Work At Home Business Options

Posts Tagged ‘customer service’

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.

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Communication – Key To A Successful Business by Carrie Wilkerson

Let’s translate that into different words: A business may lose one out of every six customers by providing regular, average customer service. Is that business yours?

If your business is an online one, then you have to pay special care to customer satisfaction and communication. We love our technology, but the competition is thick. Provide average service amongst a sea of competitors hungry for your clients, and you risk losing valuable clients to merchants who go the extra mile. CustomersAreAlways.com drives home some well-known facts about client loyalty:

* A satisfied customer will tell one or two people of the experience. An unhappy one will tell six to ten people, which can be devastating to a new or small business.

* 70% of clients will do business with you again when the complaint they had was resolved in their favor.

* That number jumps to 95% when complaints are resolved on the spot. Obviously, communication counts. It can make or break your business, and it can keep clients or send them elsewhere. Being available to solve problems and resolve issues matters. If you aren’t accessible to your clients by whatever means they prefer, they may go elsewhere for their needs.

Here are a few figures that will help provide strong customer service with plenty of options for clients to communicate with you. While these figures relate to call centers, they give a good portrait of what means people use to communicate with merchants and what method of communication they prefer.

Telephone communication stays tops for keeping customers happy. 73% of contact center interactions are via the telephone, with only 24% of interactions carried out through email. Chat and instant messaging brings up the rear, at 4% — though that number will most likely steadily grow over time.

Cover all your bases. Have a phone number that clients can call, whether this is your home phone number or a dedicated line for business use. Some workers prefer a cell phone. Voice-over-internet-protocols are another option that may also save money.

Have a professional email address, and check your in-box frequently, at least once a day. Web-based email servers like Gmail offer plenty of potential for workers who travel or like to work from a laptop in the park.

Sign up with the most common instant messaging services, like MSN, Yahoo!, and AOL, then use a multi-messaging services and software like Trillian, Pidgin or Meebo to keep it all together.

A couple of last considerations for communication are to use a blog to stay in touch with customers and potential clients, a fax machine for sending and receiving documents, and an automated form for your website where people can request more information, contact you with comments and suggestions, or place an order.

Stay away from automated systems or call center services that give customers the runaround. Exceptional customer service avoids automated systems, because clients that are answered by a machine tend to do less business with that company or merchant.

And if you think about it, exceptional customer service may be the only thing that sets you apart from your competitors. Unless you’ve stumbled upon a unique product or service that no one else has (and if you have, it won’t be long before someone else catches on to follow your lead and create competition), you’re battling to win customers with other businesses that offer similar or identical products and services.

Great communication and exceptional customer service can give you the edge, and let you maintain customer loyalty and satisfaction for business success.

Carrie Wilkerson is the voice of experience. From corporate life to teaching high school to direct sales, she has ‘been there and done that’ professionally and personally. An ‘overnight mom’ to 2 toddlers through adoption, her priorities instantly changed and so did her workplace. She’s now built several businesses and coached others to do the same while overcoming extreme debt, losing 110lbs and having 2 more children, for a total of 4 children, ages infant through 12!

As ‘The Barefoot Executive’, Carrie and her network of experts have quickly become the definite resource for helping women achieve extra income and career goals while working from home. http://the-barefoot-executive.com

Article Source: WAHM Articles

When you are with a Direct Sales Company, part of your business success comes from customers placing re-orders with you.

I often hear Direct Sales Consultants saying that it all boils down to customer service. In my opinion, that is only partially true. There are other things that you need to be doing in addition to providing top notch customer service.

Let’s look at a few ways that you can get customers, to keep coming back to you for their product orders.

1. Post Sale Follow-Up: Customers want to know they are important to you. It is your job to go out of your way to make sure your customer is satisfied with their first purchase from you. After your customer has received their first purchase, make sure you follow up with them to make sure they are 100% satisfied with their purchase. If not, work promptly to correct it.

2. Company Catalogs: Every time your company changes their catalog, make sure your customers receive a new copy. I find that most of my customers prefer receiving a hard copy of our catalog vs. an online copy. You can do this one of four ways:

a. Mail out a new catalog to your customers via postal mail.

b. Mail out a postcard letting customers know that you now have new catalogs available and how they can request a new catalog from you.

c. Send an email if you have permission from your customers to contact them via email. Let them know a new catalog is available and how they can request a new copy from you.

d. Call your customers up by phone and let them know that you have new catalogs available and ask them if they would like to receive one.

3. Monthly Customer Newsletters: I recommend that you do a monthly newsletter to keep in contact with your customers. You can announce party host specials, customer specials, recruiting specials and new catalog releases. If you are going to do a monthly newsletter, make sure you have some informational content within it. Customers don’t want to receive newsletters that are nothing more than spam advertisements.

4. Open Houses: Hold a Open House bi-yearly party in your own home or other location. Invite your customers to the party so that they can see and touch new product releases. Offer some refreshments, games with prizes and some product sales specials.

5. Business Cards: Include a business card with all shipments of products. I make all of my business cards into refrigerator magnets and feel that business card magnets yield me better results than just a plain old business card. Customers will put them on the front of their refrigerators which keeps you and your business in front of them.

6. Business Coupons: Offer a coupon with all customer purchases.

example: Thank you for your purchase! Please take 10% off your next purchase before (date). I find that when you include an expiration date on your coupons, you are more apt to get another order from your customer. Try dating your coupons for 90 days.

7. Re-order Stickers: If you are selling consumable products, purchase some re-order stickers and place them on the packaging of your products. Make sure your contact information is on that sticker.

I think it makes smart business sense to pay attention to the customers that you already have. If your current customers like doing business with you and your company, they will happily refer new customers to you.

This article written by Shelly Hill, copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved.

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When it comes to writing and creating an effective newsletter that you email out to your customers & clients, you need to keep the sales ads to a minimum.

Don’t draft up a slew of product sales ads and recruiting business opportunity ads and then disguise it (name it a newsletter) and email it out to your customers. If you do, you will lose subscribers really quickly!

A newsletter should contain helpful and educational information about the products you are trying to market. You can included customer/client testimonials, a blurb about your business opportunity, etc in the newsletter but it certainly should not be full of nothing but sales ads.

Think about newsletters like this: If you signed up to get company X’s newsletter and it arrived in your inbox and you opened it up to find NOTHING but 15 sales ads inside it. Would this turn you off? It would me! I want to know why I need a product, how to use a product, features of the product and how this product can fit into my life. Give me a reason to want to purchase it besides that its on sale for a great price.

Newsletters to me are a tool to reach customers and its a valuable tool if done correctly.

So instead of disgusing your sales ads and naming them as newsletters…put some time & effort into your newsletter and educate your customers about the products you are selling.

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