Customer Service is a huge factor in your business whether you sell online or in a retail outlet. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts, tips and some of the unsavoury business practice I have experienced/taken note of at late and how to make the u-turn from bad practice to good practice.
- Revisit your business plan/model/ethos – Do you still adhere to it? Have your business evolution made some of these messages/ideals redundant?? Do you need to update?
- Wholesale bad practice – I’ve witnessed this a lot lately. BUT I don’t think people are aware they are doing it. If you intend to develop a collection of resellers regardless of them being online or walk in retail outlets – anyone who is selling YOUR products to their customer base make sure YOU are not UNDERCUTTING THEM. Selling your products at wholesale prices or just above to your customers is counter productive. Your resellers will not be able to match your price, they will feel cross and disillusioned and will not buy from you again. This kind of practice will enviably be damaging to your brand. If you want to sell via other avenues you MUST take the reseller into consideration when running your own promotions.
- Make sure your statements match your practice. DO NOT promote your business as handmade in the UK but then sell imported manufactured products alongside. You can like I do at Charlie Moo’s promote individual items as handmade. DO NOT say your business is green and then import everything from a mass produced factory in China – use terms search as sympathetic. Find out everything you can about your products and how they are made so that you can relate this in the information online effectively.
- DO NOT say ‘my team‘ unless you can back this up. If I for example said this then struggled to keep up with an order and then said “My new baby has been keeping me from sewing“, the customer would be wondering why my team weren’t sorting it.
- Try not to be misleading.
- Treat your customers as you would want to be treated.
All these points sound simple/common sense almost. Yet it’s funny how many people forget to check.
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