Sales: Are YOUR customers YOUR business?

Are YOUR customers YOUR business?

Written by Val Burnett

Continued from page 1

This is valuable information for a company and it shows that our customers are being helped and very QUICKLY!

A happy customer is a lasting customer.

There are quite a few ticket systems out there, you can do a search on a search engine and find a few, ask around and find out what your associates are using. The key is to find one and put it to use.

FORUMS - Customer Support

Another tool that is used for customer support are forums. Forums have a way to bring your customers together in one place where they can report or comment on issues, programs etc. All answers and questions are open to repparttar public to see and this may help another customer with their issue. By displaying comments, suggestions, etc in a forum, your customers have a tool they can search through and most likely find repparttar 146789 answer to their issue. By having a forum and letting your members access to it, this could slow down repparttar 146790 actual customer support your company deals with on a day to day basis.

There is a wide variety of forums that are available with unique and standard features. Search around, if you know of a company that uses a forum for customer support, find out where to purchase it from, how repparttar 146791 company likes it, pros & cons. We have seen quite a few companies with a forum that is provided by Gossamer-Threads http://www.gossamer-threads.com/scripts/gforum/index.htm - it is loaded with features and pretty easy to setup.

Other companies that provide forum software:

http://forum.snitz.com/ http://www.usebb.net/ http://www.wowbb.com/

LIVE CHAT SUPPORT

Live chat support is another affordable and efficient tool for providing customer support and is integrated into your website pages through either java or pre-written HTML code provided to you. Usually how this works is a box or image is then displayed on your website that says Live Support, or something to that affect, when clicked, it will take your customer to your live chat support. Your potential customer can ask you questions right then and there. This may be very helpful in securing a potential sale, or from losing a customer.

Here are a few different companies that provide chat support software:

http://www.liveperson.com/ http://www.livechatnow.com http://www.websitealive.com/ http://www.realchat.com/ http://www.sightmax.com

There are a lot of choices for software and tools that will help you deal with customer support issues. The only bad choice that can be made is NOT to choose one and use it.

Ignore your customers, provide dishonest answers and take multiple days to answer; You may as well fold up shop now. Your customers will not be there tomorrow.

Your Customers IS your business and repparttar 146792 sooner you realize that, repparttar 146793 better off your customers and your company will be.

Make repparttar 146794 choice and prosper!

Be sure to check out Val's ebook Working From Home: Achieve Extreme Success Guide http://www.1-working-from-home.com

Val Burnett is Owner of many responsive marketing programs found at http://www.mbpadvertising.com Plus publisher of MBP BizMajic News 38,000 Subscribers http://news.mbpadvertising.com------------------------------------------------------------------

Don’t Waste My Time!

Written by Kelley Robertson

Continued from page 1
In another situation, I listened to a sales person pitch his product by reading PowerPoint slides. His slides discussed his company, their financial backing, their products, their clients, blah, blah, blah. Not once did he ask me what I wanted in a solution. Instead, he kept his attention focused on his agenda, once again, wasting my time by talking about something that had no relevance to my situation or business. Professional selling means helping someone make an educated buying decision. That means you need to determine how your product or service fits into their situation. I was once asked by an advertising sales rep what to do if repparttar

prospect’s publication targeted a different demographic that repparttar 146288

advertisers. My answer was simple, “Move on.” In some cases, your product or service may not be needed by your prospect or may not fit into their plans. This means you move on to repparttar 146289

next prospect. Don’t waste their time and yours trying to reconfigure everything hoping something will work out. Virtually everyone I know is pressed for time. Respect that fact. Save your customers time by asking a few well-thought out questions BEFORE you suggest a product or service. That way you won’t become a time waster. But, how do you control a customer who is a time waster? There are a couple of ways… First, ask a few high-quality questions early in repparttar 146290

sales process to determine exactly what your customer is looking for and what their buying criteria are. One of these questions should be something that identifies repparttar 146291

time-frame that your customer is working with. The second thing you can do, particularly if repparttar 146292

other person has indicated that they aren’t making a buying decision in repparttar 146293

near future, is to direct them to your website or offer other printed materials for them to review. Third, ask them to make a buying decision. This approach is effective because repparttar 146294

time waster will become uncomfortable and will often end repparttar 146295

sales discussion himself. The fourth strategy is to drop them like a hot potato. Don’t waste your time trying to close them. Be pleasant, firm and direct. Tell them that you must take care of other customers and move on. You only have a certain number of hours of prime selling time in any given day. Don’t waste your time selling to people who have no intention of ever buying. And, avoid wasting repparttar 146296

Kelley Robertson, President of the Robertson Training Group, works with businesses to help them increase their sales and motivate their employees. He is also the author of “Stop, Ask & Listen – Proven Sales Techniques to Turn Browsers Into Buyers.” Receive a FREE copy of “100 Ways to Increase Your Sales” by subscribing to his free sales and motivational newsletter available at www.kelleyrobertson.com.

<Back to Page 1