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| | The Minding Your Own Business Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | Views: 1559 | | Feb 11, 2007 10:17 pm | | Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Denise O'Berry | | Small businesses traditionally need more sales and customer support than large companies.
What are some examples of vendors who do this well and what are your thoughts on how it can be done better?
Best regards,
Denise O'Berry
MYOB Network LeaderPrivate Reply to Denise O'Berry | | Feb 11, 2007 10:53 pm | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Reg Charie | | Denise, I use email and instant messenger to support my sites.
I find IM works very well. N0t 24x7 but about 16x7 service.
RegPrivate Reply to Reg Charie | | Feb 11, 2007 11:14 pm | | Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Rod Newbound | | With more than 30 years experience working with small businesses, I think their number one need is to have a clear way of measuring the results of their marketing efforts. And, a secondary need that is just as important is the need to understand the true lifetime value of their clients. The clear follow up to that is having an effective system to make their clients feel special and appreciated.
After years of listening to my clients tell me they had no idea if they were getting any return for their marketing dollars, I decided to create a company that addresses this problem head on.
Soon after creating my company, I realized most business people don't have any idea of the potential lifetime value of a customer. If they have a customer list at all, they frequently can't tell me who comprises the top 20%. And in most cases they don't even collect something as simple as the birthday.
Dan Kennedy quotes a marketing survey that shows 68% of the reason why customers leave is based on perceived indifference by the merchant. That's sad.
Consequently, they wind up spending their marketing dollars to attract more and more new customers.
I take a 3 pronged approach with my clients to educate them and provide systems to deal with these problems using:
* Direct response advertising
* Education about the lifetime value of a customer and how to improve it geometrically.
* Applying a client relationship building system that makes their clients fall in love with them & turns them into referral evangelists
Hope this is of some value to you.
Rod Newbound
Direct Marketing ConsultantPrivate Reply to Rod Newbound | | Feb 11, 2007 11:36 pm | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Carol Deckert | | Hi Denise,
The most obvious answer that comes to mind for me is to utilize the services of a good Virtual Assistant. Make sure the VA fits with your personality and business style and the VA can take care of all those marketing tasks that do not require the owner to personally take care of, but at the same time, are critical to growing the business. For customer service, a VA can help with consistent, clear followup, email responses, newsletters, and a myriad of other things.
I hope this is the type of info you are looking for.
All the best,
Carol Deckert
Virtual Marketing Assistant
caroldeckert@comcast.net
http://www.linkedin.com/in/caroldeckert
Private Reply to Carol Deckert | | Feb 12, 2007 1:22 am | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Marilyn Wetston | | Hi Denise,
It is essential for a small business to have a data base that is conducive to maintaining a line of communication with its clients.Follow up and friendly greetings are then simple and grow repeat business.
Nothing can replace a staff that is client oriented and maintains a line of personal communication with your client base.
A business philosophy of good value and great service will always help you survive and grow.
I practise this in my business and it has helped me develop a clientelle that is loyal and supportive.
I hope this helps you.
Enjoy your conference
Marilyn Wetston Private Reply to Marilyn Wetston | | Feb 12, 2007 1:50 am | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Gloria Tsang | | As a small growing business, I personally think that live customer support (telephone, chat or forum) is the most important element when we look for vendors. I stay away from vendors who require us to purchase a premium support package, put us on hold forever before taking a support call and moments after telling us that they need to escalate the ticket.
So far with all the vendors we work with, we are happy with QuickBooks, Liquid Web and Shaw.
Gloria
HealthCastle Nutrition Private Reply to Gloria Tsang | | Feb 13, 2007 1:49 am | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Irene Souder-Coyle | | Hello Everyone,
As a Virtual Assistant who has completed training in supporting Real Estate Agents, one of the suggested readings was Gary Keller's The Millionaire Real Estate Agent. In the book, he emphasizes the need for effective administrative help as one of the necessary elements for success. This applies to businesses in general. A sharp assistant brings systems and tools into the relationship and frees the business owner to work on his or her business - not in it. Sales and customer support can encompass various areas. One example is maintaining a contact data base. Another is managing e-mail drip campaigns. Keeping appointments straight is another. How about producing web commercials and post cards? There are companies that will send customers greeting cards complete with personal signatures. An assistant can compile the list and forward it to the card company. The list goes on and on. Outsourcing work for as little as two hours a day can net the small business owner three months a year to grow his or her business. Not a bad trade-off.
Hope this helps.
Irene Private Reply to Irene Souder-Coyle | | Feb 13, 2007 4:09 am | | re: re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Fred Keller | | Gotta weigh in here....there is absolutely nothing to replace personal contact.
All these new fangled contact VA's can be a real pain for the recipient...er your customer.
Anyone getting enough emails every day? Try to find the legit among the 100 Spam sitting in the Inbox every morning? When is there time to get work done.
Now comes the morning snailmail along with a forever long line of machine produced pseudo-personal cards.
==============
Sorry - One must treasure one's clients.
Work out a system where 80% of your time is spent with those producing 80% 0f your business...and you'll do very well.
Put another rep on the road to nurture the 80% who produce 20% of your current business. Teamwork is what it's all about.
But don't plague me with more ...er Spam? or maybe
I'll be more comfortable dealing with the competitor. OOOPs.
Cheers!
PS:>>Follow Your>>: http://passion.first411.comPrivate Reply to Fred Keller | | Feb 13, 2007 5:17 am | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Doug Hudiburg | | I actually don't think small businesses need more sales support or customer support than large businesses. This is one of the reasons this market should be attractive to large businesses.
The sales cycle for selling something like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software into a large corporation can take up to 2 years and requires a LOT of hand-holding and personal visits.
On the other hand, a small business owner will have just a few questions and will need a low-risk way of trying the product out. It can be handled without a personal sales visit, no powerpoint presentations, no committe reviews, etc.
But, small businesses need support in other ways. Most importantly, they need to know "WHY."
What I mean is, most large businesses are used to selling to other large businesses who already know what they need, they are just trying to find the best solution. On the other hand, many small businesses might not even know WHY they should be interested.
So the support needed, is often one of education. If you want to sell (using my previous example) a CRM application to a small business, you need to first educate that small business on the concept of CRM software.
Eliminate the buzz words, and invest resources in educational marketing. Show customers the WHY and then you are providing the kind of support they need.
Here's a good example. SalesForce.com has a very innovative , powerful, and affordable CRM solution. It can be an incredibly profitable investment for small businesses, but here are the educational webinars they offer:
* Does Your Sales Team Have the Right Information for High Impact Calls?
* Secrets of Successful CRM Practitioners
* Five Steps to Improving the Customer Self-Service Experience
* What's In Store for On-Demand Customer Service and Support?
Huh?
Does that interest anyone here?
How about a webinar on "how to double your sales without doubling your customers" or "how technology can help you store and access all of the information about your prospects and customers in one place" or "how a Customer Relationship Management application can save you time and give you your weekends back"
SF.com could easily design a product for small business given their technology and expertise, but their current approach won't get then anywhere with small business (I don't know if they are interested in the market, but it is a good example anyway).
I wish I had a positive example, but I honestly can't think of one now.Private Reply to Doug Hudiburg | | Feb 14, 2007 7:41 pm | | re: Sales and Customer Support for Small Business | # | 
Kurt Schweitzer | | I also don't believe that small businesses need more customer support than large businesses.
I once worked for a company that manufactured process control equipment. At one point we had five or six projects in house simultaneously for SoCal, a large oil company.
SoCal hired one person full-time simply to monitor our projects and ask questions like "You charged us for this on Project A, but not on Project B. Why didn't you give it to us for free on Project A?"
Talk about a big company needing lots of customer support!
I think the real issue is scalability. (This, by the way, is the reason that the government doesn't adequately support small business.)
Suppose a company prices its products so that it makes a 15% profit. Which do you think is easier - a single $50,000 sale, or ten $5,000 sales? Both yield the same profit in dollar terms, but the single, big sale requires less effort.
Small businesses don't have the resources (or the need) to make many $50,000 purchases, so the large companies see them as too much effort to persue. Instead they go after the "low hanging fruit" - selling to other big businesses.
Besides, most small business owners are tightwads. After all, you're more sensitive about spending when it comes directly out of your own pocket!
Kurt Schweitzer
Urban Village ScootersPrivate Reply to Kurt Schweitzer | | |
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