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Good Customer Service Saves The Day

seattlemunicipalcustomerserviceYou’ve heard it said before:  good customer service will lead to repeat business. How many of you take that truly to heart and apply it across your entire business?

Cue story…

I work from my home office, but I like to get out to meet people and sit in a new environment from time to time.  Last week I decided to try a new local cafe that had free wireless and good reviews.  When I got there, they had a great menu and comfy couches (bonus!).  I bought a tasty salad and sat down on the couch to work.  Once I connected to the free wireless, I was shown a few ads and asked if I wanted to download software to secure my connection (no thanks, I’m good).  When I’m working, I usually have several different websites open and go to many more to get things done.  On every single new page, the “free” wireless was showing me a new ad and asking if I wanted their secure software.  Every single page! After every 10th page, they’d redirect me to a list of sponsored links and require me to click on one in order to continue.  Are you kidding me?  This is not “free” wireless.  I would be willing to pay a little bit extra for my salad (like 25 cents) to have a smooth web browsing experience so I could actually work.  I was so annoyed by the wireless that I left soon after I finished my salad.

So what are the initial lessons?

  1. Are you really saving money on that “deal” from the wireless provider?  If they annoy your customers who either don’t stay very long or, more importantly, don’t come back, what is the true cost?
  2. Sometimes it’s better to pay for quality and take it as an expense of doing business.  Do you need to provide free wireless?  Maybe or maybe not.  But the Panera down the street does, and they don’t put their customers through ad hell.  How are you going to compete?
  3. Other than your main services and products, what additional services and products do you need to also provide to increase the value and revenue of your main offerings?  In this case, I think good free wireless is a mandatory additional service.

More story…

I was so annoyed by the whole situation that before I packed up, I (painfully, through more ad hell) sent an email to the cafe telling them about the situation and how horrible it was.  I was actually looking forward to having a local place I could go to work, but I certainly couldn’t work under their wireless situation.  I didn’t mention it to the cafe, but I was also looking for a local place to meeting with clients and small groups, so by not providing good wireless, they were actually losing all of that potential business as well.

Happy ending?

The owner of the cafe quickly wrote back thanking me for letting her know about the situation with the wireless.  She said she was going to look for another provider and asked me to check back in a couple of weeks.

Good Customer Service Saves the Day

Wow.  The owner of the cafe really listened to my concerns and was willing to address them in a way that would benefit not only me, but her entire business. I was extremely happy that she responded in such a positive way.  And I’m willing to wait the two weeks and check back on her progress.  Obviously, she needs to follow-through to win back my business, but she took a very negative situation and has turned it all the way back to hopeful positive.

Lessons Learned

Good customer service is more than just responding properly to support issues.  As a business owner, you need to listen to what your customers are saying and respond in a way that satisfies them.  Sometimes you won’t be able to provide exactly what your customers want, but by listening and responding to them, you have still maintained a relationship they are willing to continue.

What are your customer support success stories?

(photo by seattle municipal archives @ Flickr CC)

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Using Social Networks for Business – What Are Your Goals?

In the first post of this series, What Social Networks Should I Join to Promote My Business Website?, I gave an overview of some questions you should ask (and try to answer) to decide which social networks are best for your business.  The first question, is the most important:

What goal or problem am I trying to solve?

It may help to take a look at some possible answers:

  1. Increase Sales
  2. Increase Traffic to the Website – Why?  This is a common answer, but what does more traffic give you?  One would hope you’re actually trying to increase sales (see #1).
  3. Increase Customer Satisfaction – Good.  This should also lead to #1.
  4. Need more information on how our products/services are doing.  – Also good (and should lead to #1 – see a trend?)

Businesses often lose sight of their main goal – to increase sales.  Don’t become bogged down with all these new technologies and buzz words.  If sales are hurting because you have a customer serice or research problem, then use social networks and your website to solve that problem.

Take a deep breath.  Visualize what you’re trying to do and why.  Now we have a good foundation to move forward.

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Rich Media Ads – Advantages & Disadvantages

As discussed in Types of Online Advertising, rich media ads with which viewers can interact and may contain animation, audio and video. Rich media ads can be powerful way to convey your message, but these types of ads have some advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

  • Communicate more information – through different types of media (audio, video, interaction). Rich media ads can have video, audio, animation and even small applications or games.
  • Collect more information – either by programming in more sophisticated analytics or simply by asking for information.
  • More clicks – As annoying as these ads are, they are more likely to be clicked on because they catch people’s attention (please follow IAB guidelines), at least during the first week or so.
  • Powerful branding – Even if the ad isn’t clicked on, viewers are still more likely to see and remember the ad than traditional display advertising.

Disadvantages

  • May slow down a website – These ads tend to be larger in file size, which takes longer to download. Even with faster Internet connections being more prevalent, you should be aware of your audience and how many are on slower connections. Even with faster Internet connections, an overly large file or many rich media ads can still slow down a website. If your website is too slow, people will just go elsewhere.
  • May annoy – Since these ads tend to be more visible to viewers, they also can quickly become more annoying. So stick with the IAB guidelines and place ads for short time periods (no longer than a month) to maximize the effectiveness of the ad.
  • More expensive – They are more difficult to create and require a higher skillset. These types of ads are usually more expensive to place on a website as well (because of the larger file size and annoyance factor).
  • May be blocked – Although most people have the software installed necessary to view these ads, it is fairly easy to turn off this option in most browsers and in some ad blocking software. However, as more websites use the same technology to increase their interaction and functionality, viewers are less likely to block the ads.

If you are aware of these advantages and disadvantages, you can make an informed decision about purchasing these types of ads (or allowing them to be displayed on your website or blog).

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