Customer Service Tips For Mail Order Business
Can we be too good to our customers? No way! Our customers are the backbone ofour business! They're right no matter what!
But I'm sorry to disagree with you. As small, honest and legitimate businesses _we have a tendency to place our product quality above money. While this is the"right" way of building a strong, solid business; there are customers that willtry to take advantage of you. You have to learn how to notice this possibilitycoming and "bow out gracefully" without losing the customer.
Remember that most newcomers to the world of mail order think that they areordering from BIG companies just because we have a company name! They cannotconceive how poor and struggling a lot of us really are. They think we canabsorb costs and because they are poor themselves, will often try and takeadvantage of people like us. (If they only knew the many times I have personallyhad to hold an order up for mailing because I couldn't afford the 52c to mail itback, or the guy who bounced a $2 check and caused a close friend of mine to go"in the hole" $15 in bad check charges.)
But because we are honest people who place our product ABOVE money we sometimeslet people walk all over us. In fact _ a mail order buddie of mine (whodistributes shareware computer disks) is normally so happy when she gets anorder that she gives the customer almost 10 times more than what they pay for.She is so excited about keeping a customer that she goes overboard to make themhappy.
Unfortunately, a lot of people will take advantage of this situation. Theythink, "Hey, if I can get this much for hardly nothing, I'll see how much morethey'll give me. Look at all the "freebies" I could get and all the money Icould save." They'll lose respect for you. However, this line of thinking isonly short term. Sure, as a customer, you might get some more free stuff withthe next order, but pretty soon the business owner will realize what's going on.Then you'll lose that business contact forever! I can still recall the peoplewho ripped me off before and I would NEVER do business with them again! This isa sad situation!
As a dealer, you can learn to give your customers what they pay for. Go thatextra mile on special requests, but never over-extend yourself if it means lostprofits to your business. This line of thinking wil
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