Posts Tagged ‘Email’

If you want to develop relationships with customers, you need to keep the conversations going. Its like a game of tennis. The goal is to always get the ball back over the net. Of course, unlike tennis, you want your customer to send the ball back, so be sure to practice your lob.

Start

There are a lot of ways to get into conversations with prospects and customers. One way is to put a lot of balls in the air, so to speak. Being active on social networks, blogging, writing a newsletter, all of these have the potential to be conversation starters.

Of course, you could also be more specific. You can directly communicate to a person, perhaps via phone or email. This works best if there is some kind of prior history there.

Another way to get into conversation is to join one that is already started. I call this response marketing. By seeking out conversations that are already happening, or invitations to a conversation by someone asking a question, you are actually playing the first return ball. Your success rate for engagement will be higher here, assuming you actually listened first and provide a piece of information that is useful.

Lob

If you want the conversation to continue, you need to make it easy for the person on the other end to respond. There are a few ways to do this.

You can ask a question. Do this if you want to clarify a point, or if you have given some piece of information and want thoughts back in return. In any case, asking questions is a great way to elicit response.

Another thing you can do is keep your communication brief and to the point. If you say too much, you are going to be harder to respond to. Think of the difference between a brief email that makes one point and asks one question of you versus a multi-paragraph email that jumps all over the place and asks a bunch of questions. You have a far easier time responding to the short and specific email.

You could also give the person something to do. Be careful here. Make sure what you are asking will help the relationship. For instance, you may invite them to join your newsletter, or to attend your webinar.

Finally, you can go a long way just by showing interest in a continued conversation. Make it clear that you want to provide a full answer, or that you want to learn more about the person’s situation. Be friendly and caring and make all your resources available to the person. If you have shown genuine interest, they probably won’t mind when you check in on them a month later, or when you invite them to visit your web site. By caring and communicating, you are building trust.

Return

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to keep conversations alive with customers is to always return the ball. Here’s the thing, you may have to return it more than once. But its your job to keep the conversation alive, not theirs.

Being annoying isn’t allowed. Until you have built up trust, you need to work extra hard with each person, providing personal communication. In each communication, you can invite them to join the larger conversation on your blog, newsletter, or forum, but don’t push that stuff into their inbox until they have given their implicit permission.

So when you respond, make sure its a real response. Hit the ball they send over the net. If its a question, answer it wisely and follow up. If its a complaint, don’t ignore it. Solve the problem. If its communication, communicate back. Show that you are listening and respond in kind. Drop the form letters and be human. Whether someone is contacting you directly or just talking about something on Twitter, be personal and generous in your response. And don’t forget to make it easier for a person to hit the ball back.

photo credit: ????k?? ?????

One important facet of having a business presence online is accessibility. You want to make it easy for people to reach out to you. You can attract all of the eyeballs you want to your site, but if you aren’t accessible, you won’t be able to build any relationships. If you are going to practice conversation marketing, you need to make it possible for others to start the conversation with you. Here are 10 tips on how to be more accessible online.

1. Put contact info everywhere

Wonder why people never call? Maybe its because they don’t know your number. Your primary contact info should be everywhere, including your web site, business cards, and all of your marketing material. Make it easy for people to find your number, email, or any other means of contacting you.

2. Set up a Twitter account

Twitter is tops for ease of access when it comes to the social networks. Having a Twitter account and actively using it opens up a new channel of communication.

3. Set up some chat accounts

People actively use chat software, such as AIM, Google Chat, and Skype. You don’t have to use all of them, but you should use some. There are even chat clients that support multiple chat platforms.

Take this a step further by incorporating chat into your web site. Google Chat has a function to make this easy. It is often easier for people to reach out to you via live chat than to pick up the phone.

4. Have easy to find and use contact forms

Have a contact form on your web site. It is up to you what information to ask for, but if you just want a person to reach out to you, make it simple. Ask for name and email, along with their question.

5. Get active on Facebook

Facebook is here to stay, obviously. Chances are, you probably already have a lot of customers actively using Facebook. So it makes sense to start an account for your business. Alternatively, you can start a fan page for your business using your personal account.

Provide links on your site to friend you on Facebook. Once you get established there, many of your Facebooking customers and prospects will reach out to you there.

6. Allow comments on your blog

If you write a blog, allow for comments. Don’t worry about spam or negative stuff, you can moderate your comments to keep that stuff out. By having comments, you are opening up another means of communication. It is a good idea to respond to the comments on your blog as well as to send an email response to the commentator. Its a great way to start a conversation.

7. Get a toll free number

Make it as easy as possible for people to call you. If you don’t have a toll free number, consider using an online service such as Ring Central to get one. People will be more likely to call if its free.

8. Make signing up for your newsletter easy and obvious

Your newsletter is a primary means of regular communication from you to your customer. Sometimes, the only way  a person will reach out to you is to sign up for it. So make it easy and painless. Include big links to it on your site, and only ask for name and email when a person first signs up.

9. Host webinars and calls

A great way to be accessible is by putting yourself out there. Hosting a webinar or live call on a regular basis allows people to interact with you on a group level with the opportunity to make it more personal by them asking a question. This is easier for some people than picking up the phone and asking questions directly. With a webinar, they have a chance to just listen in. Its up to you to excite them enough to move that to the next level of interaction.

10. Engage in plenty of conversations

A hermit is not very accessible. Instead, be the life of the party. Be everywhere. If you are active on social networks, a regular blog commentator, a blogger yourself, you will have more face time and make it easier for people to discover you and engage you in conversation. Just by being there, you are naturally much more accessible.

photo credit: Mr. Read

Recommended Reading

I am constantly on the prowl for good business books. Right now, I am reading Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk. I love Gary’s take on passion and business. This book will give you a kick in the butt to get up and get moving as you pursue your passions and your business.

If you are interested in Crush It, you can get it through Amazon by clicking here or by visiting your local bookstore.

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

Get Unique Content Weekly with The All Biz Answers Insider Newsletter

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

When you look at where marketing is moving, you realize that it is slowly coming out of the blast and shout phase, and moving toward more personal interactions. Facebook realizes this. That’s why it tried to introduce Beacon, which told your friends what you were buying. Users didn’t like the idea of a third party doing that, so the initiative was pulled. But the reasoning behind it and other marketing pushes these days is simple. People buy what friends suggest. Marketing is happening through conversations.

If conversations between friends is replacing mass marketing, there is a danger that your message is going to be muscled out. Why would someone buy your brand of TV over the brand that their friends recommend? They won’t, unless they know that they can trust you as much as they trust their friends.

The best tactic to get and maintain marketing influence with prospects is this; gain their trust. I’ve talked earlier about becoming friends with your customers. Now, I want to talk about how to engage them in your marketing by holding two-way conversations.

Start By Listening

If you are going to be good at conversation, you know that you need to be good at listening. This is the inverse of traditional mass marketing. However, it is the way in which you will gain trust and hone your message so that it speaks right to the hearts of your prospects.

Of course, listening is no good if you don’t have anyone to listen to. Start with your customers. Set up meetings where you can just listen to what they have to say about their issues, their likes and dislikes, and more. Ask them questions via email. And just pay better attention during each interaction, learning to listen to both things said and things unsaid.

You can also listen in on conversations that take place on social networks. Pick some key words from you industry or niche and type them in at search.twitter.com. Find out what people are saying about these topics. Here are some more thoughts on how to do that here.

Perhaps the biggest thing you can do is to stop talking. When you do talk, respond rather than promote. Your words will have far greater meaning if they are in response to a customer need or a prospect’s question. You can be sure that other people will be in the same place and will find your response helpful.

Gain Permission

To move your marketing from sporadic conversations to a steady stream, you will need to develop a system. This new marketing system will take into account the people that you are marketing to. You will need to be as personal as possible, and this may mean segmenting your email list by certain interests or tastes. I, for one, like it when a clothing company sends me ads just for men’s clothes.

In order to be able to have any kind of personal conversation with prospects, you first need to gain their permission to talk to them. You do this by inviting them to join your newsletter or to attend your educational event. To get people to want to join, you need to get out there and join conversations on Twitter, in forums, on blogs, etc. Show that you are a listener and that you provide solid content. You also can hold free events and give stuff of value away to get people to notice and sign up.

When you do get permission, make sure you also get information. This kind of personal marketing relies on you knowing your audience and speaking specifically to it. If you do a broad campaign and bring in all types of people to your newsletter, you are going to quickly loose some people by talking about things they do not care about.

You can get some of the information you need up front. But also use your newsletter to better define who you are talking to. Once you get permission, keep it personal in your newsletter. Find out what your readers want by asking them.

Throw the Ball Back

There is an analogy for conversation that has something to do with a ball and throwing it back and forth. If you start a conversation with someone, saying hello, how are you?, the ball is now their’s to throw back to you.

You’re goal with conversation marketing is to make sure the ball keeps moving. On your end, you do this by staying in touch. Send out regular emails, make frequent phone calls, and participate in conversation on social networks and blogs.

You also need to make it easy for people to throw the ball back to you. This is as simple as making sure your contact information is on everything and that there are multiple ways for people to reach you. It is also as complex as reaching out to key people and engaging them in deeper conversation. This might be a blogger who can help promote you or a customer with a complaint. I won’t quiz you on which of the two is a priority, because I know you already know its the customer.

Get the ball rolling by becoming an active listener, online and in every communication you have. Then, invite people to your game by providing quality insight and being helpful. After that, you can put much of your focus on keeping the conversation going. If you do a good job of this, more and more people will seek you out to join in. Thats because a good thing never stays hidden for long.

photo credit: kamshots

Recommended Reading

I am constantly on the prowl for good business books. Right now, I am reading Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk. I love Gary’s take on passion and business. This book will give you a kick in the butt to get up and get moving as you pursue your passions and your business.

If you are interested in Crush It, you can get it through Amazon by clicking here or by visiting your local bookstore.

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

Get Unique Content Weekly with The Letter

–

Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

What happens when you eat too much ice cream? You get sick, right? Is it possible that the same thing happens in business when you try to have too much of a good thing? I haven’t formed a final opinion on this, but I am beginning to think that it is possible to give too much customer service.

The problem lies mostly in what is expected. If you do something extraordinary for a person one time, they will probably be pleasantly surprised and go out of the way to thank you. But if you do it every time, they may gripe if you fall even a little short. The solution seems to be in creating clear boundaries of expectation and only crossing them occasionally.

Big expectations

I read an email from one of my clients’ customers recently. It basically said that everything had gone well with the sale so far, and that they were hoping to be “more than satisfied” with final delivery. Raise your hand if you think this customer is going to be able to find something wrong at final delivery. The expectation is set too high. The customer is not going to be satisfied. They want to be more than satisfied. How do you deliver on that expectation?

One thing that too many of us small businesses do is to over promise. We think we need to show our best possible outcome to win a sale. The problem with this is that it leaves no margin for error and no room for understanding on the part of the customer.

It may feel right to promise a customer that they will be “more than satisfied.” After all, you should have that kind of confidence in yourself. But in order for a customer to actually attain this state, the expectation needs to be set a point that you can easily meet and then exceed. Unless you can consistently do better than your best every single time, you need to reign in your promises and make sure you set customer expectations in a reasonable zone.

Much heavier work load

Another client has a problem. Its that they offer too much customer service, for free. Here, the customer service is added value services that are beyond the industry norm. They are little things that help the customers. However, since the company has not monetized them, these extra services have added up to a lot of extra workload and have eaten into already thin margins.

Watch out when you add value. The extra service, done across the board, can add up. Maybe its an extra half an hour here, an hour over there. Before you know it, you are doing a lot more work for the same amount of money.

Customer service is very important, but so is your profit margin. You need to balance the good of your customers with the good of your company. Without this balance, you will do no good for either.

Consider working extra service into your fee. Maybe you can use a tiered approach. Chances are, you can still offer the services at a price that your customers will jump at.

Coddled customers are bad customers

The other hidden danger of giving too much service is that you can actually spoil your customers. It may start with one concession, one extra thing at no charge. But if you aren’t careful, you can find yourself bending over backwards for the customer constantly. This is especially a problem for businesses that survive on repeat customers.

You see, if you do something once for a customer, you need to be prepared to do it again. You can make a big deal about how you are making an exception, but all the customer will remember is that you did it. You need to be prepared.

Consider creating a price list for extra services. If a customer needs delivery faster than normal, show them the price list. Anything that is going to cost you time and money should be considered carefully before it is just given away. This is to protect you. If you start giving everything away, you are going to turn a good customer into a bad one.

A bad customer, one who has become spoiled by you, is a pain. Bad habits are picked up far faster than good ones. Things like late payments, after hours calls, personal deliveries, etc., are all bad habits. Sometimes the customer comes in with those. In that case, it is easier to say good-bye or make demands. But what do you say to the customer who throws a fit because you demand payment on time this year, when every other year you have let it slide? Its your fault, after all.

Monitor your service

I am in no way suggesting that you start offering shoddy service. I would just say this. Make sure it fits within your ability and your price model. Make very few exceptions, and charge for them if they are costing you time and money. In the meantime, you can build great customer service that is perfect for your ideal customer set.

Don’t get caught out on a limb. It is so hard to reel back in. If you did something in the past, customers will expect it in the future. So even if its just one small thing, one time, think it through.

photo credit: bradleygee

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

Get Unique Content Weekly with The Letter

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

What would you do without the internet? Businesses ran just fine without it, but now that its here, things are so much easier. You can just drop a client an email instead of playing phone tag. You can look up the information you need in a matter of minutes. You can reach a whole lot more potential customers. But you can’t reach them all.

While you have discovered the benefits of the internet, it is possible that some of your customers haven’t. Oh sure, they may be “online”, but for them this just means having email and checking it once a day (or week). While you live and breathe the internet, its just a small part of their daily work.

There is quite possibly a growing disconnect between how you communicate and how some of your customers communicate. You have to decide how to handle it. Here are some options.

Leave Them Behind

If you only have a few customers that are lagging on the technology front, you might be better off just leaving them behind. The question you need to ask yourself is whether there are enough potential customers available to you that are as active online as you are. You may be able to reach a much wider audience if you move resources from your offline customers and put all of your marketing and communications efforts online.

Its never easy to say good-bye to a good customer. But a client and company has to be a good fit in both directions. If you have moved ahead, you may no longer be a good fit with certain customers. If you understand the concept of a good fit, you can save your business a lot of headaches on all fronts.

Meet Them Where They Are At

If, however, a large section of your customers are not online, you are going to have to change up your game to meet them where they are at. If your customers are contractors who are always in the field, you are going to have a harder time reaching them through a website and email. While Blackberrys and other smart phones are changing the game once again, there are still tons of people that you may want access to that just can’t spend that much time online due to the nature of their work. There are also whole demographics that aren’t as connected as you are.

If you have a bunch of customers who are not online, you need to find different ways to connect to them. This will vary for different groups. In most cases, you will be able to pick up the phone and do your communicating that way. You may have to use postcards instead of emails. Advertise in the local paper instead of adwords. In other words, you may have to dial down the technology in order to reach certain groups of people. While you and I may never look at a phone book, there are still many people who do. So be willing to communicate to your customers in a way that will reach them.

Offer Free Training

Sometimes, your customers just don’t know enough about the technology. In the case where you’re customers are online, but barely, you may want to offer free training. For instance, you may have a group of mom’s for customers who would really like to get better at Facebook. If you provide regular training sessions on how to use Facebook, you will help your customers better communicate with you. You will also attract more moms and get more customers. And you will become an authority figure who has graciously helped them succeed at something. These are all great things.

You may also want to train your customers to use more advanced, or niche, technology to make communicating about the job easier. For instance, if you are a virtual assistant, you may want to do all of your scheduling on Google Calendar and your writing on Google Docs. Providing good training to your customers on how to use these tools will benefit both parties.

In the end, you can’t force people to get active online. You do have to meet your customers where they are at. It doesn’t hurt to try to nudge them a little closer to where you are, if they are willing. You don’t have to abandon your online tools for yourself. You can still pursue new customers who are already plugged in. But we are far from abandoning the telephone, so you might just have to dust it off.

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com