Customer Service is Key to your business success. Side note, Believe it or not, this is 100% written by myself. I read the book and wrote this down.. Cool right? No Ai, all human!
Austin Pray
Summary of Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000 by Pete Blackshaw
- Running a Business in Today's Consumer Driven World
Consumers are everything to a business, so satisfy them.
1. Trust: Being Credible is huge in this over saturated market.
2. Authenticity: Being Real and Sincere to all consumers reminds them that you are human as well.
3. Transparency: Being Honest and Being Vulnerable is how you can achieve all the above. Living with the responsibilities of owning your own business and success has to happen.
4. Listening: People wanting to be heard. Just Listen.
5. Responsiveness: Customer Service Responding quickly. This is huge because communication is very important. People are scared of being scammed, so always be professional.
6. Affirmation: Customer Reviews are important to learn how to adapt.
Examples of good Businesses that have performed this for me:
Cabela's is an amazing store in the fact that they always go above and beyond to help me dial in my equipment even if I have bought nothing there. Sometimes spending 3 hours getting free lessons.
Costco gives me amazing service and make me feel like I am at a country club or hotel with the amazing interaction they give to me, beside calling me mam all the time when they approach me, LOL. Refunds are amazingly very simple as well.
Credibility
- Consumer Generated Media (CGM)
These are the reviews you receive or give, blogs that you are mentioned in or interact in (include social media sites), and just everything that helps the consumers be heard.
This can be beneficial or harmful for many reasons. With today's technology it is so easy for the consumer to be heard, so try to please everyone that purchases your product and if you don't learn how to problem solve the negative situation and fix it so it doesn't stem to anything further.
- Purchase Cycles
These are the personality types of a consumer after releasing a product
Pre-Shoppers: Wanting to be among the first to purchase. Brand Ambassadors: Rave about the good. Detractors: Try to dissect every part of your product but are looking for only the bad. Gatherers: Trying to find information about your product. Loiters: Window shoppers that don't actually purchase. Free Loiters: The Window Shoppers that have a lot to say about the product without even purchasing it. Imposters & Megaphoneys: are the hired and paid reviews of the product.
- Reach
The People that know about your product, Review your product, and follow your product.
Today you can sponsor posts on all platforms, set up an account and be everywhere on people's blogs and social media, be on google as well and Pay per click campaigns. The easiest Reach nowadays is the Internet. Learn it to be more successful.
Consumer Affairs
- Sales
The Product development, the legality of the sales and product you are trying to sell, the Market of which your product is based in, Human Resource development for employees and staff, Your packaging and Design and how the consumer receives your product is huge.
I buy Apple products because I like the sleek design and the simplicity.
- Responding
Responding to consumer complaints quickly through email, answering phones, or in person, however you do it, make it important.
Just even as much as informing the customer to why the issue could have happened is a good step in not making the matters worse. From experience though, there are people out in this world that just want free shit and to get under your skin. Learn how to deal with them as they could be a pest to your business and hurt.
- Fill Unmet Needs
Always be listening, shift to consumer media, walk the talk, empower people, start conversations, think beyond loyalty, rethink the way we build it, protect it, and nurture it. Adapting to people's needs is a make it or break it in today's society.
Learning the new platforms and third party services is hard, but worth it most of the time. If you can learn where the trend is going and follow it, you will last for a lot longer as if you didn't. You can use all the billion dollar companies out there to learn what they have adapted and what they have kept the same due to the mission statement or recipe.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Negative Keywords
Buy Negative Keywords related to your product and give information about how you are better or how you can solve that problem that people are searching.
Business Examples: A Course on Safety and Sanitation for knowledge on outbreaks going on currently. For example buy a keyword phrase "E Coli outbreak" when there is a new outbreak in the market but you buy it for your information business about how you can prevent outbreaks or how to avoid. Or a better example is a hand sanitizer company who buys "Alcohol poisoning with hand sanitizer" and shows that the hand sanitizer they are selling has a fraction of alcohol compared to other competitors so that's why they should buy that hand sanitizer.
- Where People Blog
Find where people blog and start the conversation there. Find your demographic and blog where they blog on the internet.
- Be Everywhere
Build Content that is interesting.
Seeing some of the shit that is on the internet these days is hilarious, but worth studying. To be interesting these days you have to conform to what is popular. Be relevant and change as people change in the world.
Lets have a discussion on this topic as this concept is really helpful with marketing and standing out above your competitors. DM on @talktoanerd or Email me over on my business website Weezle.com (I did that for a backlink ha).