Tamar Weinberg’s The New Community Rules, Marketing on the Social Web is an excellent primer for getting an overview of marketing your business online and it’s a great book to help your business begin to get noticed online. I read this is just a couple of days, and found it very helpful.
*The books I’ll recommend are available for instant upload via Kindle or iBooks
Of course there is always more to come, and if you would like to recommend a book or a blog post, please know you are more than welcome to participate!
Webvantix recently built a website for a company that’s been around for over twenty years. They had an existing site, but they knew it was not doing what they needed it to do to create new business, nor was it doing anything to enhance their customer’s experience. They needed a online vehicle that gave their site visitors the ability to quickly find what they needed, execute, and move on to the next part of their day.
So, what does that all mean? It meant that we as a development company had to create a website that spoon fed their site’s visitors. Now, instead of spending precious time digging for information, or not being able to make a simple reservation online, all is a quick click away, and their customers are raving and beyond happy.
Therefore I must pose this question: Are you spoon feeding your site’s visitors?
Consider these three key elements:
1. Does your homepage ‘silo’ your visitors to the correct landing pages that meets their specific need?
2. Do you give visitors the ability to contact you with a lead capture form on each page–not just a Contact Us page.
3. Do you capture valuable information about your potential customers, or do you just offer an email link and a phone number. (Quick tip–people hate the phone–it’s too slow!)
We are currently writing a brief whitepaper that addresses structuring your website to create leads and customers. Stay tuned for its release, it will have some helpful advice.
To make sure you don’t miss the release of the whitepaper, sign up to receive our blog posts via email HERE.
I hope this little bit helps, and if you have some ideas on building a better website, please share them with everyone here!
This has been a big week for us at Webvantix as we’ve taken our giving program Websites 4 Food live. The premise is simple, when Webvantix is hired to create a new website for a customer, we will donate a website and its hosting to a food pantry.
As we at Webvantix continue to work toward our big rollout, and lots of big changes are coming. There were several informative posts this week, as well as welcoming our newest guest blogger, Mike Lazarus from GL Computing who is an Act by Sage CRM expert.
We also discussed Google’s announcement that they are rolling out a Two-Step Verification process for Google Apps, and other Google platforms are soon to follow.
Part 3 of our 3 part series on How to Avoid Destroying your company with Bad Customer Service highlighted how to work with your customers who need help regarding your product or service.
Mike Lazarus wrote his first guest post about the new in Act by Sage, 2011. A great piece on the ever popular Act CRM.
Continue to stay tuned to Help for the Online Novice for more ideas to help your business win the attention it needs, as we strive to bridge the gap between technology and main street.
When you are lucky enough to experience good customer service, you just know it, and you walk away from the encounter with a great feeling, one of satisfaction where you say to yourself, ‘now that’s a company that cares about their customers.’ So, let’s talk Apple. With all the press about the iPhone 4 and it’s shortcomings and Steve Jobs’ notorious tin ear, their customer service is well above par, not perfect, but a model for most other companies to aspire to.
When I received my first iPhone 4 in the mail, the day before delivery was scheduled, I immediately had reception issues. Unfortunately those issues worsened to the point where one day I could no longer hear people speaking and they could no longer hear me. I walked into the Apple Store on 67th and Broadway in Manhattan, and was greeted at the Genius Bar by a very professional and kind person, who was able to squeeze me into a slot with a tech. It was determined that my phone had died, and was instantly issued a replacement. Alas, that phone also had issues, and even where cell strength was excellent, I had no signal. A week later at the Rockaway, NJ store I was given a new phone by a customer service PROFESSIONAL at the Genius B. Wow, impressive–most impressive. I was not interfacing with a snotty person who could care less about my problems, but someone who was truly concerned with my satisfaction. But wait you say, those phones were under warranty. Correct, but that’s not the whole story.
My first iPhone, a 3G was purchased in January 2009. For whatever the reason in February 2010 the phone could no longer hold a charge, or remain connected to WiFi. Something had gone wrong and the phone had become virtually unusable unless plugged in. I called Apple and they informed me that, like my Jeep, it was out of warranty–but, said the person on the line “take it to a store and they will probably be able to help.” Off to the Manhattan store I went, where they, yes you guessed it, they replaced the phone. Whoa! A company that stands by its product and its customers.
I think we often feel like we are giving away the store and the keys to it when we really go out of our way for our customers, and sometimes your good deeds will ultimately lead to nothing. At Webvantix we’ve spend extra time with customers and never billed them, only to lose them to another company because they offered them similar services for a few dollars less. My advice, let customers like that go, and focus on continuing to add value to the customers who stay with you. Strive to create great relationships by over delivering on a consistent basis and ultimately your business will be rewarded.
Just remember, return those calls and e-mails every day and put customer service standards into place, and your customers will love you for it!
I’m curious, does your company offer a specific outline for customer service issues? Please share them with us!
For any small businesses out there that want to use Google Adwords or who are using it and want to become more proficient at it, Google has announced the first Adwords Train & Gain challenge.
The challenge starts on October 4th and the program works as follows:
You will receive a weekly list of simple steps for improving your Adwords account and at the end of four week “you’ll be armed with many different way to improved your Adwords account” says Google.
Also if you complete all the steps and answer their questionnaire, you could win an Android Phone or even a trip to meet with an Adwords consultant in Sydney, Australia, for you and a colleague. Sweet!
According to Google, here’s what’s offered:
Improve Ad Text: Stand out from your competition by writing ads that highlight your most competitive features (low price, special service, free delivery, etc).
Use Negative Keywords: Specify which search tearms you don’t want your ad to appear on. This will help you keeps costs down because it prevents click from people looking for things you don’t offer.
Track sales and Leads: Se where your ad spend is working best and focus your money on the efforts that are generating business.
Living in the country in the northeast dictates that you need a four-wheel drive vehicle. When it was time for a new car I chose a brand new 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee LTD, with the V8 HEMI–wow, here a luxury vehicle with more get up and go than my 5 series BMW, and moved through deep snow like it was not even there!
Unfortunately the moon roof developed a leak that was once so bad that I returned to my car after a movie to a literal pool of water in the passenger side foot well. Not good. So, I dug around the Jeep website to find their customer service number(they did not make it easy), and contacted them.
Sorry, said the snotty girl on the other end of the phone, it’s out of warranty and there is nothing we can do. By chance, as a friend was purchasing a vehicle from a dealer in the area that also sold and serviced Jeeps, I stopped by the service department to discuss the issue with a service rep. He said the whole upper upholstery would have to be taken down to fix the issue and it was about $1000 job! He suggested I contact their liaison to Jeep, which I did. The liaison indicated that Jeep had ‘closed’ the issue and that nothing could be done to help, and that was their final decision.
A few weeks later, angry and feeling like a company I endorsed because I loved their product had ignored me, I found myself in another Jeep dealership several states away, for a much needed oil change. When I told their service rep my story, he said, “let’s take a look at it first.” As soon as he looked it the moon roof he said “the timing is off and it’s not closing properly.” They fixed it in 30 minutes.
In an effort to make this story short I have not gone into detail about the customer service line and the person with whom I interacted, but it was a pathetic excuse for customer service.
Soon it will be time for a new car–will I buy another Jeep?
Do you think I should? What do you think they should have offered to do?
Stay tuned for our final installment on this three part series on Customer Service, which is an example of how a company handled an out of warranty product and kept a customer forever!
This is a story of two vastly different companies, with different approaches to customer service. One bad, and I mean really bad, and the other good, and I really good!
First, a short back story.
One aspect of our business that Webvantix takes very seriously is customer service. As a matter of fact, part of the reason this company was started almost four years ago was as a response to customer service issues in this business. Another firm, in an unrelated industry where I was a partner, had retained a web development company, that, to put it bluntly, never returned correspondence–phone calls, emails, smoke signals, nothing. Additionally, with firsthand knowledge, we were not the only customers they ignored. Strange.
So when Webvantix started, one of our standing orders was that we return all e-mails, and phone calls the same day–customer, prospective customer, vendor, prospective vendor–we are always in touch. My belief, personally and professionally, is that if someone does not return your e-mail or call, in this day and age of ‘immediate technology,’ they are saying directly to you, that you’re not worth their time or the effort, a metaphorical blow-off!
Our next installment will highlight an interesting story of how companies should not ignore customer service, yet still do.
I’m curious, what customer service mandates does your company have in place?
We’ve been doing a great deal of work to re-tool both our blog and our business structure here at Webvantix–we’ve got some great things coming!
With the blog, we have taken some time to re-categorize each post and have also added the categories to the sidebar. Additionally, we have several guest bloggers that will be posting some terrific ideas.
Take a look at this quick video for an overview of the new categories…
As always, thanks for visiting, and be sure to stay tuned for more information on changes here at Webvantix.
As I’ve said several times before, I read a lot of blogs. The SEOMoz blog is an excellent way to learn about SEO, but as you can see by the image to the left, it can get complex! By reading as many blogs as possible, I feel they keep me as ahead of the curve, yet sometimes I’m a deer in the headlights. The formula shows is for Latent Dirichlet Allocation (yes, that spelling is correct).
Now, for several reasons, I’m NOT going to launch into what LDA is, but I highlighted this specifically to discuss what we at Webvantix are trying to do here on our blog.
It is our attempt to offer the local business owner a blog that highlights quick, easy, understandable, down and dirty information to help you increase your online attention. Nothing more, nothing less. We realize that the local business owner has limited time and needs to put that time to the best use possible. Now, every Monday we will post our Monday Morning Quick Tip–one quick tip to check out that may help you win more traffic, more attention and more BUSINESS!
So, continue to check us out and if you want our blog delivered right to your Inbox, you can SUBSCRIBE HERE.
If you have a Quick Tip, or an idea you would like us to post, please feel free to introduce it via a comment.
Thank you for checking us out and I hope this helps…
My name is Preston Ehrler and I started Webvantix to bring professional website design and website redesign to businesses that desperately needed help. Additionally, Webvantix blogs about ideas and tips for marketing your business online. Our team is comprised of individuals who are highly skilled in the fields of social media marketing, design, coding and programming. If you need our help, or simply have a question, we welcome your contact!
My name is Preston Ehrler and I started Webvantix to bring professional website design and website redesign to businesses that desperately needed help. Additionally, Webvantix blogs about ideas and tips for marketing your business online. Our team is comprised of individuals who are highly skilled in the fields of social media marketing, design, coding and programming. If you need our help, or simply have a question, we welcome your contact!
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