Customer Service in the Recession
An interesting article appears from 2007 demonstrating that Sprint had more kahunas than most frustrated customer service reps when it “broke up” with a group of high maintenance customers. The note went like this:
“Our records indicate that over the past year, we have received frequent calls from you regarding your billing or other general account information. While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs. Therefore after careful consideration, the decision has been made to terminate your wireless service agreement effective July 30, 2007.“
Sprint explains that these customers impact the service given to other customers causing long delays in service.
This leads to the question of the day. Especially during this recession. Should you break up with high maintenance clients?
You know the old addage that 20% of your customers provide 99% of your income and I’ll add to this that at least 10% of your customers demand 100% of your attention at one time or another and don’t care how many other customers suffer because of this. It’s difficult to offer good customer service with these types of clients.
But more importantly the provider has to set the tone for the expectations of the relationship. Nobody likes fine print but when it comes to customer service and support, it seems to be a necessary evil. There is always at least one of your clients that is going to abuse the privilege and skew the system.
During this recession, some of our clients have reported that a good percentage of people are willing to abuse the system most likely out of lack of funds and desperation to get things without having to pay for them. Certainly on their side they can claim that something is wrong with your service or product, but the fact of the matter is that for some people it’s time to lay down the law or cut your losses.
Life is too short to let a few bad apples to ruin the bunch. If you find that more than 1% of your customers are taking advantage of you, it’s time to write a bit of fine print and put that out in the view of your customers so they understand what you will and will not do to please them. This is especially true of first time customers.
Even Zappos.com has tiered their services for loyal customers vs. new customers.
The retailer had typically upgraded both first-time and repeat customers to overnight shipping even though it wasn’t advertising that perk. But starting in 2009, Zappos will no longer offer overnight upgrades to first-time visitors. Instead, CEO Tony Hsieh is moving those dollars into a new VIP service for Zappos’ most loyal shoppers. [1]
Sprint may have raised eyebrows when they “fired” their high maintenance customers, but in these hard times it ’s becoming more and more important to cut costs and cut your losses early with problem customers. This provides you an opportunity to provide the type of customer service to the rest of your loyal customers that is needed to survive in the current business climate.
November 14, 2009 No Comments
ProStores Websites, now with improved listing features for eBay Sellers
ProStores recently improved their eBay interface to offer template design that is unparalleled from previous versions. 
The image on the left is an actual eBay listing template we tested for one of our clients listing both to their website and eBay. Once the template is installed in ProStores, you simply click a button on the product in the backend that say “List to eBay” using this template (or any other variation you create).
So YES – ProStores does now have eBay templates that can make your eBay listing stand out in the crowd.
There has been a fair amount of discussion about how ProStores can help your business grow and how friendly it is to use. With the recent changes, we say that ProStores has adapted to become a formidable platform for online sellers with ease of use in many ways.
Many sellers who are trying to list to eBay and an online store will find the new feature easy to use and an all-in-one place to sell online. Not only does ProStores feature this new ditty, but it also feeds directly to many of the shopping portals like Googlebase, Shopping.com etc. This means that in one place you can list your items and sell multi-channel without much effort at all. I’d say that is worth the price of admission.
aGenius offers a store design package that also integrates all the elements of the eBay listing template and Prostores Web Design to make it easier to get up and running beautifully.
November 4, 2009 No Comments
10 Holiday Sales Tips: How To Cash In On The Season
Author: By Chris Malta
With the holiday season ramping up, shoppers are coming online in droves. In fact, online holiday sales this year are predicted to increase twenty percent, as consumers grow more and more accustomed to the ease and convenience of shopping online. Internet business advisor Ana Rincon (http://OnlineBusiness.About.com) reveals ten tips for increasing your online sales over the holiday season:
1.Fine-tune your website. The biggest buying season of the year is not the time to have a slow-loading site or pages not found-busy holiday shoppers won’t wait around. [Read more →]
November 3, 2009 No Comments
Kickin Your Holiday Sales Up 5 Notches
Author: Troy White
Holiday shopping season is now in full swing are you doing everything possible to make the last month of your year the best?
Right now is when you need to be out there in front of your clients noses showing them exactly why they should shop with you again.
This is on top of your efforts to attract new clients.
How to Maximize Your Results
This Season with 2 Easy Steps
1) First thing you need to do is make them an offer they can’t refuse. And the easiest way to do that is to bundle your products and services in new “Packages” that are not available at any other time of the year. [Read more →]
November 3, 2009 No Comments
Affiliate Revenues for Ecommerce Sites – Do you need it?
Some people who plan to earn affiliate revenue online never think about formulas to determine how to do it. It’s really an essential to know what you are up against, what you need to do to earn revenues.
If you are an ecommerce site planning to add this to your ecom, think twice. Here are some figures to estimate whether or not it’s worth it.
Let’s say you can get about 3000 unique visitors a month. And let’s say your average Click Rate is about 3% (which is nice and high). It equates to about $50 dollars in Google Adsense revenue, and if you have really good content for your direct visitor, you might be able to get them to view more and more pages, resulting in let’s say 25K in pageviews. Of those page views you could be earning let’s say .50 cents per click on 3% so you might even end up with 375. a month. [Read more →]
November 3, 2009 No Comments
