How to meet the new business challenge – Quickly Increasing Conversions and Sales Creating a successful online business can only be accomplished by ... (13) How to Pick new Income Opportunities from the Internet New forms of income opportunities are added daily & you ... (13) Global Marketing Tactics Addressing Universal Needs of Customers
Online marketing tactics create a thriving business with heavy traffic, ... (8) Advanced Marketing Tactics that are Proven Successful
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January 17th, 2012 
admin VPS hosting
VPS hosting is the type of bridge between shared and dedicated web hosting. It is the useful web hosting for businesses that require various web server resources.
January 10th, 2012 admin Develop & pursue your passion for a career and bury worry & anxiety.
Pursuing a life-long passion will help you to reinvent yourself. Stop the race against time pass.
It is never too late to pursue a new career.
Hunt and gather information: Start with a thorough investigation into any career in a new industry. Look for gaps between who you are and who you want to be, where you’ve been and where you are going, and start action to fill these gaps to find your real self in real world, even if you have to walk away from some thing you like in real or virtual world.
Many students who spend lot of time online have problems discovering their true self in the real world. That problem is accentuated if you do not a well defined professional career.
Try to network with people in your field of your interest. Surround yourself with people who are supportive and can help you acquire new skills & contacts.
Now that you’re back on the rails of journey to a new career, go beyond it: Attend local workshops and industry-related events.
Be willing to change: Edit your Facebook, Twitter and social networking pages to reflect who you want to be.
A willingness to change is a key factor in successfully reinventing yourself through your career. Without a clear direction and willingness to change you feel buried in a life style you are unable to relate to.
It’s never too late in life to do what you want to do … pursue a dream, and aim to be a leader in the profession driven by passion.
January 9th, 2012 admin Relationships of all kinds are often perceived as very delicate things, that require extra effort to maintain. However, a relationship can also be something that can provide security and can also be long lasting despite many trials.
Building an effective and lasting relationships is a necessity for several reasons. For example in a group or organization, the well being of the people depends on how efficient and effective that group or organization works.
The group or organization is also dependent on how the members work well with the management.
An ineffective group or organization can really be very frustrating. An effective group or organization can also ask so much on their members, that sometimes the members would be having no life outside the walls of the area where they work or sacrifice the other aspects of their life just to meet deadlines. For an organization or group with this kind of scenario, relationships can be stressed or suffer from breakdown.
People or other entities who depend on these groups or organization also suffer.
Society is defined as a web of relationships, which requires all parties to work and contribute their share in order to achieve a common goal. Having a relationship that is good, where cooperation and respect are manifested, can make society work better. In this way each member works for the good of the whole and towards achieving a common goal. This can only be attained with effective and efficient relationships.
Understanding the other parties’ feeling and position creates an effective and efficient relationship. The easiest method to understand what is important to another party is to ask them what they want and listen to what they have to say. When the other party realizes this, they would feel the importance given to them
Effective and efficient relationships require parties to openly express their feelings and positions on all matters pertinent on the relationship. Assuming that the other party understands our needs and give us when we need it without asking for it is not a good practice.
Respect is the key to relationship. In order to create a more effective relationship, parties should treat each other with respect. We can show respect just by listening to the other party and by trying sincerely to understand how they function. You can also show respect to other parties by confirming that they are doing everything they can.
The opposite of respect is quick forming of judgements based on unfounded facts and prejudice.
Respect is the very foundation for a great relationship. This also means respecting yourself and respecting others.
Another key area in forming an effective relationship is to tackle differences of the other party directly. Differences between parties or people are quite interesting. For example in a conversation where each party listens to the other party, you may observe that each is having two different perspectives.
Work towards a win-win solution for both parties.
This can be done when at least one party acknowledges that the relationship is important. That party would then exert more time, effort and energy to understand the other party’s needs and deal with it to get it out of the way. Should they fail, it is comforting for that party to know that they tried.
Effectively listening and no pre-judging. This is important if parties are to understand each other.
Informal discussions are conducive for parties. They bring out issues and concerns comfortably. They also feel more relaxed making them think more clearly.
Developing an atmosphere where the other party can express their feelings when they need to.
When parties fail to express whatever is on their mind or their feelings, it can get in the way of building an effective relationship.
Parties should be aware that certain things exist naturally but should be controlled in any dealings in any relationship. Human nature is one. Some of these things found in a relationship also include a history of stereotyping or mistrust, blaming the other person or party for a strained relationship, excluding the other party’s feelings when focusing on a task, no clear and defined objectives, roles and expectations of each party in a relationship is also unclear.
Relationships are important to anyone, addressing issues and problems right away is a must to further improve the relationship. As they say ‘No man is an Island’.
December 28th, 2011 admin Why E-mail marketing is so effective in the Internet marketing industry.
• E-mail marketing is one of the fastest ways to leverage on the Internet. Because all you do is compose an E-mail, customize it to suit the reader (their first name or last name), and click the broadcast button to reach thousands of people instantly!
• E-mail marketing is highly scalable. Unlike an ‘offline’ business where the more customers you have, the busier you are, in E-mail marketing, it is much easier because regardless of the size of your mailing list, whether it is 100 or 10,000, all you need to do is click broadcast and everyone on the list gets notified – all for the same effort!
• E-mail marketing is highly targeted. One of the reasons why E-mail marketing is highly effective at getting sales is because the recipient of the E-mail gets a kind of ‘in your face’ promotion. You are marketing directly to the customer through their PERSONAL mailbox. Not only will you grab their attention firmly, they will tend to respond with the right buyers mindset because they are marketed to directly (unlike other advertising where the buyer might not be in the frame of mind to buy things).
• E-mail marketing is personal. Autoresponders allow you to customize the E-mail in such a way that it allows you to connect with the subscriber individually. The more personalized your E-mail, the better the result (treat it as though you are writing to your best friend).
• You can automate many tasks with your autoresponder. For every new opt-in subscriber, you can time your E-mails for you build a relationship with every new opt-in subscriber – what to send to them, when to send it to them and the frequency between each E-mail.
• E-mail marketing acts as a good pre-sell. You might not be able to cram a sales letter into your E-mail, but at least you can pre-sell your subscriber and lead them to your blog, sales letter or website to check out what you have to offer and set them in the right frame of mind before they evaluate what you have to offer.
In the next few chapters, you will learn the techniques on how to build stronger bonds, instill stronger credibility and increase your opt-in list response with relative ease… all with E-mail marketing!
Building Relationships
Developing The Competitive Edge
One of the most important things you must do to achieve success online is to build a solid relationship with your subscriber.
Building a relationship is important because it can make the difference between making a sale and losing it to your competitor.
You see, just like in real life, if I had to choose between a friend who provides a service like car repair and a stranger who offered the same price, I choose my friend in less than a heartbeat.
Why? Because I’d rather give HIM my business compared to another stranger.
E-mail marketing can be quite competitive at times. Therefore when two marketers are promoting the same product, having a strong rapport with your subscribers will give you a competitive edge.
Take for example:
During a massive launch online where high ticket items are being sold and tons of marketers everywhere are sending E-mails to their subscribers, most marketers would be offering bonuses to ‘bribe’ their customers to buy through their affiliate link.
Sometimes, 3 or more would be pitching the same offer with similar value. So the question you should be asking yourself is if you were in the shoes of your subscriber, why should your subscriber buy from YOU instead of other marketers?
Once again, if you have built a strong relationship with your subscriber, they will be on your side – especially if you are trying to win an affiliate contest.
Tips On Building Rapport With Your Subscriber
One of the best ways to build relationships with your subscriber is to strengthen the rapport between you and your customer.
Here are a few ways to achieve that:
• Keep in touch with your mailing list often. Don’t mail them only when you need to promote a product.
• Ask about their needs and concerns. Use questionnaires and get them involved. Ask them what they want you to provide for them to help them with their Internet marketing business.
• Send them gifts sometimes. It could be in the form of free reports, blog templates, graphics or even free membership access!
• Be personal. Let them see your human side or your personal life. It sure beats dry, stale E-mails that talk about product launches all day.
• Be educational. When you impart something of value to your subscribers, they will see you as a teacher and listen to what you say. This will come in handy when you want them to ‘listen’ to you and buy whatever you are selling.
Instill Stronger Credibility
Establish Yourself As An Authority
When you take a look at the average Joe on the street, you may think that there is nothing special about them – until they step up on a podium and start talking about a subject with an air of authority surrounding them.
If you want to succeed at Internet marketing, you must be able to instill stronger credibility to your subscribers by establishing yourself as an authority on your niche market.
For example: when you are talking about making money through product launches, you must let your subscribers know about your credibility either before or after they opt-in to your mailing list.
Here are a few tips on establishing your credibility:
• Talk about your experiences online and offline. If you’ve run an offline business before, use it to establish your credibility as a business builder. If you’ve been in sales and marketing before, use it to establish your credibility as a copywriter.
• Show them screen shots of how much money you’ve made online (or checks you’ve earned). If you don’t have any of these, use photos of well-known marketers you’ve taken pictures with (e.g. look, here is my picture taken with Mike Filsaime)
• Let others tell the story. It would be better to let others sing your praises – especially in the form of testimonials.
Use E-courses To Build Credibility Over Time
People may not be impressed at the first glance. Sometimes, it takes a few E-mails for people to recognize your capabilities.
One of the ways you can build your credibility over time is to write an E-course or a newsletter that will be sent to your subscriber’s E-mail over a period of days or weeks. It must be something educational – something that will establish you as an expert on the subject.
You can configure your autoresponder to send an E-course once everyday, every two days or a weekly newsletter. So long as the subscriber reads your educational material over a period of time, you can slowly work your way into the heart of your subscriber and stamp a firm impression in their minds.
December 28th, 2011 admin Over the years, the history of human race has replaced many significant changes in a continuous quest of improving life style. Past few years have characterized by such changes in every aspect of society. Certainly, many new innovations and improvised technologies are changing the world faster & forever. And perhaps, the most significant contribution by advance technology is coming from the use of internet. Gone are the traditional ways of earning income. There has been rise in home based business income opportunities emerging from this new global sphere.
If we have a closer look at a recorded history, then it has been a conventional trend that people who wish to work for a salary are compelled to work at the location of client or of company they are working for. Although that concept of self employment had been present in past, it wasn’t until the 90’s when internet came of age and presented diverse opportunities and platforms for people to work from home while having access to the world through their personal computers.
Home Business
Home business is an ideal platform which allows people to work from home and get paid handsomely for the efforts they put in. With these ever increasing opportunities, the people like you and me are able to work according to our own terms. There is no more compulsion from our rude boss to work as per his dictated terms and conditions. In fact, home business offers a freedom that no other business can offer.
There are plenty options and opportunities knocking your door on internet. You can easily find a plan for home business that can fit your needs and terms. Even though, surfing on internet for such home based business income opportunities can be time consuming. You will come across thousands of sites and places which claim to be perfect option on internet. They claim to know exactly what you are searching for and there is a possibility that you can commit blunders because of their exaggerated claims.
It is quite obvious that the sites claiming to offer best plan don’t know you personally. They don’t know your likes and dislikes. They don’t know about your passion. They don’t know about targets- short term or long term. They don’t know your expectancy level of income and they don’t know how much time you can work for. The lack of this knowledge can pose a great threat to your search for such opportunities.
So, in order to find a perfect suitable plan or opportunity you have to do some kind of research and find opportunities of your own. You can even search for the research opportunities with their supported statistics. This thing can narrow down your search for the best home based opportunity.
The best part while searching for such business can be considering your own hobbies, your own likes. Just ask yourself how do you spend your idle time? There are so many hobbies like book reading, ornamental fish keeping, shopping, watching sports, keeping pets or even finding a good deal. Surely, you will be much more comfortable at one of those hobbies. So, if you find a niche that is related to something you love, then you are bound to stick with that opportunity for longer time. You spend time building it to work for you and that will be the secret of the success of your home business. .
Today, there are plenty options and several successful platforms available for home based internet business opportunities.
1. Digital Product Creation – You will be certainly good at one of the aspects or fields you have learned so far in life. If you have such a special knowledge or skill in a specific sector then you can sell this by creating your own e-book. Suppose you are good at cooking and if it is your hobby and if you do experimentation and try for innovation then you can create your own e-book of tantalizing recipes. These fields can range from learning yoga to playing guitar and from purchasing dirt free airline tickets to movie or digital recording.
2. Affiliate Programs – Many big companies try to encourage people other than their marketing team to promote their products. You can promote such products with help of advertisements on your own website or via e-mail system. In return the said company will pay you a certain percentage of every sale. This kind of business has great potential n promoting the products like MP3 download services, ring tones, visual clips, beauty products, insurance and travel services.
3. Internet Marketing – The process of acquiring knowledge to start and run a successful home based business has itself become a business of great potential. At present, there are so many informative programs exists which guide average people in learning and honing the skills to run a successful business with its marketing plans.
4. Blogging – This is the latest internet trend at business. This includes a process of creating and updating your own web diary on internet in which you can discuss and seek comments on specific subjects you choose. Persons having special interest and knowledge in a specific subject are used to create such blogs and thousands of people visit such blog everyday. In return person who owns that blog earn income by using advertising systems or affiliate programs.
5. Online Stores – you can buy any physical goods like computers, clothing, books, mobiles or DVD movies at lower rate and can sell these items at a higher price. Although it is a traditional selling concept, internet makes it easier to purchase, to sell and advertise than traditional ways in past. Only the thing you have to do is search for wholesale suppliers of such goods to get a lower price.
6. Outsourcing – Outsourcing has been a key word in IT industry today. If you are good at any software development then you can provide such services as there is a great demand from main companies for such jobs.
In short, there are abundant opportunities present on internet for home based business. If you are motivated enough to reap the benefits of internet then brace yourself for certain amount of work, prepare your mind to learn new things and you will find it is not as difficult as many think.
December 23rd, 2011 admin When it comes to doing business online, you will soon discover that it’s all about the traffic. Traffic, or the number of internet users you’d be able to generate for your website, is and will always be the lifeblood of any online venture. After all, what good is a website when there’s no one there to see its pages? How successful will your digital products be if no one would be able to know about them? Who will avail of your services when no one will get exposed to their existence?
Contrary to what many people believe, generating traffic for your website does not start once you pages are published and have gone live. Traffic generation strategies start at the very moment you are conceptualizing an idea for the website itself.
This is what on page search engine optimization (SEO) is all about. It is concerned with techniques that you could implement on your web pages themselves to ensure a good volume of traffic for your website. 80% of your traffic would come from the many search engines in the World Wide Web. If each and every web page you have is optimized for these search engines, then your website would be in a good position to have a high rank for the results of every relevant query.
• Keyword selection. Choosing the right keywords is essential for the success of your website. Keywords are the popular search terms that people use to gather information from the search engines. If your web pages are populated by the right density of the correct keywords, then you’ll have better chances of winning the attention of the search engine spiders. To determine the appropriate keywords for the subject that your website will be servicing, use the free tools that can be found at www.nichebot.com .
• Keyword placement in content. Content is the king of the internet. But even royalty needs support. Populate your content with the proper amount of keywords. A density level of at least 2% should be sought. This means that the right keywords should be mentioned at least twice for every 100 words of text.
• META tags. META tags are HTML codes that do not have a bearing on the physical appearance of your web pages, but they do inform the search engine spiders that such web pages are appropriate for a particular query. Always include the following META tags on the top portion of your source code. You could copy-paste them from the list below, but do change the indicated fields. Also, make sure that you include your keywords as much as you could on your META tags.
• ALT tags. ALT tags refer to the text that would appear every time the mouse cursor would pass through an image. Your ALT tags should include your keywords.
• Page titles. Page titles are the captions that appear at the very top of your web page. Make sure that each web page in your website would have a different title that will include the appropriate keywords.
• Focus. Remember, search engines will crawl through your website per page. Each page is a different project altogether. Focus is the key. Ensure that each web page of yours would focus on a particular keyword or key phrase. If there is an article in that page, make sure that the article will only discuss and include one keyword or key phrase from the list you have made. Also, it would greatly help if you would name the page file in a manner that would include the keyword or key phrase it is focused on. For example, www.thisisyourwebsite.com/thisisyourkeyword.html is a good page filename that would help boost your SEO efforts.
Following these guidelines would help you a lot in securing a favorable position in search engine results pages. This in turn would guarantee for you a sustainable and sufficient volume of traffic that would make your website a genuine success.
December 23rd, 2011 admin Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a science of sorts that would enable you to ensure a favorably prominent position for your website in search engine results pages (SERPs). And since 80% of your traffic would come from the search engines, SEO methods take on a critical importance in the success of your online endeavor.
There are two kinds of SEO, on page and off page. This article will tackle the latter.
Off page SEO is all about the things you could to get a high page rank (PR) for your website after it has already gone live. These are the things which you actually execute outside the pages of your website, hence the name of this type of SEO.
What are these steps?
Well, all of them are concerned with building your link popularity. Your link popularity represents the number of back links your website has. To check you website’s current link popularity, head over to www.linkpopularity.com and use the free tool that can be found there. The higher your link popularity, the higher your PR will be.
Building your link popularity involves increasing the number of websites that will link to yours. This is easier said than done. It’s not a matter of getting reciprocal links like “you link to me and I’ll link to yours.” Google, in particular, despise reciprocal linking. You have to get unilateral links to your website.
The best way to do this is by ensuring that you have unique, highly informative content. Really, this is the number one strategy to invite websites to link to yours. But your content in the realm of on page SEO, and it is assumed that you have made all efforts to ensure great content.
What are the other ways by which you could build your link popularity? Try the following techniques:
• Article marketing. There are thousands of article directories on the Internet. You could submit articles to these websites. For every submission, you will be allotted a resource box where you could introduce yourself and share a link to your website. Now, some of these article directories have high page ranks. If your articles are accepted, they will be included in their pages. Having a website with high PR linking to yours would go a long way in increasing your own page rank. Additionally, if you will submit just one article to a thousand directories, you’d have a thousand pages linking to your website! Sounds like a daunting task? There are article directory submission services available. Seek them out. For as low as $25, they could submit your articles to as many as 200 directories.
• Forum marketing. There are online communities dedicated to the subject that your website is serving. Seek them out, then join them. You’d be allotted a signature box, which would appear in your every post. In your signature box, you could leave a link to your website. Then post as many significant messages as you could. For every post you will make, you’d have a page linking to your website.
• Advertise at www.craigslist.com . Now here’s a novel strategy. The website www.craigslist.com is a well known classifieds website with a PR7 score. A PR7 score is rarely high! To have a link in a website like this would give a tremendous boost to your own website. Simply go to that site and choose the category that your pages belong to, then post your advertisement, with your link of course. It doesn’t matter that no one would get to read it. What matters is that the search engine spiders would find your website as they would come from a PR7 site.
• Look for partners who are willing to include your list in their pages. The easiest way to do this is to use the free tool at www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php .
• Try triangular linking. Google despises reciprocal linking, but triangular linking is one way of going around this limitation. Look for two or more webmasters who are willing to give it a shot. Webmaster A could post a link to Webmaster B’s website in his own pages. Webmaster B can post a link to Webmaster C’s website in his own pages. And webmaster C can post a link to Webmaster A’s website in his own pages. It may enforce the same principle as reciprocal linking, but the search engine spiders are not programmed to figure this out… yet.
December 10th, 2011 admin Creating a successful online business can only be accomplished by establishing and executing goals, strategy & proven marketing tactics. Equipped with these three (3) major components of business planning, an online marketer can expect to see business growth resulting from increased conversions and higher sales.
So, exactly how do you pull these three major elements together?
Start with goals
First, creating goals is the most important starting point. Whatever your goal, to achieve a certain monthly/yearly sales, to become the largest online seller of products or services in your particular niche. Or maybe your goal is to launch a brand new product concept to the world. Or your goal is to increase conversions by 200% within 6 months or something more aggressive.
But now that you know your goal, how do you achieve success?
A winning combination
To achieve a pre-defined goal, you must have a strategy that includes marketing tactics if you want to succeed.
Think of it this way.
There are three components of a successful and powerful marketing plan.
1. Goals are the big picture. A goal tells you where you want to go and it is the vision of success that you have for your future. It’s the inspiration and motivation that keeps you focussed and it’s what makes you want to start early in the day and look for opportunities in cyberspace. It’s what keeps you from straying in your business endeavors.
Becoming the #1 seller of Product X is a goal.
2. Strategy is a set of communications & offers to reach out to the targeted market segment to achieve your goals. it is a conceptual plan for success. Maybe your goal is to become the #1 marketing expert in a particular niche. Regardless of the “how”, you are plan a strategy, it must center around increasing business reach & exposure, conversions, and sales. There may be multiple strategies to support your goals and that’s fine. But overall these must be designed to be cost effective, simple to understand & implement.
3. Tactics are those individual actions, activities, and plans that help you achieve your goals and are directly related to your strategy.
A tactic is a real action that helps you implement your strategy. Tactics are when you really get down to work. They are derived from a clear understanding of your potential customer, the target audience needs and desires, and a thorough analysis of your product’s strengths, benefits, and value.
But they are also created with knowledge of the competition, what makes your product unique, how you separate yourself from the competition, and what the market is looking for not only today, but tomorrow! Just like strategies, you will look at marketing tactics to accomplish the strategy. Tactics allow you to demonstrate to your customers, how your product can be useful or how it can be leveraged in multiple ways to receive value or benefits in some way.
Tactics may include creation of videos, blogging, promoting your business in one more than one language, creating content that optimizes keywords, re-engineering a website to make it faster or more user-friendly, or other specific actions that help you accomplish your strategy and achieve goals.
Execution is critical
Online marketing tactics should be simple and expertly executed. Knowing how to create the three components of a winning online business will drive conversions and sales to new heights. Use an engaging combination of basic marketing tactics, review schedules and augment them with advanced marketing tactics based on customer feed back. Look for proven tactics that have proven successful time and time again for the fastest road to success- short-term & long-term.
December 5th, 2011 admin Business to business and business to consumer marketing types have essentially the same fundamental principles. Both work on target markets.
The nature of business buying is largely dependent on the professional buyers, multiple decision makers, and business2business marketing has the potential of building long term relationships. This is unlike the business to consumer marketing, which depends on the single decision maker and has a short buying or sales cycle.
The business to business marketing generally focuses on functionality of the product rather than on anything else. It also has the capacity and resources to look into suppliers from the international markets.
The b2b marketing does not focus on the emotional but rather on the logical decision making. In the b2b marketing, the buyer is well informed and takes decisions on basis of multiple criteria for buy decisions.
It is for this reason why the marketers must be wise and intelligent enough as to how to market, promote, and advertise their goods or services. Business to business marketing employs wider and more complex tactics.
Anything that the business to business marketer does will have to be based on what that intelligent target group wants.
You have to remember that the business buyer is buying your service or good because they believe that it will sustain their business, help improve its sales and profits by having wide consumer group patronizing it, and turn in more benefits for them.
What are the strategy differences?
In business to business marketing, the supply and demand made on a certain product or service is taken into account. The same is true in the kind of industry that the marketer is trying to sell the business for. Others to be considered are the trends in the wider market environment. It also has to deal not only with the direct business clients but their customers as well.
Business marketing targets comparably smaller base of clients, but these are the big clients in the industry. And because it is dealing with bigger clientele, it is expected that personalized marketing techniques are provided, so that the business buyer will no longer have to employ different techniques in order to sell the product or service.
And since the clients differ in their preferences, the business marketer might be required to tailor technique to each. And because of this, deeper relationship with each is expected to be developed between business to business provider and business buyer to meet the demands of each big client as well as to foster longevity in the industry.
December 3rd, 2011 admin 1. Don’t make threats. Have you ever said this, “If you don’t calm down, I’m not going to help you.” Or, “If you continue to yell at me, I’m going to have no choice but to terminate this phone call.” If you’ve ever made these, or similar, statements, I’d bet that your sole intent was to regain control of the conversation. But the problem is, your customer perceives this type of language as threatening and it does not make them back down and it does not create calm. Try a phrase like this instead: “I really want to help you, but your tone/language is making it really hard for me to do that.” And then pause for 2-3 seconds to let your words resonate with the customer.
2. Don’t argue. Trust me on this one – you can never win an argument with a customer. Certainly, you can prove your point and even have the last word, In a discussion on the futility of arguing with people, Dale Carnegie once said “you may be right, but as far as changing your customer’s mind is concerned, you will probably be just as futile as if you were wrong.” Your goal in complaint situations is to retain the customer, not to be right. If you win the argument, you may very well have lost the customer. Carnegie encourages us to carefully consider some hard questions before going to battle with customers: “Is my reaction one that will relieve the problem, or will it just relieve frustration? Will my reaction drive my customer further away? What price will I pay if I win (the argument)?” Carnegie advises, “The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.” By the way, customers will spread negative word-of-mouth advertising to 50 people if they get into argument with you!
3. Don’t hang up on the customer. I realize I sound conservative on this one, but I stand firm. If you hang up on a customer who is already livid, do you think a “disconnect” helps the situation or hurts the situation? The customer still has the problem and most customers won’t give up their fight because you chose to hit the flash button. Most will call back and guess what? They will be angrier than ever AND it will cost far more in time and money to resolve the issue. If you just can’t handle the customer, offer to transfer to a supervisor or co-worker.
4. Don’t make the customer feel helpless. I cringe every time I hear an employee say, “This is all I can do.” When customers feel helpless, some will resort to whatever they feel it takes to get their needs met. This behavior may include yelling, demanding to speak to a supervisor, or starting a blog about your company. This simple phrase changes the entire tone of a tough situation: “Mr. Bryant, what I can do is?”
5. Don’t raise your voice. When I want my five-year-old daughter to use her “inside voice”, I don’t yell, “Lauren, USE YOUR INSIDE VOICE!” I speak in my “inside voice” with the expectation that she will mirror the calm tone of my voice – and she does without any further prompting from me. We must use the same technique with demanding customers. Escalating your voice when dealing with an upset customer will not create calm. It will only incite your customer. Lowering your voice presents you as confident, in control, and credible. In many cases your angry customer will begin to calm down because he realizes his intimidation tactic (yelling) isn’t working. Try making one of these statements in a low volume when dealing with an angry customer. “What can I do to help?” or “What can I do to fix this situation?”
6. Don’t tell a customer she is wrong. You will be smart to never tell a customer s/he is wrong or mistaken. Telling a person they are wrong arouses opposition and will make the customer want to battle with you. (Ever tell your spouse they are wrong?) It’s difficult, under even the most benign conditions to change people’s minds. So why make it harder by starting out on the wrong foot? If you know your customer is wrong, it’s better to start off saying, “I thought the contract read otherwise, but let’s take a look.”
The next time you find yourself the target of verbal abuse from an angry customer, keep in mind these six “don’ts” and you’ll be well on your way to getting the angry customer to back down and regaining control of the conversation.
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