Tag: customer

    Are you Focused on your Customers?

    On today’s episode of Solopreneur Success Strategies, it is all about the customer. Are you focused on your current customers?  Developing your customer retention rate can increase your bottom line easily. If you focus on your current customers rather than trying to get new customers ever day, you can recommend or upsell new products or services to your current customers.

    It is 10X harder to acquire a new customer than to sell new products or services to your existing customers.  Connect and follow up with your current customers to make sure they are happy with your customer service or there are ways to improve your customer service.

    By spending more time on your current customers, you can increase your profits without extra advertising.

    For more on customer acquistion and retention, join The Business of At Home Business community at http://boahbtips.com/members. 

    Categories: Customer Engagement, Customer Service Tags: Tags: ,

    What Is Your Solution For Your Customer

     

    It is all about selling and your customers. And as I mentioned previously in the other episode we’re going to start at the very basics of looking at who is your customer. Before we even talk about selling because if you haven’t defined who your customer is then you won’t be able to find them in order to sell to them.

    Because not everyone is your customer.

    Not everyone wants your gadget.

    No everyone wants your information

    Not everyone wants your newest Plumbing apparatus.

    So you have to decide. what are you selling.

    That’s the first step.

    What is the outcome that your customers will get from buying your solution?

    Is it something they desire?

    Is it the newest golf club?

    Is it something that is a solution to their problem?

    What is your solution?

    So first of all, you should really actually define what your outcome is as a result of using your product or service.

    If someone was to actually use your product or service, what is their outcome and how will it improve their life? 

    What is the end results?

    Will they have more money at the end of using your solution or are you just solving one little problem in their life?Maybe it’s time to define that little problem as to how small it is and decide if you can help by adding a few more other solutions to get it into a bigger solution and bigger results.

    So first off, you’ve got to decide what you’re going to be selling as a solution.

    What is that solution and what is the end results of that solution?

    Next question.

    Who would want that solution?

    So you’d be surprised who wants your solution. At one point, I thought the coaches would want my solution for someone who is thinking of starting a home business in general. But actually I’ve found that for one of my products, I could actually have real estate agents who would be more interested in my solution. So that’s from doing the research and finding out that there aren’t that demand and the audience.

    For example, I’ve found out on Facebook that the majority of people there in my audience are from 45 to 65. There are a lot of people out there at 45 to 65 who are starting another business in their life because they want to have the freedom and control of their own life in terms of having a business, so that was a big surprise. I thought it was just teenagers and young people who are on Facebook.

    But then I’m not usually on Facebook. 

    So, what I’m trying to say is first you got to figure out what your solution is and what is the end result for that solution.

    What is the outcome for anyone who might happen to use that solution?

    And then go and do research on your social media in trade publications in your industry go out and talk to people in your industry about what kind of problems they have and see if they actually NEED YOUR solution. They may not need it because they already have a quicker way to solve what they want so that you’re going to have to find a way to have a solution that is a different, unique way of solving that problem.

    So really before you can even start selling or even defining who your customers are, you have to decide what your solution is and what is the end result.

    What is the process that you go through to use your solution and get a better outcome?

    They always want to buy something for a better outcome, quicker outcome or a more fun outcome of all kinds of outcomes that are positive.

    So before you can start even defining your customers, which we will do next time, are you even selling to the right customers. You have to know what your solution is that you have that your product or service solves in terms of what the problems might be or what do they desire.

    So, start with the basics and decide what it is that is the outcome for your product or service. And then go and research with a few examples on customers and what they need and who they are and finding out who they are.

    Now I’ll tell you bluntly, with our structural engineering firm, we didn’t have to do any of this research because basically people when you want to build and renovate a house and they need an engineer then we are the solution. Obviously, the only thing that is really required in terms of our solution is how we could be quicker; how we can be more responsive; on how we can be on call; for your client and get a good reputation. So we didn’t have to do too much research on what the market was because we have a pretty large market. So the competition was not too fierce in our area.

    So just so you know I’m talking right now about online.

    But of course we’ll also define offline research but before we can do any of that out, figure out what your solution is whether it’s a product or service that you want to sell.

    What is it solving?

    What is the end result for your client?

    why would they want to buy it?

    So have a look at that this week and see what you think about your solution for your business. Maybe look at what you’re going to be doing and see what is the end result of your solution.

    That’s a very important task.

    And then the next phase, very important, is defining your customer and who they are and where they are. So we’ll do that next week.

     

    Categories: Run a Home Business, Sales, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Selling Sales You and Your Customer

    Well today is Wednesday and it’s all going to be about selling sales and your customers.

    Today, I wanted to start off by talking about how you don’t have to be salesy in order to sell as a human being.

    You sell yourself all the time and you sell ideas that you have all the time.

    When you were a baby, you would always try to persuade your mother or father that you wanted a certain food or that you would could see that either doing a tantrum or you would smile and be happy and you could make them understand that you wanted something. As you got older we were always putting our “best face forward” as they call it to people in your school. You wanted to have friends so you always either went with the crowd or you persuaded others you were someone to meet. You’re always persuading other people to do what you were interested in.
    So, it comes to reason that “To Sell is Human.”

    Of course, there’s a book called “To Sell is Human” by Daniel Pink that I’ll go into it further another time but I just want to say you don’t have to be intimidated by the idea of selling because you’re doing it every day;

    1. you’re giving a first impression to someone new that you meet;
    2. you’re showing people you’re interested in what they have to say or you’re ordering people around
    3. always whatever you’re always selling and always having a certain face that you put forward to other people.

    So, what we’re going to be talking about is first how we’re always selling anyway so it shouldn’t be foreign to you and to not be intimidated by the idea of selling but I’m going to be talking sort of backwards in terms of we’ll be talking about because we are talking about the customer first because really “it’s not what you’re selling as much as what your customers want.”

    Of course, first you have to define who you think your customers are and what they want before you can approach them.
    Give them a solution to what they want to buy and what their pain is or what they desire to have.
    So we’re really actually not going to be talking about selling so much as trying to understand who your customer is and what they want what they want to experience with you and what they enjoy and all those kind of things. So, first of all, we’ll probably be talking about the actual process of selling itself and we will be talking about how you can give a good impression to others in terms of selling and how you can be more human in your selling and use your human skills as you are.
    Now you don’t have to become that enthusiastic loud salesmen of the old days because with (of course) podcasting as we have now and being on video, you can still be human and connect with others and be engaged by these type of media.

    So, in Season 1, I talked about first defining who your customer is and how you can do that as well as researching what they want and where they hang out so that you can find out where they hang out and connect with them there and obviously figuring out what they actually want rather than what you think they want and then selling them the solution to what they want.
    Then after that develop the relationship such that you can also then give them what they need in terms of what they want as well.
    So as long as you can learn how to define what they want and give them that solution then you will be able to sell very easily to them in terms of having a transaction of money for what the solution is that they want to have from you.
    Of course, we’ll be talking about my business and with my husband as well as other businesses and how they work and how they sell and how they market and also offline as well as online. A lot of offline businesses can go online and become more internationally known so that’s awesome. We’ll be talking a lot about how to market yourself and probably growing your business because we’ll be talking more about the internet. But today I just wanted to mention to you that first.

    •  It’s about your potential customers and do you know what they really want.
    •  You don’t have to sell or be salesy.
    • You can just be human and use the way you are.

    We’ll be talking about that further in a later episode. Use the way that your personality is and you can then match it or change it to match your customers personalities such that they feel that you’re an old friend and that it’s not a matter of selling.
    It’s just a matter of being human to human and realizing that you have the solution to what they want.

    So I know that sounds all very confusing but I certainly thought I would start out with an introduction to selling and then we’ll be going on to understanding that selling is not about you, it’s about your customers of course.
    First you have to figure out who your customers are.
    So we’ll see you next week and will be starting on finding out who your customer is and what do they want.
    So ask your questions or ask yourself that question over the next week and maybe you’ll find out that the people that you thought were your customers aren’t actually and other people and others who actually want your solution that you hadn’t thought about selling to ..so see you next week.  Subscribe on Itunes.
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    Categories: Run a Home Business, Solopreneur Success Strategies podcast Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    Good Customer Service could keep your Customers loving you!

    In today’s world of smartphones and social media, companies have to be aware that good customer service is critical. 

    When United Airlines created a social media storm about removing a passenger this week– 

    A man was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., on Sunday, after the flight was overbooked and the passenger refused to adhere to the airline’s decision to randomly remove four passengers. by United Airlines forcibly removes passenger from overbooked flight

    United Airlines stock plunged during the week and it has lawsuits pending due to the incident. 

    Make me Feel Important

    Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics said about customer service once, “Imagine that every customer is holding up a sign that says, Make me feel important.“ When you get that this is all a customer wants, you can create a customer friendly environment. 

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    According to The US Department of Commerce, the main reason customers leave a business, after poor product quality, is due to poor customer service.

    That says it all.

    The truth is, every customer is always at risk of leaving you. It’s like a middle school romance. Any little thing can cause you to break up.

    What are a few steps to stop your customer from leaving you?

    • Apologize

      • Even if you don’t think it’s your company’s fault, it’s important to apologize to the client anyway.  “I’m so sorry you feel this way,” is a good way to apologize without taking the blame. However, if it was truly your fault, own up to it and apologize profusely.

     

    • Empathize

      • Put yourself in their shoes. Try stating, “I certainly understand; that would upset me too.” Then, move on toward getting answers that can help you solve the customer’s complaint to their satisfaction. You can empathize without being emotional. While it is personal to them, or they would not be irate, this is business and you should not take anything they say personally.

     

    • Listen

      • Even if you’re reading a complaint rather than listening on the telephone, take special care to really hear what the customer is saying between the negative words. If you have to, cut and paste what they are saying in a separate document, add in appropriate spaces, take out curse words, and find out what is really the issue by eliminating the extraneous information. If you need to, escalate the issue and call the customer. Phones can be very humanizing.

     

    • Start Small

      • Once you’ve determined the root problems, take small steps toward rectifying the problems one at a time. If you have to, ask the customer what you can do to make it better.  If it’s possible to solve the problem in the manner the customer desires, do it. If not, offer to meet in the middle.

     

    • Draw the Line 

      • Know when to give up. Yes, there are times with some customers that it’s better to simply give up. If you’ve done all the things that you can above, and they’re still irate and have not calmed down, it’s time to consider letting the customer go. Not every customer is going to fit with your vision and that is okay. Calmly return their money, and send them on their way.

    Click here to get book

    Providing Excellent Customer Service to Increase Sales by Jane Gardner on Scribd

    Categories: Customer Service Tags: Tags: , , , ,

    How to Identify Your Ideal Customer

    The fact is about 20 percent of all your customers will generate 80 percent of your income. That is because the other 80 percent aren’t totally in line with your ideal customer. There is a way to improve your income exponentially, and that’s by hyper focusing on your ideal customer so that you can attract more ideal customers and fewer who aren’t ideal.

    1. What Benefits Does Your Product or Service Offer? – Make a list of all the benefits that your product or service has. When you are thinking like your customer, you will always think about “what’s in it for me?” Your customer wants to know why they should use that product.

    2. Identify Pain Points That You Can Solve – What sort of pain points does your product or service solve? Does it free up time? Does it end boredom?

    3. Determine Who Needs These Issues Solved – Once you’ve gathered a list of benefits your product offers and pain points that your product solves, you need to figure out who needs those benefits and has those pain points.

    4. Determine Your Customers’ Potential Characteristics – Once you have a list of those who might benefit from your product or service, you can make a list of demographics and other factors that people in that group share.

    5. Determine Your Customers’ Behavior – Find ways to research the list of people you made above so that you can get a better idea of the type of behavior your target audience displays.

    6. What Career Does Your Ideal Customer Have? – Can you determine what type of career your ideal client has from the information you’ve gathered above?

    7. What Price Point Can They Afford? – Once you know what type of career your ideal client has, you can also determine a fair price point for your product or service based on what they can afford to pay and the value of your offering.

    8. Test Your Assumptions – Once you have a fair idea of who your ideal client is, you can test your assumptions by identifying some influencers within your audience and asking them to try your product or service.

    9. Repeat – Take the answers you get from the information above and the test and improve upon your offerings so that you can truly please your ideal customer.

    Using the information learned from all of the above actions, you can truly focus your marketing efforts toward your ideal client. In addition, you can use the information to retain the right customers in order to take advantage of repeat customers and a high level of customer satisfaction.

    Categories: Customer Defined, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    How to Turn Your Best Customers into Your Biggest Assets

    Most consumers trust their friends, family, influencers and experts to make recommendations about products and services to them. In addition, there are many ways to make recommendations – from online testimonials, to affiliate links, to direct mentions from the customer. They all work to some degree.

    To encourage your customers to provide referrals, you can take some steps in advance that set everything up to turn your best customers into your biggest assets.

    1. Be Excellent – The better you do your job, the more pride with which your customers can recommend you to others. If you provide excellent products and services, your customers will be happy to provide referrals when asked to do so.

    2. Ask Customers to Refer You – Just ask your customers to please offer referrals to their friends and family who need your products or services. Give them some literature and information about your offerings so that they can easily share.

    3. Create an Active Online Community – Using either a message board, forum, or private Facebook group, creating an online community can help spread the word of your good services and products fast to those who have need of them.

    4. Build a Long-Term Relationship – Focus on relationship building over the long term and you will create true raving fans that are eager to recommend your business. When you have a real relationship with someone, they’re that much more likely to tell others about you.

    5. Create a Formal Referral Program – Offer discounts to friends and family recommended by customers, along with a coupon to the one who gave the referral. With a formal referral program you should let every customer know about it as soon as they become full customers.

    6. Use Social Media Strategically – Offer a coupon code for consumers “liking” or “following” your brand on social media, and encourage them to share. Offering sign-up incentives for newsletters and more always helps get the word out about your services.

    7. Market Your Testimonials – When someone gives you a raving testimonial, turn it into a meme, ask for a recording, put it into many formats and then publish it and market it across all channels. Market your testimonials as you could other types of content.

    8. Follow Up – Always follow up with customers who have provided referrals to you by offering them a discount, a thank you note, and acknowledgement. The more you follow up after a positive referral, the more likely they will to continue doing it.

    Word-of-mouth referrals are over 50 percent more effective than other forms of marketing. If you want to develop a long-term business, the best way to ensure that it really is a long-term business is to encourage word-of-mouth marketing in every way that you can.

    Many business owners find after years of being in business that most of their customers come from word-of-mouth, which lessens the need to expend more time, money and effort on other forms of marketing.

    Categories: Customer Service, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    How the Emotions of the Customer can affect the relationship with your business

    The old way at looking at the customer business relationship was that the customer made the decision on whether they bought your product or service based on cold hard facts, features and benefits.

    The emotions of the customer are playing in as a greater factor in purchase decision making than previously thought.

    Behavioral economics has shown that rational decision-making accounts for approximately one-third of people’s decisions and behavior. Feelings influence engagement and engagement boosts sales, as engaged customers buy 90% more frequently and spend 60% more per transaction. by Unlock the Key to Customer Engagement with Virtual Reality

    As new technology and our use of the internet is making how we connect more intimate with a business  (or more anonymous as “Fake News” and social media have no accountability for slander or negative reviews). A customer can instantly register a review on your business positive or negative depending on their experience in all of the social media platforms. They don’t have to pick up the phone to complain to an agent. A negative review can be spread 10x faster than a positive. 

    According to Jay Baer in Forbes article, a business should respond to any complaint on social media whether true or untrue.

    As (Jay) Baer puts it, “A lack of response is a response. It’s a response that says, ‘We don’t care about you very much.’ from the Forbes article Top 3 tips for acing customer service in the age of social media.

    So what is a business to do to create the engagement and emotional connection that the customer wants? 

    A few ways to engage and connect with your customer include:

    1/ Connecting your business with an Influencer that your customer follows

    customers

    An oldie but a goodie is that  we, as customers, pay attention to the hero’s or heroines that we admire who tell us how wonderful is a new detergent soap or insurance company.

    Today, we have new influencers we follow and some of them are celebrities but more often now, it can be influential people on social media that we follow and we pay attention to their recommendations. There are brands who pay celebrities to use and post an Instagram picture using the product now. There are brands who see the large engaged followers of a celebrity in the media and they offer a product line to them to create in that celebrity’s style.

    The new pet lifestyle brand taps Ellen’s distinctive design sensibility and PetSmart’s pet know-how to create exciting new products for pet parents everywhere. by PetSmart Gets Big Customer Engagement Assist from Ellen DeGeneres

    2/ Connect with their customers on social media

    l a4Ips9
    Public Domain from pixabay

    All you have to do is have a look at the Instagram accounts for Levi’s, Mercedes Benz with 8.1 million followers or Levi’s with 9.1 million followers or Ben and Jerry’s (benandjerry’s) with 600,000 followers and you can see how simple photos can still be engaging for any business.

    If you can humanize your brand and products, and provide something for your customers to identify with, you are likely to build loyal fans. by How Customer Engagement Can Benefit Your Business – Due

    3/ Have great responsive customer service

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    Even a small business should have great customer service. A loyal customer will buy from you again and again if you provide a great experience.  Just something as simple as support@yourwebsite.com can be an easy way for a customer to connect to you on a personal level. I have discussed great customer service over on my youtube channel Solopreneur Success Strategies channel at http://jgtips.com/youtube if you want to get a few ideas.

    4/Keep up to date on the new technology coming for customer business relationship

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    For example, Virtual Reality technology is coming to the customer purchase experience according to this article (well worth looking at what is enterprise VR) as soon you’ll be able to view a product in a catalogue from all three sides, flip it over and measure it to see if it will fit etc. to answer all your questions on whether you need it. It is coming!

    Enterprise VR empowers customers to interact with products and content in virtual reality and preview in 3D, touch, flip, and customize the products they are interested in. by Unlock the Key to Customer Engagement with Virtual Reality

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    As well, how a business will communicate with a customer may change as text messaging becomes more acceptable as communication link to get questions answered or specials broadcast for the business.

    An eWeek study revealed that 52% of consumers would be likely to exchange text with a live customer service agent and that the same number would actually prefer it to their existing channel of communication. by Increase Customer Engagement by Delivering Text-Generation Customer Service

    To keep up to date on trends follow The Business of At Home Business

    Categories: Customer Engagement Tags: Tags: , ,

    Ten Things You Can Learn from Customer Feedback

    Whether it’s compliments or complaints, you can learn a lot from customer feedback. If you pay close attention to it, you’ll figure out what is working and what is not working for your customers. You may also identify gaps in your products or services that you can correct. You’ll find out:

    1. If the Buying Process Works – If you find that you are getting a lot of abandoned carts, as well as emails asking how to do things or find something on your website, it’s a sign that the process isn’t working. You then need to revamp it according the customers’ feedback.

    2. How Well Your Website Communicates – Your website likely has a FAQ that is designed to answer questions before they contact you for information. If you’re getting the same question asked that is in the FAQ a lot, you may need to fix the keywords used or the headline so that your customers can better find the answer.

    3. Whether Your Shopping Cart Works or Not – If people want to buy what you’re selling and they can’t due to a faulty shopping cart system, they will contact you. Listen closely to their experiences so that you can get it fixed fast.

    4. If Your Sales Pages Convert – If you have a lot of hits on your sales pages but not a lot of sales, then you need to revamp your sales pages. Even if no one contacts you but you’re getting hits and no converts, there is a problem.

    5. If There Is a Problem with Your Product – Buyers will be faster to tell you of a problem with your product or service than if something is good. Therefore, it’s imperative to listen when they tell you about a problem even if you initially do not agree.

    6. If There Are Gaps in Products or Services – When a customer purchases a product from you, give them time to enjoy it, then send them a survey giving a couple of open-ended questions designed to find gaps that they’d like filled.

    7. How to Make a Product Better – When customers give you feedback, you can often learn how to make your product better. When a customer gives a great idea, take it for what it’s worth and improve.

    8. What You’re Doing Right – Yes, from feedback you can also learn what you’re doing right and what your customers want. You can then do more of it in order to increase your income.

    9. Help You Generate New Ideas – Every time you get feedback, whether it’s on social media or from a survey, if you read carefully your creative juices will be activated and you’ll get new ideas for new products or services.

    10. Learn New Ways to Use Your Product – Many times, customers will send feedback and tell you about a way that they are using your product that you had not considered. Knowing these new ways to use your products can help you improve your marketing efforts.

    Learning from customer feedback is an important part of doing business. One of the least expensive forms of market research that you can conduct is through the follow up. Whether you send a survey or call your customers to ask them for information about how they like your product and services, you can use what they tell you to improve your business.

    Categories: Customer Service, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags: ,

    Understanding Customer-Centric Marketing

    The entire idea behind customer-centric marketing stems from the fact that only customers make money for your business. Because of that, all marketing just like product development and content creating should place the focus on them instead of elsewhere. In order to learn to place the focus on the customer in marketing, it’s important to understand why.

    1. Customers Bring All the Money to the Table – It seems like an obvious statement but sometimes companies forget the fact that the only way to make money is to get customers to buy. Customer-centric marketing always remembers this fact.

    2. Repeat Customers Bring Most of the Money to the Table – Customer-centric marketing understands that 80 percent of all purchases are made by the same customers and remarkets to these customers via email lists.

    3. Customers Can Be Divided in Segments – By segmenting customers into different groups based on various criteria such as demographics and where they found out about your products or which product they entered your product funnel with, you can increase repeat sales.

    4. Is Focused on Individuals instead of Groups – The individual is important when it comes to customer-centric marketing. This is led by research into the customers that purchase and by creating personas that represent the customer.

    5. Leads to Increased Customer Satisfaction – Customers are more satisfied after their purchases when they made a choice to buy based off customer-centric marketing messages. The messages aren’t hyped, so the customer feels as if they had enough information to make a sound choice.

    6. Assists with Developing Long-Term Economic Viability – The importance of customer satisfaction shows in the marketing statements that a business makes to potential customers. They don’t seek to use any of a customer’s behavior to try to sway purchase decisions; instead they craft products that sway decisions.

    7. Values the Customer and Respects Their Worth – A company that uses customer-centric marketing knows that the only way to make money is if a customer purchases their product or uses their services. All marketing reflects this fact.

    8. Keeps Promises – Companies who participate in customer centric marketing don’t make promises to their customers that they cannot keep. In fact, they always under promise and over deliver. Customers know that when you tell them something, you stand by it.

    Customer-centric companies seek to create communities that show how they value the customer above all else. They have an open-door policy with their customers where the customers know for sure that they are important and come first. When customers feel appreciated they end up very loyal to the brand. It’s only when the brand fails to be customer centric that the customer moves on to the competition and loses brand loyalty.

    Categories: Customer Engagement Tags: Tags:

    Customer Service Trends Predictions

    Gartner Research predicts that customers will handle 85% of their relationships with a company without ever interacting with another human by the year 2020 from 8 Mega Customer Service Trends for 2016

    This year it will be more important than ever for your customer service teams to provide quality support. At the end of the day, it’s all about understanding the customer and predicting what they will want next from  8 Mega Customer Service Trends for 2016

    As a result savvy retailers will be switching to mobile formats, with  AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) tipped to be the system of choice for the future from Top eCommerce trends for customer experience – Fourth Source

    In 2016 forward-thinking online retailers, particularly in the fashion space, will make more use of augmented reality to successfully redress the balance and eliminate the likelihood of missed sales and abandoned baskets from  Top eCommerce trends for customer experience – Fourth Source

    A big focus for Google and one which will become even more prevalent amongst retailers this year is to champion a personalised approach that takes an individual user view to secure not just repeat custom, but incresed purchase volumes. Maintaining relevance means having a broad awareness of past purchases and personal preferences to win the hearts, mind and wallets of shoppers from  Top eCommerce trends for customer experience – Fourth Source

    Categories: Customer Acquistion Tags: Tags: