Monitoring Website Uptime for Search Engines The main reason to monitor your website is that when search engine spiders visit your web pages, if those pages are down, you may lose search engine positions that you have worked so hard to develop. If your website stays down for too long, you may be dropped from search engine databases altogether. Whether your website receives ten or ten thousand visitors a day, you will not last long on Internet if surfers and prospects can not access your web pages through search engines.

Monitoring Downtime for Advertising Budgets Another important reason to monitor uptime of your web pages is to make sure that your advertising is doing what it should – bring visitors to your website. While most pay per click search engines do not charge you if your site is down, many still do. If your site is down for any length of time, you run risk of draining your account very quickly. In addition, if you purchase any sort of cost per lead or cost per impression advertising (i.e. banners) you again run risk of losing valuable visits from surfers.

Of course, one way they might choose to solve this problem is by returning goods. Your job is to show them there is an alternative that will be a win-win situation for both parties. Here are two ways you can do this:

1. Offer a higher-spec / revised spec product. 2. Offer an additional product.

Just remember not to “sell” but to “help”: Show customer a solution that will meet their needs. Offer a discount and make it as painless as possible for customer to part with more money. At same time, always be sure to leave door open for them to back out from existing sale so that they don’t feel pressured. Follow this simple strategy and they will thank you for helping them out while you pocket extra profit.

4. Glean Knowledge

Let’s face it, this particular sale may still sink beneath waves before you can rescue it. But all is not lost! Anything you learn from this experience can pay you back many times over in increased future revenue.

What do experiences this customer had tell you about:

- The product itself? - Your service? - The information on your site? - Navigation on your site? - External factors – such as difficulties with your payment provider?

Be sure to bear in mind following points to get most out of these questions:

- Don’t assume your customer is just an idiot: If he / she has made a mistake, it is fairly likely that other people have done and are doing same thing.

- Don’t take everything customer says at face value: For example, it may appear that issue is product itself, but closer inspection could reveal that your site failed to give them enough information prior to purchasing, leading to this later disappointment.

Once you have discerned problem - solve it! It is costing you sales right now.

5. Disgruntled customer turned advocate

If you have successfully followed process outlined above, not only have you saved sale, but maybe you have even added to it and valuable insights you have collected and acted on are boosting your revenue right now.

Perhaps you are thinking that it can’t get much better than this. But there is still ultimate payback – icing on cake: Turning an unhappy customer into an advocate for your business.

Your positive attitude will often not only secure sale, but also win over customer themselves. In my experience this is exemplified by fact that a surprisingly large proportion of testimonials I use originated in a negative customer experience.

But far from wanting their money back, these customers are now encouraging others to part with theirs through their testimonials. Make this your goal when dealing with a disgruntled customer and all heartache along way will be well worth it in end.