When you sell to a customer online compared to a retail setting, some biz owners can forget that there is a real living and breathing person at the other end of the transaction – a person who wants to connect with you as the maker.
Learning from your own experiences and stepping into your customers’ shoes is one of the best ways to check your process. Make sure that you would be happy to receive the attention and care that you show to your own customers.
It may seem hard – the internet can leave us feeling faceless and disconnected from each other – but it is actually easy to give excellent customer service and showcase your brand and style even though you aren’t meeting face to face.
The key is to get a little open and vulnerable – to share a little bit of your truth – which will help your customer to connect with you as a real person.
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Being upfront by communicating your policies, where their order is in your queue, showing a little of your own personality and just being a kind and informative person will result in you having a smooth and enjoyable transaction.
Ensure you have a handle on these important aspects of your sales process and you’ll turn a buyer into a brand ambassador who will tell everyone they meet about you and your business.
This episode is the first of our monthly ‘Conversation’ podcasts – where Kath and I get together to riff on a topic. Prepare yourself for a dose of advice punctuated by goofy laughter!
Quotes and highlights from this episode:
- Be authentic to build your reputation
- Tell your story in your communications. Read: The Fortune Cookie Principle by Bernadette Jiwa
- Over-communicate rather than under-communicate
- Have your policies very clear on your website
- “Policies and FAQs prevent a lot of issues before they happen – and if not, they are there for you to fall back on.” {Jess}
- Set your own boundaries
- Don’t ever lie (Jess tells a tale of something that happened to her husband Nick to illustrate this point)
- Try to empathise with your customer and put yourself in their shoes
- “It can be hard to stick to your guns sometimes when a customer is upset and they want you to do something that’s contrary to your policies.” {Jess}
- With returns or problems, never get on the defensive
- You can’t keep 100% of the customers happy 100% of the time.
- If you feel like you’ve done everything you possibly can, and you’ve followed your own policies then you can feel confident that you’ve done the best you can for your customer
- BUT if you want to do something different just for them, do it!
- “Action can really extinguish the flames of anger which can come with poor customer service” {Kath}
- All your marketing and promotion is part of your tapestry of your brand
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