Small Business Q & A: How To Handle The Occasional Oop-See!

Written by Tim Knox


Q: My company is really in hot water with one of our best customers. I can't reveal exactly what happened, but suffice it to say that we really droppedrepparttar ball andrepparttar 104832 customer is furious. I'm not even sure we can saverepparttar 104833 account. What'srepparttar 104834 best way to get back in a customer's good graces after making such a mistake? -- Charles W.

A: Without knowingrepparttar 104835 full story, Charles, I can't give you a specific course of action, but let's start atrepparttar 104836 sharp end ofrepparttar 104837 uh-oh stick and work our way back to see if we can come with up some advice that might help.

First off, it's important that you understand thatrepparttar 104838 magnitude of your mistake will determinerepparttar 104839 course of action you take to make amends. If your company's error was such that it caused your customer a significant amount of lost time or revenue, embarrassed them publicly, caused damage to their reputation, or otherwise negatively affected their bottom line, you may face legal repercussions that saying "I'm sorry" will not deter. If that'srepparttar 104840 case you should consult an attorney immediately and prepare forrepparttar 104841 worst. Whether or notrepparttar 104842 worst comes is irrelevant. You must be prepared for it.

Now on to dealing with more minor offenses. As anyone who has read this column for any length of time knows, I'm cursed with daughters. I used to say I was blessed with daughters, then they learned to walk and talk. Blessed quickly became cursed. Now my oldest daughter is an inch taller than me and getting all lumpy in places I'd rather not think about. She's a sad case, really. The poor kid needs an operation. She has a cellphone growing out of her ear. But I digress…

When she was a toddler she coinedrepparttar 104843 phrase, "Oop-see!" Whenever she did something innocently destructive, like knock over a glass of orange juice on my new computer keyboard or shove a Pop Tart inrepparttar 104844 VCR tape slot, she would look at me with her huge brown eyes and say, "Oop-see!" My wife says there is a reason God made kids cute. Oop-see moments are evidence that she is right.

Oop-see meant, "Uh oh, I didn't mean to do that. I was wrong. I'll never do that again. Forgive me? Love me? Buy me toys… Oop-see worked like a charm every time. Now, I certainly don't expect you to bat your eyes at your customer and say, "Oop-see!" but considerrepparttar 104845 effect her words had on me. Instead of screaming atrepparttar 104846 top of my lungs like I wanted to do (hey, have you ever tried to dig a Pop Tart out of a VCR) I immediately softened and found myself actually taking her side. "Aw, it's OK, really, we all make mistakes…"

What my daughter had figured out is that it's hard to stay mad at someone who admits a mistake, sincerely apologizes for it, and vows never to let it happen again. Little did I know this was only one of many tactics she would employ overrepparttar 104847 years in her never-ending quest to wrap her daddy several times around her little finger, but that's a whole different column.

Dale Carnegie said it best: "Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes - and most fools do - but it raises one aboverepparttar 104848 herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one's mistakes."

Carnegie and my daughter were basically sayingrepparttar 104849 same thing: When you (or your company) make a mistake, no matter how large or small,repparttar 104850 best thing you can do is quickly admitrepparttar 104851 error of your ways and facerepparttar 104852 consequences, come what may.

Here are a few things you can do to help set things right with your customer.

Assemblerepparttar 104853 facts. The very first thing you should do is find out what went wrong and why. Meet with your key people and gatherrepparttar 104854 facts. Ask specific questions like: What wasrepparttar 104855 mistake? What caused it? Who was involved? What could have been done to preventrepparttar 104856 mistake from happening and what can be done to prevent it from happening again inrepparttar 104857 future.

Small Business Q & A: Turnkey Dropship Websites Save You Time, Trouble and Money

Written by Tim Knox


Q: I would like to start an online dropshipping business, but I have no idea how to get started. I would like to specialize in giftware and accessories. Where do I find products and how do I get set up a website without any technical knowledge?

A: Inrepparttar good old days ofrepparttar 104831 Internet, i.e. last year, it took a considerable amount of effort to launch an ecommerce website, especially one that offered dropship merchandise.

The to-do list for building even a small site was extensive.

You first had to find a company who would dropship merchandise for you. Believe it or not, there was not a dropshipper on every corner ofrepparttar 104832 Web back then.

Once you found such a company, you had to set up a formal business account with them, which often meant filling out forms, jumping through hoops, providing them with proof of a business license, a tax ID number, a pint of blood,repparttar 104833 promise of your first born, and on and on.

Thenrepparttar 104834 real fun began.

You had to tear apartrepparttar 104835 company's print catalogs and scan inrepparttar 104836 pictures of merchandise you wanted to sell onrepparttar 104837 site.

You had to buildrepparttar 104838 website by hand with an HTML editor, and type in allrepparttar 104839 product descriptions and prices, which made updating repparttar 104840 site a manual nightmare. Changing $1.95 to $2.95 could literally take half an hour.

You had to find a dependable hosting company to hostrepparttar 104841 site. This was harder than you might think. Finding a dependable hosting company inrepparttar 104842 golden age ofrepparttar 104843 Internet was like finding a painless dentist inrepparttar 104844 old west. They just didn't exist. You had to opt forrepparttar 104845 hosting company that you hoped would cause you repparttar 104846 least amount of pain. And you were always wrong.

You had to register a domain name. This part was fairly simple, IF you hadrepparttar 104847 genius IQ required to think up a coherent domain name that was not already taken by another business or a &^%$# cyber-squatter (low level life forms who register domain names and ransom them to individuals and companies that could really use them).

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