Just a couple of days ago I wrote about the customer service you provide in your business as being an investment and we mentioned a Freshbooks blog from way back. While thinking further about this issue, I was clicking around and found an article in a newspaper that referenced… Freshbooks and their take on customer service.
So, since it’s so closely related to what I was just talking about a couple of days ago, I just had to share this article, too. Find it at The Globe and Mail. The article is written by Mark Evans, a consultant who uses content and social media to help businesses get more attention.
Evans writes that customer service is not just about correcting bad things from happening but also about building and leveraging a positive experience. For example, he mentions connecting with the customer to touch base with them and to show them that you value the relationship. And here’s how Freshbooks plays into the subject: Evans quotes Mike McDerment, CEO of Freshbooks, who says that a happy customer provides referrals. Although I might have disagreed with this a few years ago, I think that today’s socially connected world makes that true now. Just look at what interactions are like on Twitter: One person might tweet “boo! Invoicing day. My least favorite day of the month.” And someone else might respond with “Try Freshbooks. I like them.” A simple referral from a happy customer can go a long way.
And just when I thought I was wrapping up the topic, there was a link at the bottom of the article to a blog by Ben Yoskovitz. Yoskovitz is an entrepreneur with an impressive background and lots of interesting things to say and in his blog post , he reviewed the book BAM: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World. His review/summary is incredibly helpful as he lists 9 points from the book that every entrepreneur should pay attention to. Number 1: Tie customer service to revenue and profits. Brilliant! Number 5: Tie customer service to surprise. There are others but those were my two favorites. Read this blog , change your customer service, and transform your customer’s experience!
Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ
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twitter Posted in: Just Blogging
We want to help make your bookkeeping EZ because ultimately we want to help you run profitable businesses.
So, from time to time, we like to suggest some free tools or information that might help you run your business while keeping your expenses down. Here are some of our favorites right now:
- For the Twitter User: HootSuite and TweetDeck. HootSuite lets you tweet, schedule your tweets, manage multiple accounts, track your statistics, and more. Tweetdeck lets you tweet from your desktop (without having to sign in) and to sort and monitor tweets in different ways. Both of these can help you use Twitter more effectively as a business marketing tool.
- CRM: There are many CRM systems out there; a lot of them cost money to use but Zoho has a CRM system that you can use for free. (Actually Zoho has a lot of tools that you can use for free).
- Consolidated IM: There are so many chat apps out there (Yahoo, Gchat, MSN, AOL; need I go on?) and some people who are on all of them need to sign in and keep them all updated. Fortunately, Meebo is a central location that allows you to monitor them all in the same place. You can even set up private or public chat rooms. Very helpful!
Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ
Tags: accounting,
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free tools,
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zoho Posted in: Just Blogging
Twitter is a great way to improve customer service in your organization without spending a lot of money.
This article, published in the Ottawa Citizen, a newspaper from Canada’s federal capitol, describes a number of ways that companies are using Twitter to improve customer service. Read the article here.
Essentially, businesses are using Twitter as a customer service tool in two ways: As a proactive tool to keep customers up to date on the business and as a reactive tool to watch for negative feedback and address it immediately.
It can be tempting to use Twitter just as a marketing tool – which IS a great way to use it, but not the only way. You should also use Twitter as a customer service tool to proactively talk about what customers can expect and how corporate or economic changes will impact your business and ultimately how it will impact them. Running low on Red Dye #40? Is your shipment of thneeds delayed because a lack of raw material? (By the way: big props to the first person who can write in the comments and tell me exactly what raw material a thneed is made out of). Think about how you can incorporate at least 3 or 4 customer service tweets per day.
- Describe how people can get more out of your products.
- Keep people up to date on inventory
- Tell people about upcoming sales
- Proactively discuss and mitigate any problems or challenges people have with your product
And, you won’t keep everyone happy. Inevitably, someone will not like something you do and just might tweet about it. You can stay on top of that and respond appropriately. (Hint: “Appropriate” is not a barrage of flaming tweets). To stay on top of it, use a program like TweetDeck (which is a desktop-based Twitter tool) and maintain an ongoing search for mentions of your company or products (you should be doing this anyway, but watching it closely to monitor for customer service issues should be an important part of that process).
Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ
