Are Customers Stupid?

(Photo by Michael Dawes)

Have you ever received customer complaints or inquires and thought they must be so stupid?

I usually don’t like being controversial, but I have seen so many missed opportunities that I dare to take strong tone today. If you think your customers are stupid, most likely it is you who is not doing the smart things to serve them – and to improve your business.

Sure, they are asking questions that are so basic to you. But isn’t that how you stay in business? They are paying you because you have the expertise they don’t have. So it is on you to explain it in the way non-professionals would understand.

Or maybe they screwed up the instruction and complaining. Is it their fault? To some extent, yes, but again, you are the pro and they are your customers. Can you give them better instructions that are easy to follow?

Customers are giving you great feedback (for free!)

When you view customer questions and complaints as yet another task to take care of, something that consumes your time and energy, you start resenting. But that is not the case at all. These customers are, whether they know it or not, doing a great favor for your business – they are offering valuable feedback for your business growth!

Whatever your business may be, you want to be always improving your offer. And exactly how do you do this? By learning customer needs and wants. So you want to ask for feedback – some businesses even pay to get feedback. And here, your unhappy customers are offering that feedback voluntarily.

Two or more of the same questions or complaints definitely require your attention. Even one. Remember, one customer speaking up represent ten or more customers who’d rather leave quietly.

And don’t just individually address those inquiries and be done with it. Those inquiries deserve more attention. Improve your system itself so that new customers don’t have to ask the same question again. This way, you save your time, too. Further, you may even make more money when you pay attention and work to serve your customers better . . .

How you can make more money by respecting customers’ complaints and inquiries

Here is a story of how a business can benefit by listening to the customers – and this is literally a million dollar story. At a coffee shop, many patrons wanted cold coffee drinks rather than hot espresso during the warm season. Rather than telling them such item is not on the menu, the shop keeper experimented with chilled espresso with milk, etc., and invented a new drink. He contacted the headquarter of the chain, and they liked it, added it to the menu, and now it makes tons of money: Frappuccino at Starbucks. (I heard this story at a teleclass that featured Howard Behar of Starbucks, who wrote It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks)

To illustrate the case further, let me share something I experienced. A client for my Akashic Record Reading service asked if he could have a written summary of the phone session he had with me. That was back when I just started taking clients, and I was still working on the details of the package I offer. His inquiry made complete sense because I cover a lot of things in the phone session. I didn’t know other psychics who offer written report but I thought I might want to do it.

So I added the written report as an option, with a small surcharge. I wasn’t sure if many people would want it, however, because after all, they can take notes during the phone session themselves. (And to make sure prospective clients know there will be a lot of things to be discussed, I added a few line on the website advising them to be prepared to take notes if that is the way they want to handle.)

To this day, more than 80% of clients order the written report. Wow. It seems busy people really like it because it lets them review the phone session quickly. It also attracts customers who don’t speak English so well – With written report, they can take the time they need to understand my findings.

Action plans

Just a few examples of actions you might want to take for your business:

1. If you have online business, is there a well organized FAQ page? Is it clearly visible on the landing page?
2. If you offer eBook or other written materials, and customers ask the same questions over and over about certain part of the book, is it time for you to revise it?
3. If your customers ask for something that is currently not on your menu or line of service, can you add it?

Have you been frustrated with customer inquiries or complaints? How do you deal with them? Do you have more suggestions for the action plan?

Gratitude And Abundance – Online Gratitude Journal #10

(Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

This post will be short – Oregon is having another heat wave, and my little portable air conditioner can’t handle it well. It hit the breaker twice last night, and I figure that, with the PC running, I have to temporarily turn off the air when I go bathroom . . . (. . . you guessed right. I ended up in dark bathroom twice last night.)

My Law of Attraction Dream Money Project, Week 9

A little review of this Dream Money Project. It was inspired by the project Millionaire Mommy Jen was doing at her blog. Her project consists of three parts:

Part One: Abundant Life Spending Spree
Part Two: Supportive Action
Part Three: Gratitude Journal

When I started mine, I already had this Gratitude Friday series, so Part Three was a done deal. And as a new entrepreneur, I expected the money to come through my business, and so I haven’t been writing about my actions specifically . . .

“Expected”? Well, at this point, I have a new thought. Of course, my business is still the source of my income. But I’m starting to think abundance can come in other ways also.

Work is about service. And there are many, many ways abundance (including money) can come along.

Check out Cath Lawson’s comment for my last week’s post – a nice new Prius is on her way. (It’s for her husband and for his work, but I doubt if he worked specifically for Prius.) I’ve got some surprise present, too. (Yeah, yeah, I’ll think of ways to scale up . . . but I really love lavender.)

It doesn’t mean action, and effort behind it, is unnecessary. It’s just – there is a bigger power involved. And it can deliver abundance through numerous, often surprising ways. Crazy idea? Hmm, I’m willing to hold it dear to see how it works . . .

So this is how I want to use my dream money for this week, $25,600

Down payment for my new townhouse. Or I can do creative financing, like taking over the existing mortgage, in which case I don’t even need this much of money! Hey, I just noticed how easy it can be!!

At this time in my life, I think I like townhouse better than a single family home – let someone else do the yard and maintenance work! Two bedroom with den (one bedroom will be my office), attached two car garage. With central heat and air, of course. I want nice modern kitchen, with granite countertop, track lighting, and hardwood flooring. A nice view from the living room will be good – a big river or lake. I love the area I live now, so somewhere close, in a nice quiet neighborhood.

I’m grateful for my imagination. Jen says this is the key to abundance. Let’s review what my imagination has brought me in this project:
Week 1, $100 A drive to the coast (Done!)
Week 2, $200 iPod nano and music download
Week 3, $400 Strawberries and gorgeous lingerie (I’ve got myself strawberries . . .)
Week 4, $800 Donation to good cause
Week 5, $1,600 Antique furniture (tansu chest)
Week 6, $3,200 Trip to Italy and Spain
Week 7, $6,400 Arts I like
Week 8, $12,800 Trading up to Prius

Today I’m grateful for the Oregon Rain soap I got for myself. It’s made of real rain water. We in Oregon love rain. I didn’t understand this when I first came here last fall because it rains every day from November to well into spring. But now it’s hot and we haven’t had rain for more than a week, we crave for rain! The flavor of my soap is Energizing Peppermint, but they even make flavor called Rain. Think about the smell of rain . . .

Further reading: I know I’ve already sent two link loves to Jen, but she just posted a brilliant article on the relationship of abundance and personal attitude, and how to stay in high vibration with gratitude.

Paving The Way For Online Entrepreneurs: Darren Rowse

(Photo by leefotos)

Today’s guest for the Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs series needs no introduction to bloggers and online entrepreneurs. Darren Rowse, the ProBlogger, has been offering advise to bloggers for years. Check how a true geek (of course this is a compliment) developed his business in an organic way.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

Over the last 6 years I’ve taken blogging from something that was purely a hobby into something that is now quite a large business.

I run two personal blogs (ProBlogger.net and Digital-Photography-School.com), have written a book on blogging (probloggerbook.com) and co-founded a blog network by the name of b5media (b5media.com).

As I said above – blogging started out as a hobby for me and it was something that gradually grew into a part time job and then a full time business (and beyond). I didn’t set out to make money from blogging – in many ways it just happened.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

There have been many challenges along the way but here are the first three that come to mind:

First of all – as I didn’t set out to do anything entrepreneurial (it was very much an accidental thing) I guess the first challenge for me was simply to recognize the opportunity to take what I was doing as a hobby into something beyond that.

Secondly I found (and still find) it challenging to work out the business side of things. My first love with my business is that I’m a communicator, I’m a creative thinker and I’m a bit of a dreamer. These things certainly help to grow a business but to take it to the next level you also need to be an administrator, strategic thinker and good negotiator. I’m learning these skills but they don’t come naturally for me.

Thirdly, I work in a ‘virtual’ world where I rarely get to meet face to face with most of the people that I work closely with. At b5media it took over a year after starting our business for us to meet as founders as we were living in different parts of the world. Communication, team building, strategic planning etc are all difficult when you’re in different time zones and far away from one another.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

A lot of it comes down to persistence. Over time I managed to see the opportunity with blogging the more that I did it – as I’ve forced myself to do the things I don’t necessarily have experience in I’ve learned new skills and in time we’ve managed to work out systems and define roles at b5 that don’t need face to face interaction.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

There’s a real freedom in working for yourself and setting the course for your own work. I love this aspect of what I do.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

Three things:

1. Find something that you’d happily do for free and invest into that. That way if it doesn’t turn out at least you’ve been doing something that is meaningful to you.
2. Stick at it and work hard. I’m yet to meet a successful entrepreneur who had everything fall into their lap.
3. Baby steps first – I know some people are wildly successful by giving up everything else to build up a new business but I found that having a backup plan (I worked other jobs while starting out) and other things to fall back on enabled me to take my time and build something of quality over time. Don’t throw everything away when you start out – but build upon what you already have and let it grow naturally.

My takeaway
As a business owner whose clients come mostly through the internet, I just can’t thank enough for the advance of technology – a totally technologically challenged person like myself can have multiple websites and take clients worldwide! Amazing, and quite unimaginable just 15 or even 10 years ago.

The ability to recognize the opportunities is critical. I’m guessing so many people just sleep on their gold mine. As some other interview guests have indicated (like Jason and Laura), realizing your gift and taking it seriously takes courage. Seeing the problems as business opportunities takes proactive thinking. I think Darren’s case is yet another proof for this!

I also want to point out — if you haven’t read the About page of ProBlogger, go check it out. He is spiritual. I’m sure this has been his source of power.

Thank you, Darren.

« Previous Page — Next Page »