Customer Service

It might seem strange to consider customer service as part of marketing, but it absolutely is. After all, where would you be without your customers?

If you have profiles on review sites like Yelp, be sure to encourage customers to review you there (while staying within guidelines about how you can and cannot solicit reviews).

Make sure your customers have multiple channels to reach you. Calling customer service lines is all but archaic these days, as technologies like chatbots are rapidly replacing them. Social media,too, is a great way to connect with customers where they’re already spending time.

Whatever channels you use to connect with customers, make sure you’re prompt at responding to them, and that you do your very best to remedy a bad experience they’ve had with your brand. How a customer feels after walking away from this interaction will determine whether she buys from you again or refers new business to you.

6 Proven Ways To Get Leads For Your Consulting Business

Cold calling or just blasting messages to a purchase list are inefficient methods to get leads. If you want to increase the list of your potential clients, you need to think of lead generation as a funnel. You need to meet or visit potential clients to be able to gauge their lead worthiness.

If they appear to be bona fide leads, you need to see whether there is sufficient scope for business and whether you have the resources to fulfill their needs. Once both these questions are answered, you can then identify opportunities that can grow your clientele. But it all starts with meeting prospective customers and generating leads.

6 Proven Ways To Get Leads For Your Consulting Business

Want to Prospect More Effectively? Check this Infographic

Sales play a crucial role in bringing in cash flow into the business. A business cannot sustain its daily operation without it, and without it, a business would eventually fail.

Prospecting, which is the process of qualifying the leads who has demonstrated the desire to make a purchase decision, is one of the most important and initial steps. This step is pivotal in closing deals. As such, it must be executed on time and properly to ensure its success. According to statistics, the first viable vendor to reach a decision maker has a 74% chance to win the deal if they manage to set the buying vision.

Improve your prospect process so you can find leads that you can engage with and convert them into customers more efficiently with this infographic by Business Coaches Sydney.

10 Easy, Implementable Conversion Rate Optimization Tactics for your Ecommerce Site

Setting up your own online business is easy, profiting from it, not so much. Traffic means nothing if visitors do not sign up, subscribe, buy or complete the action you want them to. With limited conversion, all your investment in advertising will go down the drain.

The success of any eCommerce venture boils down to one metric, conversion rate. It is the measure of your business’s profitability. To convert visitors into customers, you need a Conversion Rate Optimization campaign, but every decision you make is crucial. Embark on an uneducated campaign based on gut feeling and guesswork, and you stand to lose sales and revenue.

Here are some optimization pointers guaranteed to increase the conversion rate of your eCommerce site.

1. Earn visitors’ trust

Your visitors want evidence of credibility. Adding the following to your site should do the trick -

  • Testimonials: Fun fact, your customers are better at selling your products and services than you are. Shoppers trust products that have been tested and green lighted by other shoppers.
  • SSL certificate: Put up an SSL seal at your website especially on the check-out page. An SSL certificate may be pricey, but it is worth the investment.
  • Mention the relevant press coverage, awards and certifications you have received.
  • Provide more than one payment option. You stand to lose customers who do not find their preferred mode of payment.

10 Easy, Implementable Conversion Rate Optimization Tactics for your Ecommerce Site
Image via: Acquisio

How to Manage Dissatisfied Customers

Customer complaints can be a valuable and inexpensive source of information. Not all dissatisfied customers express their dissatisfaction. The smallest business receives complaints at one stage or another and how to deal with them matters.

Turn the customer feedback and insights into a positive experience. Managing the rude, angry, upset or disappointed customers ensures to receive the particular complaint at one time or another. Do not make your customer feel unsatisfied so they never do business again.

The customer satisfaction is one of the important parts in developing the brand loyalty. The impact of the brand reputation lies on the responses that the customers make. Each potential customer has the power to be company’s best advertiser or the customer’s who went with frustrations.  Make your unhappy customers experience the most pleasant outcome possible.

Receive an immediate resolution to a problem professionally and quickly to satisfy an unhappy customer and have a sense of ownership between the customers.

How to Manage Dissatisfied Customers

Make Your Next Fundraising Event a Success

Combining old and new forms of advertising and marketing efforts to promote your local fundraising event will set it up for success.

With well-rounded, varied strategies, it shows you care about your community and the event you’re promoting. Make it a great gathering that everyone will want to come to by following a few simple tips.

Make Your Next Fundraising Event a Success

A Guide to Social Media Customer Care [Infographic]

Using social media customer care is not rocket science – but neglect to brush up on a few basic principles, and you can soon find yourself in a crash and burn situation. Social media is still a young form, and customers and businesses alike are learning etiquette and effectiveness as they go along. The two things – how to be polite, and how to get what you want – do not always seem to go hand in hand!

But for businesses, at least, treating customers with respect and humanity is a first principle. On social media, your interactions have a direct bearing not just with the customer with whom you are talking, but with all your existing and potential customers – and your reputation as a whole.

Small Business Lead Tracking Software - What To Look For

The Internet is still growing. There’s a lot for all of us to know. The growing economy is converting itself into a digital one, and software plays a big role in making it all work. Small businesses getting their business out into the Internet use lead tracking software to shortcut the work that gets new prospects into a sales funnel. It’s something every business needs.

Below are some things to look for next time you consider getting the right lead tracking software for your online platform.

10 Typical Mistakes Made by Novice Speakers on Presentations

Presentations help speakers to communicate their messages clearly to the audience. Sometimes people lose focus and concentration when a speaker talks endlessly from his notes. Some speakers can keep the audience engaged without a presentation but most people need presentations to keep the audience engaged. If you want to deliver your message effectively, avoid the following typical mistakes in your presentations.

9 Ways to Make Your Customers Happy [Infographic]

One of the great advantages of running a small business is that you are never too far removed from your customers. While the department heads of big corporations make big decisions based on second-hand insights and assumptions, the small business owner is uniquely placed to interact regularly with staff and clientele alike. Even if you don’t maintain a customer-facing role yourself, you’re probably no more than one degree removed from someone who does – and if you know what’s good for your business, you’ll make an effort to check in with the public face of your business each week. But are you making the most of this great opportunity?

Despite the growing scale of bigger businesses and the greater physical distances from which companies now operate, good customer service has become a more intimate affair than ever. The unique power of the internet is that everyone has a voice, while anonymity remains an option for all. In other words, your customers are free to speak openly and honestly about their experience with your business, whether it’s an online operation or based in bricks-and-mortar premises.

Your job as a small business owner in the 21st century is to ensure that when they use this voice, they talk to you first. Your reputation is at stake if you don’t create a rapport of loyalty, trust and accessibility with your customers. If they complain, you want them to complain to you – not publicly on Twitter. If they have praise, you want them to want to share it with the world. They will only do this if they are emotionally engaged with you and your team.

For some great tips on how to create this intimate atmosphere with your customers, check out Headway Capital’s new infographic below. It’s packed with insights and ideas on how to make the most of your B2C relationships from your vantage point as a small business. These small but meaningful changes can give your company the edge it needs over the slow-moving giants around you.

5 Tips on Keeping Your CRM Data Secure

Customer data can be used to track purchases, provide an accurate inventory of products and provide the customer with a one-of-a-kind experience. Yet, you need to be aware of the fact that this information can be a potential target for hackers.

Cyber-crime is increasing exponentially and both small and large companies are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Your customers are counting on you to keep their personal CRM data secure and safe from would-be hackers and exploiters. It is your responsibility to keep their sensitive information from leaking out publicly. Leaked data can erode trust in your company and compromise your business.

Maintaining long-lasting relationships with your customers takes time and effort but is well worth it. That is why data security should be your top priority when coming up with marketing strategies.

You already know the many benefits of having customer data easily accessible and usable for any number of activities. But, what can you do to protect your customers’ sensitive information online? Here are five tips that you can use now to protect your data from hackers.

Best of Customer Service Technology

Starting a business has never been easier than today. As you read these lines, new startups are being launched with little more than a single click on the mouse. The ever-growing market creates fierce competition, and high-quality products are no longer enough to keep your business sustainable.

To grow a successful business, you need to market your product. One of the best marketing strategies is exceptional customer service delivery. When your customers spread the news of their good experience with your company by word of mouth, they become brand advocates that influence other people to buy. Similarly, disgruntled customers tend to share their negative reviews with others. Online complaints in particular can go viral and completely destroy your business.

Building Customer Trust in 5 Easy Steps

Success in sales is based on the ability to gain consumers’ trust. It’s simple – customers don’t buy from people they don’t trust. While selling is often defined in terms of persuading or winning people, a successful sales strategy isn’t about convincing customers to buy. It’s about showing that you have their best interest at heart and gaining their trust.

Here are 5 steps to help you build customer trust in a business relationship and develop a strategy for success in sales.

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