Archive for the ‘Customer service’ Category

Dealing With A Client

Monday, March 31st, 2008

When you work for an agency that offers labor and services, you can expect to meet different types kinds of clients. As you work for them, you will have to adjust your pace according to what they specifically want from you and how they want it done. As there are different kinds of clients, including in the online marketing industry, you will have to understand what kind of client he or she is and go all out for the primary objective of completing projects and tasks properly.

A client may want a full service from your company, thereby you should be open on how you do your tasks for him or her and also offer some suggestions and comments on how he or she wants things done. You can recognize this type of client when he or she expresses some interest on your capabilities and knowledge on the kinds of projects you will be doing. He or she will wan to know what is readily available for you to use and the level of expertise that you can offer. This way, he or she will be able to use your services to the fullest.

There are clients, though, who are just focused on the general goal of success. Clients like these are mostly counting entirely on you and how you accomplish the project. They will be mindful of what you do, and they can offer you the resources you might need (softwares, programs, etc.), but you will be the one guiding them on their goals.

There are also clients that would prefer to have a share in the projects while having you guide them. They would just ask for information and help with specific programs and tasks. These clients want a thorough understanding of what they’re doing and would like to be the main canon in their projects. This is understandable as success would indeed be sweeter when you’ve exerted a lot of effort on the projects.

Agent of Value

Whichever type your client is, it is harmonious for both you, your agency, and your client that you agree on a certain way of doing things. As the agent, you need to be flexible and offer the kind of service that the client asks of you. Dealing with a client is critical in achieving success for both him/her and your agency.

30 Advertising Tips

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Here’s giving it to you straight: 30 advertising tips in internet marketing! From customer interaction to sponsorships and website traffic generation, this list delivers specific tips on how to strategically market your site, products and services.

Online Shopping Tips

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Found this video 3 months late, but it still gives good advice on online shopping. More and more customers are concerned on online shopping deals and security. Here are some tips and trusted websites to help you with purchasing products online!

Customer Satisfaction: The Formula For Success

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

Learn about the best formula to satisfy your customers. This could be your formula for success.

Increasing Traffic With Offline Marketing

Friday, February 8th, 2008

Who says that online marketing only needs online strategies to boost some traffic? Marketing on the internet doesn’t necessarily mean that you stay on the internet to market your site. You can also maximize your online presence by using offline advertisements like offset posters and word-of-mouth advertising!

Online Business Poster

Pushing In Traffic: To be on the top result of the search engines, your website has to have a high rank. In order to have a high rank, you need a significant amount of traffic. With offline advertising and offset posters, you can give a push in generating more traffic to your website.

Directing the Users: The online community will also be made aware of your website using offline marketing strategies. For example, through word-of-mouth, they’d get word about this site that offers something that piqued their interest. Even a little offline advertising will certainly give the online community an idea about your website.

Tapping Those Who Are Mostly Offline: Online marketing mainly markets to people who are online. So what of those who don’t really like browsing the Web that much? You may have customers out there who are not really into online shopping or surfing. To get their attention, you can use posters or cards to tell them about your website. Reaching those who are not online will require offline promotions.

Depending solely on online marketing strategies may not be enough to get to the top search results unless you market your website constantly and aggressively. Getting help with offline advertisements certainly couldn’t hurt and will even help increase your website’s traffic. And it’s not even that expensive to invest in offline advertising from time to time.

The 5 Top Challenges of E-tailers

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Online retail stores are definitely experiencing a slow growth in their business at present. Adding this news with the uncertainties in the economic forecasts, it is plain to see that there are troubles ahead for e-tailers. Here are the five top challenges of e-tailers today:

1. Competition is heavy and many.

In the Web, your competitors are just a click away. Your customers and other users have many options available to them when looking for products online. This will especially be a problem for those who haven’t reached garnered a high ranking in the search engines.

2. Visitors don’t stay long at your website.

Online consumers, when shopping, usually only look for a specific product. There are those that do not browse around the site for any more interesting products that e-tailers have to offer. When they can’t find what they’re looking for at one website, they’ll go to other websites. Remember that the competitor is just a click away.

3. Shopping usually involves browsing and comparisons.

There are, of course, shoppers who like to browse around the online stores. In browsing around, they are either trying to find a new product to try, gather some information, or compare the offerings of one retailer to another. A prolonged visit does not necessarily mean that you have a sale.

E-tailer website

4. Consumer take their time.

As implied in the previous points, consumers can take their time on browsing around. This specially includes the financially challenged consumers. The time between the initial visit and the purchase has increased.

5. Customers wait for the best offers.

Customers want the best deals that they can possibly get. It is no surprise then that customers usually wait for the best offers from the merchants. This is true during the holiday seasons and on special occasions. It is implied that customers expect great deals from the e-tailers.

Source: ClickZ.com

10 Ways to strengthen your business relationships

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

To help you put that into action, Freyvogel offers ten ways you can start strengthening your business relationships in the upcoming year.

1. Be familiar with your co-worker as much as you can,especially the one you work with Then, act on that knowledge. Also, You need to know about your customers, vendors and employees too so that when their needs change, you can be there to provide them with what they need to stay happy with your business.

2. Treat your vendors like honorary employees. It’s important to build good relationships with the people who who service you or your company regularly. This means anyone from the package delivery guy who stops by every day to the materials supplier who keeps your warehouse stocked to the designer who keeps your website updated.

3. Research on everyone’s birthday. Greeting somebody on their special day, already means a lot.

4. Create strong ties among your among your employees and your business. Encourage a sense of ownership ain them.. As if they own a stock in the business since they are the one facing your customers everyday. Inspiring your employees to love your business as much as you do will strengthen your company’s foundation and your business will be that much more likely to survive setbacks and grow to great heights.

5. Have one-on-one conversations with your customers to find out what you can do better. Most of the time unsatisfied customers don’t approach you with a detailed list of the things they’d like for you to improve on. They just leave you for one of your better-equipped competitors. Therefore, you must set aside some time to ask them what they need from you.

6. Be aware of your monthly loan payment. Be sure your start-up loan payments are on time, no matter what. Always have enough money in your account to make your monthly loan payments when they’re due. It’s also a good idea to set up a separate emergency account and make sure you put something in it every month — someday you’ll be glad you did. You don’t want to gain a reputation with your bank as someone who doesn’t make loan payments on time. Staying close to your bankers can also help you secure your finances. Set up a safety system with them to ensure that all of your deposits are going through in a timely manner.

7. Communicate with your mentors frequently. Think about those people who gave you valuable advice when you were starting a business, or that person you call immediately when you need advice. Build a close relationship with her so that she is willing to go that extra mile to help you build your business.

8. Learn to appreciate a job well done. Everyone likes to be commended for a great job, especially your employees. Try implementing an employee of the month scheme and say “Thanks for the great job!”, never miss an opportunity to give your employees the recognition they deserve. And when a client compliments an employee’s work, never steal the credit indeed, be sure to pass the glowing review along to the rightful owner! And let everyone in the company know. It’s good for morale to know that recognition might be coming their way some time in the future.

9. Learn to reach out with the people you count on. It is very important for you to be flexible when those around you run into problems and need to change their schedules since this could affect your business. Maybe one of your vendors needs to make a delivery earlier or later than normal or maybe an employee has to leave to take care of a family problem.

10. Provide everything that your employees need to do their jobs. Nothing frustrates a high-performing employee more than having to struggle to do his job because he doesn’t have the right computer program or because he must make do with faulty equipment.
Above all, It is always important that no matter how determined, hardworking, and talented you may be, you can’t be a successful entrepreneur all by yourself. It takes a village to run a company. Never forgetting that fact is critical to your success. And learn to value the services being offered to you by your employees and give importance to your customers.

Source: AllBusiness

Online Opportunities For Travel Businesses

Friday, January 4th, 2008

It is no news that the Internet has made traveling options and decisions easy for people. If in the past, you’d need a traveling agent to orient you on the possible choices you have when you want to travel, now all you have to do is just browse and book online!

With this big opportunity online, how could a traveling agency not take it?

Of course, a traveling agency would need to attract their customers online to get a fair share of the their market online. To capture your market, you have to first distinguish your target among them.

4 Hoteliers gives us the four kinds of potential guests and visitors that a traveling agency can expect when checking on their website. It also gives some clue as to how to attract these customer to your website and company.

Brand loyalists. These guests stay only at Hilton or Holiday Inn and the first place they go online is the brand.com website. A few might go to a search engine and type in Hilton Mclean for example. If you are a brand-affiliated hotel, your franchise fees are paying for your hotel to show up on those searches. What can you do to make sure you’re getting your fair share?

Make sure your brand.com website is completely up to date with current information, things to do in your local area.. Pay as much attention to the information (and photos) on your brand website as if you were writing a $20,000 check to produce it, because you probably are.

Discount seekers. There will always be searchers who are looking for a great deal and they are typically going to third party travel websites such as Priceline.com, Hotwire, etc . . . There comes a time in every hotel’s inventory where they simply need to fill up some rooms.

A group fell out at the last minute, or a basketball team lost the semi finals and there were a series of early check outs. This is time to maximize your third party sites participation. Third party travel sites can be an expensive way to get business, so be sure to find out how much you are really paying per reservation as commission, and then decide how much of your fair share of this business you want to go after and with which providers.

Email responders. Just like there are people who respond to discount coupons, there are people who respond to email offers. It’s a small percent, around 3%, but there are people right now thinking about coming to your area, and if they were to receive a well written email offer describing the benefits of your hotel, a great photo, time sensitive offer and a clear call to action, they might be inclined to make a reservation.

Generating an email campaign is also an inexpensive way to sell a new offer at your hotel to your past customers - new restaurant, new spa opening, newly renovated rooms. Remember the ABC theory - Always Be Collecting. Whenever possible, ask your current guests for their email address, and ask for their permission to add them to your emailing list. You can do this on your website during the reservations process, during check in or check out. Permission based email marketing is simple, inexpensive and can be very effective.

Destination/Activity Searchers. A large percentage of online shoppers are using search engines to find a hotel near a certain destination, activity, or event. They may be attending a family reunion in Nashville, or planning a girls’ weekend shopping spree in a nearby city. Maybe it’s a sales call they are making on the headquarters for a computer company or a romantic getaway to countryside resort. These guests will type a “keyword phrase” (like “hotels near ABC Company headquarters” or “pet friendly hotels in Portland”) into a search engine. According to ComScore statistics, 42% choose Google, 27% use Yahoo, 13.5 use MSN and 8% use AOL.

In knowing your target market, you can choose a marketing tactic to reach your customer online. Online marketing is not as direct as you would possibly like it to be without knowing who to reach out to.

How to Provide Good Customer Service

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

We all have to deal with an angry customer. Whether it’s in the drive thru, classroom or corporate meeting, you need to be prepared to survive their tantrum. Learn from this video tips to control yourself and the situation.

Handling irate customers

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

Once you have those things in place, you will not have every issue solved. You’ll still get irate customers. Here is how to deal with them when it happens.

irate

1.Get them out of the store: If they are in your main store area, bring them out and find a place to talk out things in a professional manner so that other customers as well as employees will not be bothered or disturbed. Also, it could help the irate customer to calm down and be away from the cause of their anger.
2.Calm them down: Never say “calm down” but instead be calming! Don’t cross your arms in front of you. Keep your arms at your side. Try to listen to them Don’t smile nor frown. Nod a lot, keep a quiet voice. Speak in just like a whisper tone that would help them stop yelling.
3.Identify the problem: Verify things on them by asking the reason why they feel that way. Allow them to pour out everything that they feel or would want to say without interrupting. Restate the problem to make sure you understood it. Ask for their agreement that you understood. It will make them feel good and respected as customers
4.Ask them what they feel could be a solution: Offer some ideas but also try to ask them about how they feel that would make them feel good to understand things and avoid any misunderstandings. Often, you may be surprised at how little they really want in order to feel that justice was served. Other times, you may be surprised at how much they want.
5.Determine if it is possible to make them happy: The most difficult part. Ask them what would make them feel good about it. Or tell them what you could offer them for the inconvenience that has caused them.
6.Solve the problem: Try to offer solutions to the problem.you have listened to them, try to ask what they wanted and had asked them what would make them happy. If you feel that their request is reasonable and they deserve a special offer then do it. Throw something extra for free. But if its not reasonable, then you apologize and let them go in a polite manner that would not make them feel insulted. In that case, they may say bad feedbacks on your services but at least you have handled them in a right way.