During our recent online poll, we asked following question:

What upsets you most when receiving poor customer service?

Eighty percent of poll participants said “I don’t care attitude” of person serving them upsets them most.

Businesses lose billions of dollars of revenue each year because customers feel organizations don’t care about their business enough to make an effort to keep them. It takes five times more effort to win over a new customer than to keep an existing customer.

Then why does this happen? No training or poor training has a lot to do with it.

Here are five secrets to showing your customers you really do care about their situations when interacting with them:

1. Listen! Take time to listen to “pain” customer is trying to share with you. There is a reason why we have two ears and one mouth. Listen for content and not method of communication customer is using. Use active listen skills such as

* Nodding your head * Leaning forward to show interest * Saying “I hear what you saying,” “I see what you mean,” or “tell me more” * Stop doing something else and devoted all your attention to listening. * Look at customer * Be patience and not interrupt customer before adding your thoughts

You might be first person that day that took time to listen to that person. Make most of it.

Each year there is a Yellow Pages arms race where competitors in each category are encouraged to out spend each other. There is only one winner in this arms race, and it is not you! Too many advertisers waste their money on Yellow Pages advertising without first considering their marketing strategy. Here are seven ways you can waste your money.

1. Attempting to outspend your competitor As soon as Yellow Pages has convinced you to increase prominence of your ad, they get your competitors to match or outbid you. This becomes an annual auction, with some categories containing pages of half and full page ads. A buyer can be overwhelmed with choice and may make their decision before they even get to your ad. Priority in listing is given to those who have advertised longest in a category for a given ad size. You can only get closer to front by upsizing your ad or if someone else closer to front ceases advertising.

2. Putting all your eggs in Yellow Pages basket An advertising decision is something you should only make after you have developed a marketing strategy. Many businesses rush into advertising in Yellow Pages, just because that’s what everyone else does. You don’t become a leader by following herd. You need to consider your payback for your investment in this marketing channel. Ask your Yellow Pages consultant how many leads a particular size ad generates in your category. Then ask yourself how many of these leads will you convert into sales, and then decide whether this is a good investment.

3. Engaging in destructive Head to Head Competition When you advertise in Yellow Pages, not only can potential customers see your ad and your offer, so can your competitors. This can result in price competition that can turn your product or service into a commodity. Yellow Pages make comparison shopping easy for buyers and market research easy for competitors.

4. Spending too much on prominence When spending on a Yellow Pages ad, you can invest in size and colour. Size is important, but what you put in ad, your copy, is far more important. It is better to go down a size and spend money you save on a copywriter. Good copy can generate up to 20 times response as poor copy. Colour is also important, but not as important as size, so go up a size rather than go to colour, which is expensive for its return. If your category is cluttered with large ads, investing in your copy is essential.