Work At Home Business Options

Posts Tagged ‘customer service’

Are Customers Always Right?

During the holiday season many direct sales consultants will see an increase in their business and one thing you can do during the holiday season to generate even more customer sales is to come up with a Holiday Wish List Program that you share with your customers. How do you do this you might ask? Well, I am going to tell you!

You will need to print up some flyers with all of your business contact information on them along with an order form or area on the flyer so that you customers can make a list of the items they would love to receive as gifts for the holiday season. Have your customer fill it out with the item #, product description, price and have them rank the items in order of preference…like #1 nautical necklace #2 seashell earrings and so forth. In addition on this form have them list the name, address, email address and/or phone number of the person they want you to give the list to. (in most cases it is their significant other).

It is then your job to contact their “SO” and present the list to him/her so that they can do their holiday shopping with you for the items that the customer would like to receive as their holiday gift(s). It is an easy way for their “SO” to do their holiday shopping and get gifts for their “SO” that they want to receive.

An added bonus would be if you went to your local discount store and purchased some dollar gift wrap, cards, ribbons and/or gift bags and offer FREE or LOW-COST gift wrapping service to them. Once the items come in it is your job to deliver them to their “SO” so they have them in time to present to their “SO” come holiday time.

When I was in direct sales I did this each and every holiday season and it always generated additional product sales for me! Give it a try this holiday season and see for yourself!

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When it comes to having a Direct Sales home business I often see party plan consultants making some mistakes in regards to packaging up the customer’s products for delivery or shipping. Today I thought I would share a few tips with my readers.

1. Never package food or beverage products with other “types” of products. In other words, don’t bag together a customer’s edible products with deodorants, perfumes and/or cleaning products. Food items always need to be packaged separately!

2. Never place a customer’s order in plastic grocery bags or retail store bags that you had lying around your house. Let me tell you why. A few years ago I ordered some cosmetics and bath & body products from a local Avon rep. and she delivered them to me in a grocery bag. After she left and I opened the bag I smelled rotten meat/food and I was really upset about it. You should ALWAYS put your customer’s order in a company bag/package or in a plain “clean” bag that has never been used.

3. If you are shipping products to a customer you always want to make sure you enclose enough packaging materials to keep the products safe during transit. In addition…you always want to make sure you send the package with tracking or delivery confirmation so that if it gets lost…you can find it or file a claim to get reimbursed for loss or damage. Furthermore…you always want to make sure you include enough postage on the package. Why? I once ordered some mascara online from a consultant and she placed it into a bubble mailer and slapped 2 stamps on it. When it arrived to me my Postman requested that I pay him (the post office) .53 cents because the sender did not include enough postage.

4. You should always INSPECT a customer’s product(s) before packaging them for delivery or shipment. Don’t just assume that the product is okay without looking inside the packaging material to check it out. Of course if that packaging material and sealed you don’t want to unseal it…but if it’s packaging material that you can “peek” into…then you should!

Although for most of us these are common sense type of tips it is a good reminder to those who are just starting out in Direct Sales to learn this stuff. Do you have any tips related to this topic to share with my readers? If so, leave them in a comment below!

Do you publish an online newsletter for your business and have it deliver via email? If so, you need to be aware of the correct way of building your email newsletter subscriber list.

I have been online running a home business since 1997 (if not earlier) and I can tell you that I have been added to over 300+ email newsletters that I never signed up to receive. Now grant ya…this has happened over a 14 year period of time but still, 300+ is way too many!

Often times I am added to these email newsletters simply because I emailed the company and asked them a question about a product or service that they offer. Then…within weeks I some how got added to their dang email newsletter list. Folks…that is wrong and it is ILLEGAL to manually add people to your email newsletter list who did not sign up for it or did not specifically ask you to add them to your list! If you are practicing this behavior I suggest you stop and stop TODAY!

The best way to grow your email subscriber list is for you to ADVERTISE it and for you to set it up that people have to opt-in to receive it…meaning that people have to sign up for it themselves and that NO manual additions can be made. This way…this is no misunderstanding of how someone got added to it when they didn’t sign up for it.

If you are ‘hurting’ for subscribers try offering an incentive for people to join your email newsletter list by offering a discount coupon code, free shipping coupon code, etc. but NEVER manually add email addresses or names to your list…EVER!

I don’t know about all of you but frankly I am starting to get really irritated when I receive newsletters in my email box that I never signed up for simply because I emailed a company a question. It is wrong and any company that does this to me gets black listed and I never purchase anything from them again. This is one sure fire way to lose customers and subscribers if you are practicing this behavior.

Shelly

I run or co-run a few home businesses and today I thought I would pass along a few tips that I have learned over the 20+ years that I have had a home business.

First…let me ask you this question. Do you procrastinate and don’t get your business work or client work done on time? Do you wait until the last day or hours before it’s due to complete it? If so, that is a bad business practice that you MUST change today!

When you have a home business it is usually yourself or yourself and a few others who are running it. You don’t have a large group of employees to rely on to help you get that work done. There are things that happen in our daily lives that we don’t plan on…like our family members getting sick, deaths ocurring in the family, natural disasters, electricity or internet going down or whatever.

If you let your work sit and try to work on it right before it’s due what happens if some emergency arises? Who will complete that work and get it in for you? In most cases…no one!

This is why it is VERY important that you break that procrastinating last minute habit today!

You really need to set up a schedule and pencil all of your business tasks and deadlines. You need to work on your business projects or client work ahead of time and have it completed and ready to go for submission or delivery several days before it’s actually due!

By planning ahead and completing your work ahead of time you will prevent business disasters and equally as important, it will be less stressful for you and those around you. Clients and Customers do not like to hear your “excuses” on why your work or their work hasn’t been completed on time.

 If you want to be taken seriously in your business and be taken seriously by your customers and clients you need to get organized and get your work completed ahead of time. So break that “bad” business habit today and save yourself a headache tomorrow.

Shelly

When you run and operate a home business in Direct Sales, you need to be really conscious of the type of customer service that you give to others who come into contact with you and your business. Unlike big brick and mortar retail type of stores, you have no one else to blame if poor customer service is given to your party hosts and customers.

It is a proven fact that people will purchase products and services from party plan consultants who they feel comfortable with, who treat them well, who consistently contact them and with who they make a personal connection with.

Today I would like to share with you, several ways that you can make your party hosts and customers feel special and important, to you and your home business.

1. If you are utilizing email to stay in touch with your business associates, party hosts, customers and/or downline team, it is important that you answer those emails in a timely manner. When people contact you via email regarding business matters, they don’t want to be left hanging for days on end. Business emails should be answered in a minimum of 24 hours unless it is the weekend.

2. When you are corresponding with business associates and clients via telephone, it is important to do so when you are not feeling rushed. In addition, background noise should be kept to a minimum. In other words, customers deserve more than two minutes of your time and they should be able to talk to you without a screaming spouse or kids in the background. Those who you speak to via telephone deserve your undivided attention when you are speaking to them about business matters.

3. It is important to try to make a personal connection with your party hosts and customers. I like to ask them a few questions and I really try to act interested in their answers. You could talk about marriage, children, sports, hobbies, food, whatever…just try to make a personal connection with them so that they feel comfortable in working with you.

4. It is your responsibility to handle any and all business problems and issues quickly and thoroughly if and when those problems arise. In other words, if a customer receives a defective product, you should handle the warranty and return as quickly as possible. When you offer a swift and thorough correction in an error to a client, they are more apt to forgive you and come back to you for future purchases. If you take your good old time and don’t thoroughly correct the problem, I can assure you that next time they need to make a purchase, they will seek out another party consultant to buy it from.

5. Treat those party hosts and customers like gold! I like to go out of my way and offer little inexpensive gifts to thank them for their loyalty in continually purchasing from me and/or for continually booking home parties from me. These can be little gifts that you pick up at your discount store or little promo items from your business company.

When you run a small home party business by yourself where you are solely responsible for offering great customer service to those you come into contact with, you really need to be on the ball and go above the call of duty to make that party host and/or customer feel special. If you take the time out of your busy day to focus some of your efforts just on that task, it will reap you future business and rewards.

This article was written by Shelly Hill, copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved.