur because the offer sizzles, excites, is just too thrilling to decline. You ARE making such an offer, I trust. And if you're not, you'd better make its improvement "Action this day," which is what Winston Churchill did when as Prime Minister of England he demanded instant attention and RESULTS. And now... the critical moment that turns you into a master... and puts another sale in your pocket: 100% sales. To remain an average closer, keep doing what you're doing.But to fly high as one of the world's sales masters you must set the desired goal... then do everything possible, everything necessary to achieve it. That is... 100% sales. Is this what you do? Make your objective immediately clear to the prospect: "I want you to get the benefits of this widget... and I'm going to do everything I can to make it happen." Don't just say these words... mean them. Because once the prospect knows you're serious, they can be serious too, working with you for fastest, most complete mutual advantage. At this moment, the prospect may well start back peddling saying things like this: "I don't have any money." "I can't do it today." "I need to tell the little woman. We're a team." And so forth. Your job is to thrust these obstacles out of the way and CLOSE THAT DEAL. To do this, you must remind yourself AT ALL TIMES that you have a 100% closing goal... and that you are going to make this close. If the prospect stalls or blocks you, keep things going by asking for the prospect's undivided attention and for an all- important OPEN mind. Make sure the prospect understands what the offer is.... and if necessary improve it; always making it clear that this offer expires the second the prospect leaves. In other words, there is a premium for staying, working things out, but irrevocable loss if they won't. Now, gun it. Keep in mind at all times, with the terrific offer you are making, the prospect will be better off... if... http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 19 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service and only if... they take immediate action. It is your job to drive this home NOW... making it abundantly clear that action now is the only sensible course. Do this, and do it with enthusiasm, gusto, and good humor, and you will not only want that sale... you will get it! For as Chic sang, "a better love you won't find today..." or a better offer either. *** What do you think? We invite you to post your comments below.
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Running your own business? Think you're listening to and serving your customers? You may be surprised what these customers think about that. You may be surprised what these customers think. about that.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant We live in a society where the means of connecting with each other increase and proliferate every single day. And yet, we are communicating with each other less well than ever; in fact, it seems to me that as the means of communicating go up, the actual communicating we do goes down. And if this is one of the chief ironies of our times; it is also amongst the greatest, most irritating and always infuriating aspects, not least because it should never occur at all. Irritation by phone. Every Wednesday I have occasion to see how people who are not sufficiently client-centered handle their customers. The case in point is the team of Brazilian cleaners which comes every 7 days to help keep me sufficiently clean and tidy for another week so that I can do my important work for you, readers, with the complete focus required. These cleaners have worked for me for some years now. I like them and (despite my exigent standards) they seem to like me. Lately, however, the situation, once stable and acceptable, has declined. What's more I know why and (if they're paying attention) the cleaners and their fearless leader should know, too. We have, in fact, arrived at the point where I say a thing, but they do not hear that thing, much less take action to do that thing. And so a "problem" that should never have existed... now needs the kind of action I am no longer sure these cleaners are able and willing to take. It goes like this... "Hang that phone up." The head cleaner, not to put too fine a point on the matter, has never met a phone she doesn't like. She's always pleasant, personable, a smile ever at the ready even when things in her life are not going as well as she might like... and (and this is the gravamen of my charge) she's a chatterbox who may well have been born with a phone in her ear, and this not only annoys me; it alarms me... for my particular lifestyle is unusual for our times... Life in a museum. Over the course of the last couple of decades or so I have focused on the acquisition of museum quality artifacts of every kind. Their care and protection is my objective... the better to give each of them the opportunity to be shown to utmost advantage. This means regular dusting and polishing. Here's where the problem begins. I have made it clear to the cleaners on now innumerable occasions that the way they work for others may not constitute the best way they should work for me. In other words, their whirling dervish style of dust removal must be changed when the object being dusted has literally hung at Versailles. Slow and steady is the desired approach... "Don't do it all at once." Dusting and the like, let's face it, can be dull, excruciatingly dull indeed. I pride myself on an acute awareness of this fact. And so from the very beginning, with so many facets needing regular http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 21 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service attention, I have advised the cleaners to do a portion of the artifacts one week; the balance the next... even extending full dusting over three visits; in other words caution and care are desirable, not necessarily the speed on which they pride their operation. That works for them; it most assuredly does not work for me. And, worse, as they rush through their tasks, I literally hold my breath while they swing their awkward and provocative vacuum cleaner in the very limited space at their disposal. To say I am nervous as they work is the ultimate under statement. But no matter how often I advise them... that is the precise number of times they have not only failed to hear... but have made it perfectly clear that they regard this advice as superfluous, intrusive, completely beside the point... The phone, the whole phone, and nothing but the phone. The cleaners love to yap (a word my grandmother used to use for chatter that most assuredly did not rise to the level of more demanding and reciprocal conversation)... and they yap from the moment they arrive... to the moment they depart. They do it LOUDLY with each other (a situation that I usually ignore). More seriously, they do it on the phone while doing their cleaning... and this is a situation I most assuredly do NOT ignore. What's more, I cannot ignore it... because, in my case, that would be careless and irresponsible, such is the rarity and beauty of the items herein, a fact I am never sure they have taken in, much less understand and make clear they understand by carefully considered and carefully rendered action. The situation rises to boiling point when they focus on the telephone and their jejune yapping... instead of devoting 100% of their attention to the breathtaking portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) which arrests the attention of every connoisseur who sees it. For the cleaners, philistines, it is just another burdensome object to get through, get by, get over until they can go home -- safe from the old geezer who demands not only an earnest effort, but one that does not on any way threaten the object in question. And so the chief cleaner says this to me with complete incomprehension: "I never break anything," her pout pronounced... her eyes smouldering. Thus, she indicates she has not heard my point, clearly doesn't understand it, and does not perceive the benefit of attending to her customer, the customer she needs for her business but cannot be bothered to comprehend, much less conciliate and reassure. Beneficial advice. Treat it accordingly. Now let us draw what benefits we can from this situation, for it is time to resolve it, placing our relations on the better footing they once were. 1) Listen to your customers. They are the sole reason why you have a business in the first place. 2) Do not see the customer as the enemy but rather a fellow traveler with you on this planet, who has a right to your ear as well as your labor. 3) Do not casually listen to, or even ignore, what this customer says. Not only is that bad business; it is also bad human relations. 4) When the customer addresses you, listen... and see what you can do, not to ignore the point, but to implement it, as quickly and easily as possible.' 5) Where the customer has concerns respond to them with alacrity and with empathy. Then see what you can do about implementing solutions to them. 6) Even where you do not entirely agree with the customer, do what you can to accommodate that customer. http://www.BizBuildersCommunity.com Copyright Tim Ricke - 2012 22 of 24
The Key to Online Success - Customer Service 7) Where you know that such and such a thing disturbs your customer, go the extra mile to avoid such disturbance. And, above all, ask yourself this fundamental and crucial question: have I done everything this day to ameliorate the situation, hearing, doing, improving the relations and so earning the trust and even admiration of this all important person. For, remember, each contact you have with your customer provides yet another occasion to earn this trust and admiration, and if you do not take it, you are yourself your own worst enemy... and that is unacceptable indeed. But let's end on the highest possible note of accommodation and joy, with "painfully fabulous" Siedah Garrett's 2012 Academy Award nominated song, "Real in Rio." Find it in any search engine... and samba. Just don't do it when you're polishing the silver.
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About The Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., where small and home-based businesses learn how to profit online. Attend Dr. Lant's live webcast TODAY and receive 50,000 free guaranteed visitors to the website of your choice Republished with author's permission by Tim Ricke http://BizBuildersCommunity.com.
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