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Who Says the Customer is Always Right?Copyright 2004 Diane HughesWe all know the old adage, "The Customer is Always Right." If you are an online business owner or offline for that matter, you are on both sides of the subject almost everyday. Before I started my online business, I was just on one side... the customer. I whole-heartedly believed in the above adage and never questioned it at all. In fact, I would get rather perturbed at ANY business owner, manager, or supervisor that would disagree with any complaint I had. When I started my own online business back in 1997, I slowly began to learn the "other side." My business products are all downloadable. If your business includes downloaded material, you know where I'm going with this one. I get NUMEROUS complaints EVERYDAY about usernames and passwords not working, corrupt downloads, and the big one... "I can't open the download." Now I always reply in a very helpful gesture, but my first question is always, "Are you entering the username and password exactly as shown?" This seems to be one of the "biggies" with newbies. They do not understand "case-sensitive" -- heck -- they don't even know what that means! But it doesn't matter HOW simple I make the instructions and overall download process, I STILL get these everyday. I am accused of being a "scammer" at least 4 - 5 times a week... and that's on a GOOD week! :o) The whole point of the above example is NOT that customers are wrong -- that's not the problem at all. Many of them are very new to the internet and sadly, they do not read through the directions most of the time. I have found that I basically have to put myself back into the "newbie" frame of mind -- as hard as that is to do! I don't remember NOT knowing how to download, enter case-sensitive passwords, etc. You MUST try to understand that customer... at the point of contact, whether by email or phone, they have probably sat there for HOURS trying to figure it out. They are irritated, angry, and they've pretty much decided at that point that you scammed them. Yes, it's irritating getting these "dumb" questions and emails even when you have them broken down so simply in the instructions. But face it, you're going to get them and you will get them often as more and more climb on the "web wagon." When I get a very insulting email (yes, I HAVE been called the "B-word," the "MF-word," and recently a new one that I have never heard before... it was quite disgusting), I do not answer it immediately. I let my initial anger subside. When I can read through it and giggle... it's time to answer. I find that 80 - 90% of the time, the customer is VERY embarrassed of their initial email by the time I have helped them courteously through their problems. I had to learn this process through time. Believe me... I am a VERY sensitive person and I used to take these to heart. It HURT! I had to revert back to my "customer side" as well as the "newbie" frame of mind and do my best to understand the person's anger. One angry customer can lead to thousands if not millions in lost business revenue! Especially on the internet. That one customer tells one friend who in turn tells another and so on a so forth. You COULD get a real "psycho" customer that decides to start a website all about YOUR company and YOUR poor service or product. Watch that one spread like a virus! :o) On the other hand, exercise great customer service (get those emails answered within 24 hours, folks) and watch the *praise* of your company spread! I guarantee that you just GAINED thousands in sales! MOST importantly remember these three things: ** LOVE YOUR CUSTOMER ** UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMER ** VALUE YOUR CUSTOMER You are NOTHING without them. Treat them like gold and you will RECEIVE gold in return! About the author: Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business Into A Tower of Profits! ==>> http://madmarketer.com/diane Circulated by Article Emporium Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines - The Top 5 Tips Copyright 2005 Tinu AbayomiPaul Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this - they naturally attract search engine traffic. Blogs already have optimized site architecture. Most are set up with a clear navigation, where every page is set up to link back ... Learning DXInOne and the E-Currency Exchange Business for Free Copyright 2005 East Tech LLC What is the DXInOne and the E-Currency Exchange Business? Also known as E-Currency Trading, E-Currency Exchange is absolutely one of the best new business opportunities many of us have seen in years. E-currencies keep growing by the day an... Network Marketing: Selling the Dream (Part I) Copyright 2005 Fernando Rivadeneyra Are you tired of struggling to make ends meet? Unexcited about driving in rush hour traffic? Burned out at work making your BOSS'S dream come true? You have a choice in life but most people choose to live in constant fear. They are scared ... How to Take Advantage of the New Google Adwords Changes On Friday, July 15th all Google advertisers got the email message entitled “Google AdWords(TM) Announcement: Keyword Evaluation Changes”. Now, I don't know about you, but whenever I get a message from Google concerning Adwords, everything else seems to take a backseat. S... Top Ways To Create Ideas For Your Next Highly Read Article If you want to make money online a good strategy that won't cost you a dime is to write articles that relate to your product or service. Search Engines are constantly on the "look out" for freshly written content that has been submitted online. So how do you come up with i... 10 Secrets to Get Your News Release Noticed Copyright 2005 Cherry Communications/Be Heard Solutions It's difficult enough running the day-to-day aspects of any online or brick & mortar business, let alone trying to drum up new business as you go. But even if you have additional staff helping to get the word out about ... The Most Targeted Traffic You'll Ever Get (Part 2) Copyright 2004 Adam Waxler “Forum Writing” is single must effective way to drive the most targeted traffic to your site and to your products. There are literally thousands of forums on the internet covering every topic imaginable. However, forum writing can be ext... Short Term vs Long Term Marketing Efforts Copyright 2005 Sharon Housley In order to create consistent sales cycles and a positive growth trend businesses usually engage in both short and long term marketing efforts. Short-term marketing efforts tend to cause sudden sales spikes which rarely last. These sharp... Create Your Own Online Marketing “TV” Station Copyright 2005 Jim Edwards It will happen! TV and the Internet will eventually merge into one giant multi-media “melting pot” that includes everything from live footage and old reruns to garage videos posted by your next door neighbor's kid. Just like cable TV fractured netw... 10 Great things NOT to do with Google AdSense There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you're setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes! 1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account. Google says that's a no-no an... Who Says the Customer is Always Right? Copyright 2004 Diane Hughes We all know the old adage, "The Customer is Always Right." If you are an online business owner or offline for that matter, you are on both sides of the subject almost everyday. Before I started my online business, I was just on one side..... Make Money Blogging You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed t... Write Articles Geared to Your Local Market to Bolster Your Local Search Visibility Copyright 2005 Off the Page The Shortest Distance to Your Home Town Enterprise is Over the Internet Combine two dynamite online methods for bringing your business to the attention of buyers - Local Search and widely posted articles you write. Doing both gives you a ju... Strategies to make your Blog More Interesting Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan Putting up your business blog is an advantageous way of establishing your presence on web. It's no longer just about putting plain texts up on your blog. With continuing stream of new software, publishing tools and plug-ins, today's blogger have the... How To Come Up With New Product Ideas Copyright 2004 Jeff Schuman Have you ever wanted to add new products to your exsisting product line? Obviously one way to do that is to find a product that is already developed and start selling that. Affiliate programs are great for that. Another thing you can do i...
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