Marketing Defined

Is good Customer Service redundant? Does it Matter?

What Do You Think? Should you hire staff to offer support to Customers?

Here’s my take: The sheer ignorance (or arrogance) of those who command huge five figure incomes monthly, and believe they simply do not have to answer their subscriber’s concerns, has often led to me simply terminating any further contact with them.

Add value to someone else’ life and it will come back to you a thousand times. The goodwill bucks far outweighs the monetary kind — for me at any rate, this has been the case.

Simply equation – if you profess that you are too busy, and far too sucessful to do it yourself, then at the least hire casual staff to offer this crucial facet of any successful online business. Surely if those huge incomes (that we see flaunted by some webmasters) are genuine, paying for part-time help will only help grow an online business.

Derek Gehl, who now runs the brilliant Corey Rudl’s Internet Marketing Center, confirms my strong opinions on good old fashioned Customer Service — In his new Blog he says this about Customer Service or lack of thereof

Quote:

I am absolutely blown away but the lack of customer service that exists on the Internet today! So many e-businesses feel that because they are an Internet business and never actually have to ‘face the customer’ in person, they do not need to answer the phone, reply to an email, etc.

Here is an absolutely shocking and appalling statistic that I read this week:

“Only 51% of online marketers reply to their customer email and of that only 30% actually reply within 1 business day.”

Do these people have any idea how much damage they are doing to their businesses??

Personally, only 30% of my business in any given year is generated from new customers — and 70% is generated from existing customers.

So here is the question… If I did not reply to my customers’ email and provide them with top-quality support, would they ever come back and buy from me? NO WAY… and my business would only be a fraction of the size it is today.

Is it more work to reply to every email we get? Absolutely! But does the time invested pay for itself over and over and over… Definitely! Do I sleep better at night… Guaranteed!

So with that said, put yourself in your customers’ shoes (or potential customers for that matter).
What type of companies do you buy from again and again? Is it the ones that treat you horribly or the ones that go the extra mile? I think that answer is obvious.

So go the extra mile, treat your customers and potential customers like gold, and you will reap the rewards… that I can guarantee!

Unquote

For those who are sadly consumed with a sense of their own importance and ignore this crucial facet to longevity on the Internet, they had better become clever with investing a portion of the huge dollars they earn at present… particularly for the future when their competitors, who provide good customer service, overtake and leave them way behind.

Exceptional standards in Customer Service are Necessary! And don’t you forget it.