Custom Search
|
|
The Number One Priority For Ecommerce Businesses
Regardless of how good your site is technically, if the level of service you provide to your customers isn't up to scratch, you're extremely unlikely to succeed. In these days of social networking, word of mouth has never been a more powerful way of making, or breaking a business. Customers have a vast array of choice when shopping online, so you should ask yourself why a customer would choose to order from you? What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP - The single factor that sets you apart from everyone else)? Competing purely on price is not likely to be an effective long-term strategy as customers will almost certainly be able to find goods cheaper on eBay or one of the large internet retailers. Although your pricing needs to be competitive, targeting your business on price alone squeezes your profit margins and can also make you look like a 'bargain basement' outfit. This can be detrimental to your ability to establish relationships with new suppliers and, in addition, may damage the relationships you already have with others. A better option may be to invest your time in the quality of your complete service, instead of just the price. Ensuring visitors to your site know that you are trustworthy is a major factor in turning visitors into customers. Make it easy for customers to contact you either by email, live chat or phone. Although providing a customer service telephone line can be costly, depending on the business area you are in, it can work very well. Offering a freephone customer service line has come down in price dramatically and is a great incentive. The majority of customers won't call, but it is reassuring to know that they can in the event of problems. How about considering a postage-paid returns service? This may not be practical for all businesses but once again, goes a long way towards establishing trust with your site visitors. By offering to cover the cost of returns, you are showing that you have faith in your product range (and if you don't, why are you selling these products?), and also reassures the customer as they won't be out of pocket in the event that their purchase isn't suitable. Rather than offer the minimum returns period you can, why not extend this to 90, or even a whole year? This is a great promotional gimmick and could become your Unique Selling Proposition. You will find that very few people will return an item that is a year old, as most return them almost immediately, but it looks great from a customer service point of view. Once the visitor has become a customer, this really is your chance to wow them! You should ask yourself "What would really amaze this customer?" with every product you send out. An upgrade on their shipping service, a free gift, or even a handwritten comment on their delivery note can all make a huge difference and get them telling their friends. The latter of these takes seconds to do and costs absolutely nothing - why not try it? Once a customers' order has been sent out, you should send out a follow-up email a few days later, to make sure that they have received the item and that they are happy with it. This is a great opportunity to ask the customer for a review - always approve all reviews - the negative ones can be more valuable to you - if people are consistently posting negative reviews for a product, this is something you should look into straight away. Another tactic that can work very well is to phone the customer to make sure they received their item - don't try to sell them anything during this call - just thank them for ordering and ask if there was anything that could have been done better. Doing business on the internet does mean you can lose the face to face contact you have with a traditional shop, so it is vital that you never forget that without customers, you don't have a business at all. Always try to imagine the customer as a living, breathing person, before you send any email or product out and constantly ask yourself how you can improve the service you provide to them. Being satisfactory is no longer good enough - it's the exceptional companies that succeed and prosper. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Carl Fraser is Managing Director of Totally Commerce Ltd, owners of www.TotallyShoes.co.uk - Retailers of leading brand footwear in the UK. Totally Commerce Ltd also operate several other websites in different business areas. |
|