Archive for May, 2010

Strategic marketing planning is essential in any business.  Want to become one of the best home businesses?

 

Learn how or hire it out.

 

Last night my spouse was having problems with one of his many high tech “toys”. He called the customer support center where we sat on hold for almost an hour! While we waited I was surfing the web. I came across a cool website about the old fashioned tin metal signs. I showed it to my husband because the metal signs we sell today are such an improvement. My husband said that it was a shame customer service hasn’t seen a similar improvement. Granted, he was a little cranky from waiting for someone to respond to his call, but it did get me to thinking.

If we can use technology to make better metal signs, than surely we can us it to improve on customer service!

In the past metal signs were made from tin. The tin was pressed and painted to look like the customer wanted. unfortunately the signs didn’t always hold up the way that they should. People began trying new techniques, and today aluminum is the choice for metal signs. Aluminum metal signs are high quality and stand up to the test of time.

On the other hand, quality of customer service seems to be on a steady down fall. Companies used to make customer service a priority. Friendly staff were always in the store or available by phone. They listened to what you asked and answered your questions. They made you feel like a real person. These days, however technology seems to have robbed the customer service experience in many businesses or organizations.

Almost everyone has had the conversation about trying to reach a “real person” when they are trying to contact a company. They pushed button after button in attempts to finally speak to someone, simply to be told that there was no one to take their call. On a computer you send an email (since you know humans won’t be answering the phone) and you get an automated response telling you someone will respond within 24 hours. And of course, that email with the answer never arrives. So you walk into a store and try to ask a question, but the person only knows how to quote prices or give a prepared speech. They don’t actually know about the products.

Take one step forward with metal signs and two steps back with customer service

Your custom metal sign is only a portion of an entire marketing program that you must create to help your business grow. If marketing is about standing out in the crowd and attracting attention, why not use it for customer service? A little bit goes a long way when it comes to how your clients and potential clients view your business. Why not send an unexpected follow up email to make sure that they are happy with your company. Don’t try to sell anything, just make sure they are happy. Or occasionally call a customer to thank them for their business. Just as before, this is not a sales call, it is customer service, plain and simple.

My husband and I own a sign company, and we take these steps and more to promote customer service in our company. And while we may be forward thinking when it comes to signs, we prefer to remain a bit old fashioned in our customer service.

Unfortunately that was not at all the case for the company my husband was trying to reach. When someone finally came on the phone he said that he was handling customer service for additional companies at the same time. I think that was about the time my husband gave up. He thanked the person on the phone and hung up. Now he wants to go shopping but has assured me that he will never buy a product from that particular company again.

A little food for thought, isn’t it?

In search of a way to save money and boost your telesales results?     The way to accomplish this is to begin employing auto dialing solutions to maximize your sales staff’s call output.

Auto dialer software solutions are an excellent way to improve your workflow and enhance your marketing campaigns. If you do follow up calls with clients or prospects or take part in telemarketing you really need to automate a significant amount of the tasks required with each telephone call.

These are tasks like telephone number dialing or leaving voice messages.  This saves time and keeps your employees happy.   Just picture how much time your employees waste manually dialing numbers, manually leaving voice messages or hanging up.

On average this could possibly be wasting up to 3 minutes or more, time that could have been much better spent.

Often times it’s difficult to make a decision on which hosted dialer solution will operate best for your situation.

So, how do you decide what is best for your situation?

What’s really the best kind of auto dialing software or hosted phone dialer solution for your computer?

How can you be sure that the software will be compatible?

Do I require pricey and complex hardware to make everything work?

Should I just save myself all the trouble and expense of getting started and just outsource everything by choosing a hosted autodialer program?

There are quite a few questions to ask about and find suitable solutions that can make the choosing of software fairly tricky.  The good news is that there are a diverse variety of different solutions available, so there’s no need to worry too much.

You can find software for PC, Mac and be ready to go in virtually no time.

Keep in mind that some of these telephone dialing softwares and solutions are not low-priced. Many times you can get free trials of the software or hosted solution. So without wasting money you can locate the best software or auto dialer service that is most useful for your organization.

It will also keep you from having to deal with refunds or returning the software – which can be a great waste of time.

CallFire is one of the well-known hosted dialer solutions on the market.  For even more info on hosted dialer solutions, you need to visit www.AutoDialingSoftware.net

Benefits hit the customer buy button in your strategic marketing planning.

 

Study what worked for others by remembering the oldies

 

Create memorable benefits for your product that customers will relate to.

 

The Statement

The start of your strategic marketing planning should be a positioning statement.

If you are in business, the positioning statement is one of the first things you should do to define who your customer is.

Definitions

The customer is commonly referred to in marketing as the “target market”.

Marketing, of course, is the term used for finding and making potential customers aware that you exist and compel those customers to purchase whatever your product is.

The statement to define your marketing position defines your product and includes the promise your product delivers, who your target market is, and what makes your product unique from other similar products.

In Short

When all is said and done, your statement should be believable and truthful, it should define how your product is different, and should make the product stick in your customer’s mind.

The statement should also be short, two sentences should be all the longer it is.

Important to Note

This tool, the positioning statement that you develop, is for your use to develop marketing ideas and messages to your customer. The positioning statement itself is not the advertisement.

We can only guess at what other businesses use for their positioning statement, but for your business, ask your self the following questions, then craft the answers into a short positioning statement, which if done right, provides a powerful message for you to start creating messages to your customers.

Questions to Ask

Who would most benefit from your product?
What emotion triggers the need in your target customer?
What is your product?
What category of market is your product in?
What is the principle need for the customer to purchase your product?
Who or what is the competition?
What is so unique about your product?

 

What Next?

Once you’ve finished with your positioning statement, you can move on to ways to use this statement to start reaching your customers.

Before you move on

One hint before you start composing advertising messages. Most companies have no trouble identifying their features. More important to your customers are the benefits that your product provides.

There seems to be a fine line between the two, but in the customer’s mind, this difference can make the difference between your target market becoming interested enough in your product to try it, or to just forget about your product and company and move on to another option.

Later

More on features vs benefits in the next post.  In the meantime, hone that positioning statement and start brainstorming on what the benefits of your product are.