When you provide a product or a service, consumers have come to expect you to know something about them and their interests. They expect customized messages designed just for them. They expect on-time delivery, real-time response, and all-time great performance. In short, they want what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. They don’t want to wait for it, and they expect you to deliver on what you have promised.

If the service you’re delivering is delivery itself – that is, shipping and delivery of personal, business or household items such as, furniture, artwork, antiques, computers or just packed boxes – providing great customer service is essential to achieving happiness for both the shipper and the customer. The following are three simple tips gathered from customer feedback that help to define customer expectations.

Educate

Most consumers will use a shipping service or company infrequently so they are unfamiliar with the options or costs. They might be shipping a recently purchased antique or passing family heirloom on to the next generation.

It is important that this customer have phone and electronic access to an experienced staff that can guide them through the pluses and minuses of shipping such a fragile or personal item. For example, the customer service specialist on the other side should be able to advise consumers on how to pack an item, insurance requirements, the availability of inside pickup and delivery, and a myriad of other details that may not have occurred to the consumer.

Creating a FAQ page on your site is also a great resource for consumers and businesses before they ship a product.

Communicate

Customer service at any company needs to always establish correct rates and regulations when communicating with the public. Most shipping companies, for example, base their rates and charges on minimum weights, from 1,000 to 2,500 lbs. On the other hand, long distance small move specialists can have a minimum as low as 100 lbs. The consumer wouldn’t know the difference and end up paying more if customer service isn’t there to help her.

Having an open line of communication between any company and consumer is extremely important for retention and positive reviews.

Follow Through

A customer’s request is not complete until his/her package is actually delivered, undamaged, on time and at the price quoted. Follow up with the customer to make sure everything went as planned. That, too, is part of the service a shipping/moving specialist provides.

Get to the root cause of any problem that is encountered, and fix the problem, not just the cause. Finally, be sure to treat every new customer as if they were going to be a customer for life.

About the Author:

This is a guest post from Kevin Hagan, the Marketing Manager at Transit Systems, Inc. (TSI). TSI is one of the top nationwide shipping companies and specializes in small moves and furniture shipping. For more information, follow us on Twitter @TransitSystems.

Unbeknownst to you, this is a classic research experiment by researchers at Columbia and Stanford (read original research here (PDF)) to determine how the number and complexity of choices we give to customers affects their purchasing behavior.

At a grocery store they set up a free sample table.

On the table they had a display of 24 jars of jam. They tracked how many people visited the table. They gave those folks a coupon for a discount off the purchase of the jam. Then they tracked how many people went on to purchase the jam.

They then repeated the experiment with a table of 6 jars of jam. Again tracking the numbers of people at each stage.

Which table do you think attracted the most visitors? It was the table with twenty four jars of jam.

That begs the question, which table lead to the most sales?

The table with six jars of jam.

In fact, the people that visited table with six jars of jam were ten times more likely to purchase than those that visited the table with twenty four jars of jam, even though both had been equally encouraged to make the purchase through a discount incentive.

The people that visited the table with twenty four jars of jam were just so overwhelmed with the number of choices that they simply walked away without making a purchase decision.

Likewise, your customers are overwhelmed by the amount of choices you are giving to them. How many of your customers are simply giving up and walking away?

Try experimenting with the number of options you give to customers at any one time. Reduce the number of choices and you’ll help more people arrive at the point of sale.

Even those who do not feel nervous can make crucial mistakes. Read through the following tips on how to improve your presentation skills. Put them into practice, and you’ll start to feel more comfortable, leading to increased success in selling.

Make Eye Contact

Eye contact is crucial. Do not look at any one person for too long, or you may cause them to feel uncomfortable. At the same time, make sure that you look at them for a short amount of time so that they feel a connection to you. Start at one side of the audience and scan your eyes across the group.

Speak With Emotion

No one likes to listen to a presentation given by a monotonous speaker. Work on speaking with emotion and changing your tone depending on the subject matter. This also shows that you care about the topic.

Involve The Audience

You need to keep the audience engaged so that they listen. One way to do this is to involve them by asking questions or having them participate. This will help them to get more out of the things that you are saying.

Make People Laugh

People always like to laugh. You may want to open with a joke and then tell a few more as the presentation continues. This will help keep people’s attention and it will make your entire presentation more enjoyable, regardless of the subject matter.

Use Props and Visual Aids

Another way to keep people’s attention is to use interesting visual aids. This also helps people to grasp what you are really saying with each point. Remember that some people learn more when they are able to see something than when they are simply told about it.

Simplify Everything

Do not make things overly complicated. For this, you have to consider your audience. Things that seem simple to you may be complicated to them if they are not coming into contact with these things every day.

Have A Strong Conclusion

The conclusion is what people will remember the most when they leave. You should sum up all of your main points. If you have a strong conclusion, you can be sure that they will come away from the presentation with new knowledge.

If you work on these specific presentation skills, you will quickly become better at talking in front of groups and will increase your sales. People will find you memorable and engaging. They will be interested in what you have to say and they will be willing to talk with you more about what you are selling after your presentation. Even if you are already doing a good job giving presentations, this does not mean that there is no room for improvement. You should always be working on your presentation skills so that you can have even more success.

About the Author
Written by Amy Henderson, a career and business blogger currently writing articles on presentation skills and leadership on behalf of QA.

Take the example of a grocery store. They are a business and want to be profitable.

Our local grocery store doesn’t want to pay for plastic bags. Sure, this is couched in an Earth-friendly message. However, in addition to saving the planet, the grocery store saves money when you bring your own bags.

So how can they get customers to bring their own shopping bags? Use incentives.

Our store gives customers a five cent refund for each reusable shopping bag they use to bag your groceries. You save. The store saves. The planet is happy.

When you positively reinforce the behavior that you want your customers to do, they will start to act how you would like.

What would you like your customers to do? How can you gently push them in the right direction?

What sets these social media platforms apart from other marketing methods is that they provide a space for a two way conversation between customer and product. Print and broadcast are completely one directional, permitting the conversation to only be from the product to the consumer.

With social media, consumers can reach out to the product marketers and voice their opinions. Of course, this can be a beneficial thing and a destructive thing. Open communication between business and customer allows for a more personal relationship to be forged. However, in an open communication forum, businesses must also be prepared for potentially negative criticism of a product or company. The first step in managing negative feedback in the social media world is being able to distinguish what type of feedback you’re receiving.

Genuine Problems

Sometimes the negative remarks made about your company, product, or service on social media are useful. Obviously, negative remarks are a problem, but if someone has laid out a genuine problem and explained the problem evenly and coolly, you are able to respond for the better.

This type of remark is negative in that it says something negative about your business. However, you can use this opportunity to respond to their problem and try to solve it. Other consumers will see your genuine concern with your customer’s problem and will admire that. Negative feedback like this exposes real issues that need to be addressed.

Warranted Attack

This type of negative feedback can be some of the most difficult to manage. These attacks are tricky because they are usually more enraged or upset than they need to be, but they are also typically warranted. The attack itself may be overkill or unnecessary, but the complaint is typically founded on genuine grounds.

The issues that are at the foundation of these types of attacks are things that need to be addressed by the company. In this way, these criticisms can be constructive. However, comments that are angry and loud have to be dealt with carefully.

Reputation is an important aspect of managing a business in today’s society (especially with social media). Respond to these comments reasonably and quickly. Try to address the real problem at hand without displaying any emotion.

Spam/Trolling

These are the least productive and most obnoxious types of feedback companies get through their social media marketing campaign. The difference between troll posts and warranted attacks is that trolls have no reasonable or valid reason for being upset.

For the most part, these types of posts won’t cause too much of an issue because most readers will recognize it as a false claim. However, it is important that you address trolls or spammers. Try to bury the post or establish that it has no grounds, but do not pay it too much attention. You don’t want to fuel the fire.

About the Author:
This is a guest post from Jacelyn Thomas. Jacelyn writes about identity theft prevention for IdentityTheft.net. She can be reached at: jacelyn.thomas @ gmail.com.

One conference had the most comfortable chairs I’ve ever sat in. Typically, conference rooms have hard and uncomfortable chairs. Even though attendees must sit for hours on end, few facilities make that a pleasant experience.

Another conference I attended made special arrangements to have good wireless Internet. By the organizer’s own admission, they didn’t want the wifi to be horrible like most other conferences. This conference understood what attendees needed and wanted: really good Internet access.

In both these examples, the attendees’ expectations are typically low. However, because these two conferences made sure they took care of the details, it was a pleasant surprise for this attendee and made the overall experience that much better.

Your competition and industry peers are currently delivering poor experiences to their customers. They do it because that is how things have always been done.

In fact, you probably deliver similar sub-par experiences to your customers. What can you change to improve your customer’s experience?

Look for something that your customers always complain about. These complaints may even come in the form of jokes. The best jokes typically resonate with people because there is an element of truth in them. If your customers are joking about your product’s shortcomings, don’t laugh. You need to fix the problem.

When you do something poorly, it makes it easier for competition to come in and amaze the customer. Those that provide a better experience can easily come in and steal away your customers from under your nose.

Don’t let this happen to you. You need to differentiate your offerings to customers so that they notice the positive differences between you and the competition.

You want to stand out from the crowd because of your attention to detail.

Look for things you can improve. Eliminate those nagging annoyances your customers face everyday and they will notice.

In the past, I’ve noticed that all the outward paintings on airplanes are so that people outside the plane can tell who is flying.

Southwest Airlines has colorful planes painted like the flags of their destinations or even a large Shamu killer whale plane.

Frontier Airlines has wildlife pictures on their planes’ tail fins.

Each of these decorations serve as visual reminders to those that see the planes.

However, on a recent American Airlines flight to Boston, I opened my shade to glance out the window. On the wing tip was a prominently lettered display: “AA.com” that was facing the passenger cabin.

The letters were too small and facing the wrong direction for those on the ground to see them.

These letters were put on the wing tip specifically for the passengers to see. They offered a subtle reminder of where you can go to buy your next tickets.

It seems that advertising is permeating and omnipresent. However, this ad was relevant and unavoidable. Clever and subtle.

Businesses that conduct most of their transactions in the field are the ones most likely to benefit from mobile payments. Companies such as landscapers and plumbers can use mobile processing to take customer payments when service is rendered as opposed to waiting for their customers to respond to mailed invoices.

Customer’s Perception

Another advantage to accepting payments by phone is the impact it has on the customer’s view of your business. Customers today are more likely to deal with a business that is ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. Not only is it more convenient to do business with a company like that but it is more likely that business will survive in the future if it is able to adapt to changing technology.

A business that accepts credit cards also comes off as more trustworthy to new customers than a business that insists its clients only pay in cash. This is mainly due to the fact that purchasing with credit allows a customer to dispute the charge if a problem arises.

Larger Purchases

Small companies that conduct business at events like craft fairs and farmer’s markets can really benefit from mobile payments. Research has shown that customers tend to spend more at a retailer when they are able to use a credit card. This makes it possible for a business to increase their sales without paying extra for marketing.

Many companies have found that they are able to sell larger and more expensive merchandise than what they were able to sell before accepting credit cards. Since many people do not like to carry a lot of cash in public places, businesses that operated in these areas were often stuck with small transactions. Once a business can accept credit cards, however, customers feel more comfortable spending a larger amount of money.

Branding

A final way that accepting mobile phone transactions can help your business deals with the marketing of your brand’s image. Many apps that businesses use to set up their payments, also include options where a business can advertise special sales and items via mobile phones to its customers. It provides just another way for a business to reach it’s customers and ensure that connection is maintained.

Accepting credit cards is a great way for a business to distinguish themselves, and the ability to process customer payments quickly and securely will ensure that customers have an enjoyable experience dealing with the business. This experience becomes a powerful marketing tool for any business as it will keep the customer coming back and will make them likely to refer the business to other customers. This will keep a business thriving well into the future.

About the Author
Jacob Thompson is a writer for Merchant Seek, a Savannah, Ga. based company that offers payment processing advice to small businesses.

During the course of the day, I mentioned several products that the speakers were discussing.

I had no experience with these products nor did I necessarily need their services at the time.

Two companies followed up with me based on my tweets. They offer prime examples of how to follow up with your customers and prospects when they mention you on twitter.

Bad Example of Responding on Twitter

The first company didn’t reply to my tweet through twitter. They hunted me down, emailed me at both my personal and work email addresses. They followed that up with a sales person calling me at work to discuss their product.

I was completely turned off by this immediate attack by their sales force. I had not said anything about buying or wanting their product. Nevertheless, I was immediately in the cross hairs of their regional sales person.

This company failed because they didn’t respond on twitter. They used twitter to mine for sales leads and then released the hounds.

Good Example of Responding on Twitter

Contrast this first experience with my interactions with the good folks at ClueApp.com. I mentioned them too. How did I hear back from them? They responded to my tweet with a tweet of their own.

This is exactly the type of response that is expected on twitter.

Their response was casual and friendly:

I responded and we had a brief conversation — all through twitter:

There was no pushy sales person. No intrusive prying into all my Internet footprints to track me down and thrust a sales person upon me.

No, the folks at clueapp.com engaged in conversation through the very medium where I originally mentioned them.

I left that brief exchange with a very positive impression of the company and product even though I haven’t even tried the service yet.

When your customers mention you on twitter, you must respond as is typical with the medium: just respond to their tweet.

Take the conversation offline if you need to get more details or solve an immediate problem. However, only go offline if the customer agrees to it. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself in the creepy situation I had with the first company.

As more customer acquisition and retention moves to digital channels, it’s important to take care to nurture customers digitally, just as you would in person.

A good place to start is with your email campaigns. A welcome message improves customer experience and can lead to better response rates, more referrals and higher customer retention. No wonder nearly two-thirds of businesses employ a welcome message, according to MarketingSherpa’s 2012 email marketing benchmark report.

An effective welcome message can do many things. Here are 3 that you can incorporate today to improve your email program.

1. Set Expectations

Ever had that experience where you start getting marketing emails from a company out of the blue?

You may or may not remember signing up for them in the first place, and you sure didn’t expect them to start arriving now and with this kind of content. Even if the content is decent, it’s unexpected, which often translates to unwelcome.

A welcome message can properly set customer expectations by explaining:

• What customers will receive from you by email.
• How often they can expect to hear from you.
• Who your emails will come from (name/address) and what they will look like.

2. Answer Common Questions

How often do you find yourself answering the same questions, especially to newer customers?

These touchpoints are great for building your authority and earning the trust of your customers, so why limit yourself to having them only with customers who come forward and overtly ask those questions?

A welcome message can answer FAQs in a proactive manner, while encouraging customers whose questions remain unanswered to contact you (you are easy to contact, right?).

3. Reward Your Customers With a Bonus

Your first email to new subscribers sets the tone for the experience they’re going to have with the rest of the emails you send them.

If you send a message that provides value and makes subscribers happy, they’ll be more likely to read and take action on your other messages.

Setting expectations and answering questions are a great foundation for making subscribers happy, but adding a little something extra can really lock in a solid first experience with your email program.

This bonus could take many forms. Two common ones are:

• Discount or coupon codes to be used on their next purchase.
• A free report, whitepaper or other content they will find useful.

How Do You Roll Out The Welcome Mat?

What do you send to customers when they join your email list?

I’d love to hear your ideas and results. Please share them in the comments.

About The Author
As Director of Education Marketing for AWeber, the leading provider of small business email marketing tools, Justin Premick teaches businesses how to build profitable customer relationships. Visit the AWeber blog for more of Justin’s email marketing tips.