VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

Want to Hear From Your Customers? Create An Advisory Board!

If you’ve got a customer pool you can talk to, first of all, do one thing, consider yourself lucky. Sometimes we only think about how we communicate TO them, instead of asking them for their opinions. We’ve talked a bit about how to do that with surveys, but what about actually visiting them or meeting with them face-to-face to find out how they like your products or services?

Do you have a product or service that might warrant getting some of your best customers into your establishment and start a round table to get their ideas? You might be surprised at what ideas come up from other companies they like and patron.

At VerticalResponse we’ve got a great group of customers we tap into to find out how they use our product and what they like or like to see changed. We’ll be increasing the size and use of that customer group soon because we think it’s important to actually visualize how they use our service and talk to them about their challenges. Chances are our customers have figured something out that we couldn’t have possibly imagined and it might even be a useful idea for all of our customers.

Here's one way to start your CAB:

1. Send an email marketing campaign inviting your customers to your Customer Advisory Board. Use a VerticalResponse opt-in form for this select list. It will be a separate list in your account.

2. If you've got new ideas on the fly, send an email to them asking them about their opinions. They'll tell you when it's too much for them.

3. Invite them to meet face-to-face each quarter but be cognizant of their time.  A larger group is always better, more ideas come of it and if some can't make it you still have a meaningful discussion. If you can't do it at your business site, select a local restaurant or establishment. Either way make sure you offer refreshments, lunch or dinner, it's the polite thing to do and a very inexpensive focus group.

4. Come prepared with what you want to get out of the meeting, then be surprised at what you actually do get out of the meeting. If it's a new product line, show them the product line and ask for their feedback. If it's a partnership you want to do, talk to them about the features and benefits and ask them if this would benefit them.

5. Give a half hour at the end (or the beginning) for networking. People will leave when they have to, they shouldn't be rushed out of the door. Introduce your customers to some of your employees, customers always like to know who is behind the scenes.

6. Give a gift! If you have schwag give it up! Everyone likes something for free, and if it has your logo on it even better!

7. Thank your customers profusely!

Your customers are visiting many websites and many businesses each day. You could really learn from their experience. Create your own Customer Advisory Board and make it work for you.

Good Service and a Few "Extras" - Lessons Learned from Virgin

No one likes to fly these days with the bloated price of tickets, the surcharges for luggage, the long security lines and bad attitudes. Not to mention airlines are getting really bad press on a daily basis. But there is an airline that's trying to attend to customers in a way we might be able to all learn from in my opinion, Virgin America.

Make Something Unfun, Fun

They have very cool pink and purple mood lighting on the planes and fun lounge music playing when you get on. It takes the edge off as you worry about having enough room in the storage compartment for your oversized bag that you stuffed too much. Oh and everyone greets you with a smile.

Don't want to wait with everyone else at the gate? For $40 you can be as cool as the Upper Classies and hang in the in the Lounge. There you enjoy free WiFi, food and drinks as well as super cool furniture, TVs and

Offer Something Extra

They offer electricity for you to have your iPod, your computer any electronic device with a normal outlet ON THE PLANE. Seems like something very small, but it's the only airline that offers this. I'll fly them on longer flights just to have that in order to work, watch a movie or catch up with email.(We can get soil from Mars, can't believe it's taken this long for electricity on a plane, but I digress) They're also testing WiFi on a few flights too.

They offer live TV which is fine, unless you're watching the semi-finals of the European Soccer match and ESPN skips through the goals. Bummer.

You can order food and drinks when you want with your credit card through the entertainment system. On-demand, what a concept!

Have Really Great Communications

Before one particular flight a gentleman came out to the waiting crowd during a delay, introduced himself as the pilot, apologized profusely for their actions and told everyone this is not how they want operate.

On another flight they passed out free drink or movie coupons because the in-flight entertainment system was not working correctly. They addressed it on the plane to avoid any disgruntled customers.

So it seems that a big business like Virgin is trying to go the extra mile to make flying cool again. Here are a few ideas I can think of for some other small businesses:

• Dentists - Offer movies while your patients get worked on or music with headphones.
• Car Dealerships - Offer coffee, muffins and TV in the waiting room while your customers get their car worked on. Offer a "kids area" to keep the tykes busy with kids books, some small furniture and crayons.
• Software & Hardware Companies - Spice up your copy in your marketing materials with some humor to break through the "serious tone" of what you're selling.

Whatever you sell, going the extra mile for your customers these days is more important than ever. What's your extra mile?

Panzano - Great Customer Follow-Up

We were recently in Denver for our Get Vertical Email Marketing Workshop. Huge success, thanks to all who came. We went to dinner with our customer panelists at one of our customer's restaurant, Panzano. I highly recommend it by the way. I liked it so much I filled out one of those "How are we doing?" cards in the pocket of the bill holder. I wasn't sure if I'd get anything out of it because all too often you just don't.

To my surprise I got a really nice letter from the Executive Chef thanking me for my visit.

Lesson learned:

1. Ask your customers how you're doing - Be prepared for the good, the bad and the ugly. These guys did it with a nice piece of paper in the bill holder, you can also use VerticalResponse Surveys to do it as well.

2. Follow up - I got the letter just a week after I visited the restaurant. You can bet next time I'm in Denver I'll go again. You can also bet I'll tell people about it just like I'm doing now.

3. Incent your employees - Give your employees a spiff for getting information from your customers. Now Panzano has my information for them to email me.

It was a great experience all around visiting a customer and dining with them!

Do you do anything like this? Let's hear it!

Great Member Appreciation Idea

I've been talking a bit lately about how important it is to go the extra mile for your customers especially in this economy. A great example came in the mail the other day from my gym. They love people like me because I don't go;-) It's a really great gym with a grill and a spa (which actually I DO go to).

It was a simple piece that looked invitation-like offering us to come in during "Member Appreciation Week" on nice paper folded with a "Member Appreciation Card" tucked inside.

The card had discounts for:

• Private training
• Group exercise one-on-ones
• Complimentary Kinesis® session
• 10% off of any 80 minute spa treatment
• Dinner entrée at the Grill with purchase of entrée of equal or greater value

Nice! Great idea to appreciate your members get them active and give and great offers too. What are you doing to go the extra mile for your customers? Let's hear it!

Great Customer Service Story - Are You Ready To Go Above and Beyond This Holiday Season?

One of our engineers Erik sent me this great customer service story he found online. Thanks for posting your story! This illustrates how going above and beyond translates into people saying great things about you.

Holiday Service Levels & Email Marketing (Part 2)

In our two-part series that Erin our Director of Marketing wrote, she focuses on how to handle unhappy customers as well as calculating how much business you can handle. It's a good read.

NO ONE IS 100% PERFECT, SO ACKNOWLEDGE IT

When things start to get busy this holiday season avoid ignoring complaints until after the season is over. News travels fast…bad news travels faster and further with people posting their issues all over the web! If you make the time to address service issues as they occur, you could save a customer and they are more likely to tell a friend how you turned the situation around for them and became a hero.

BE READY FOR TOO MUCH BUSINESS

If your business promises 24 hour turnaround times on orders or you ship within 2 business days, calculate your likely response rates for your offers in your email before you send your campaign. Then assess how many orders your team can ship in a single day. Remember 80% of responses come in the first 24 hours of your email being sent, so it's important that you create a strategy for sending emails to handle peaks in order volume. 

If you don't think you can meet service commitments don’t email your whole list at once. VerticalResponse's List Segmentation tool makes it easy to segment your list. Consider segmenting by region and starting promotions from the furthest locations and working your way to local offers for time-saving on shipping. Email offers to buy early in the season such as "buy before X date and receive a free gift with purchase". You can also slice your list into random segments and send a portion of your list everyday to maintain a steady flow of orders throughout the season.

If you've got more thoughts on handling the holiday rush, please comment.

Holiday Service Levels & Email Marketing (Part 1)

I'm on the road this week so I've given Erin, our Director of Marketing the task of filling my shoes! I think she's done a great job talking about things to think about during the holiday season. Erin, take it away...

The holidays can be the most lucrative time of year and the speed of email marketing makes bringing those dollars in easier and faster than ever. It's also a time of year of when buyers are more stressed and often less patient when it comes to service related issues.

How do you protect your brand and increase customer loyalty when every order is time-sensitive and emotionally charged? We've put together a few helpful tips to maintain your online zen during the holidays...

MAKE IT EASY TO ORDER

Remember there are a whole bunch of new online shoppers out there that may not be the most internet savvy individuals, this is your time to carefully walk those less savvy through the process and win them over with great service for the rest of the year.

A few questions to ask yourself about your online order process...

• Can they change quantities or sizing on the shipping screen?
• Do you explain turnaround times upfront? Are the number of steps to completing an order understood so they understand how many screens they will walk through to completing an order?
• Do you let the customer know when they should expect their confirmation or transactional emails (within minutes or within days?)
• Do you include instructions for returns in confirmation emails so they can pass along to a recipient?

DRIVE RETAIL TRAFFIC

If shipping in higher volumes can be a challenge for you to fulfill or you're also looking to drive retail traffic, consider sending a "buy online and pick up in the store" email offer. One of the big electronic retailers promotes this every year with television commercials. It also provides an additional opportunity to up-sell customers in a retail location and build a personal relationship. Another chance to prove your service promise!

We didn't want to bog you down too much, so look for part 2 in a few days. Any ideas are more than welcome.

Are You Under-Utilizing Your Thank You Page?

We recently took stock of our own thank you pages here at VerticalResponse and decided to make some sweeping changes. We thought of all of the ways you can use a thank you page after someone either signs up for your newsletter OR buys your product or service. Here is what we came up with:

Friend Get a Friend - After someone purchases from you or signs up for your newsletter this is the perfect time to ask them to get a friend to do the same. They've just had a super-positive experience with you and trust you enough with their information. Why not either just ask them to tell their friends? Give them something for getting their friends to sign up too if you can.

Cross-Sell - If you know your customers bought something that goes well with another product or service you offer, offer it to them right on the thank you page. You'd be surprised how many people decide to go back and try again. If you offer more than one newsletter, include links to the opt-in forms for them.

Tips -  Does your product or service have some tips or tricks that go along with it? Your thank you page is the perfect place to put them!

Product Tour - If you have a video or tutorial for your product, your thank you page might be a perfect place to put it. Check out Marka Online, they sell computer bags for women and include videos of their products.

Customer Support Information - Perhaps you'd like to put your customer service hours, phone number and links on a thank you page. Did they purchase something from you? Include shipping information so your customers know when they can expect their product.

Advertising! - Make some dough on your thank you page by including 3rd party ads or targeted Google Adwords. Word to the wise: make sure you suppress your competition. The last thing you need your customers seeing is your competitor's ads on your thank you page. (Thanks Mark Brownlow for commenting and giving us the lowdown on Google's Policies on Adwords and Thank You pages. I stand corrected!)

Tell Your Story - If you've got a story to tell, reinforce your customer's decision to buy or  sign up to your newsletter Make them feel better about taking an action with you by telling them the story behind your product or service. It's a great way to make your customers feel closer to you.

Got any of your own? We'd love to hear them!

Great Customer Service and Word of Mouth

Recently I was in DC attending a great show, the Word of Mouth Marketing Show (which I will be blogging about soon). I found myself with a free moment and saw an ad for a very cool jewelry store in the Hotel Rouge city guide.

Nice! I had to buy a holiday gift for my husband John and quite frankly I haven't been able to break away from VR. Not to mention downtown crowds scare me on the holiday weekends.

So after being interviewed by CRN Magazine for a new salesforce.com partner program right outside the store (sorry about the loud buses CRN), I went in.

TALK ABOUT CUSTOMER SERVICE!

1. I was greeted by the daughter of the store owner, Nicole. I was interested in a specific collection, and not the most expensive one I might add. She immediately introduced herself and helped me through my decision quite nicely. I picked out the piece and said wrap it up, I've got to get back. She asked me to fill out a customer card WITH email address so she "had it on file." Nice.

2. While I waited, her father, Ivan Gorman (who I'm pretty sure the store was named after) came out and introduced himself. He shook my hand and thanked me immensely for my business. A very warm man.

3. Nicole came out and told me that I should bring John back to the store to make sure it fits, and to make sure he liked it the best. She also put in it amazing packaging and included a split of champagne for us to celebrate the nice gift. (It is a pretty sweet ring.) I told John about my experience after he opened his gift (which he loves) and he couldn't believe it.

4. Next day - John and I went back, Nicole greeted both John and I by name, and showed him the other pieces. He ended up liking the one I got him but she told us that if the sizing wasn't right to make sure to send it back, she'd order another size.

She then told us to take our rings off, she would clean them and be right back. While we waited she offered us beer, wine or soda. Then her brother Adam came out and introduced himself to John and the two had a very nice conversation on watches. Do I HAVE to leave this place?

People ask us all of the time, how to I grow my email list? This is a GREAT example of how a store easily got my email address. And how appropriate was it that I was attending a show that was teaching in many cases word of mouth marketing comes from superb customer service and superb products, both of which this store had. I've told this story to 4 friends so far PLUS you all, and I'll most likely buy from them again.

Look out for my WOMMA Show blog I'm going to try to do this weekend!

Sales Prevention - C'mon Gap!

While it isn't my intention to keep disparaging the Gap, I have a perfect example of sales prevention that every business can learn from. Hey a big company is a big company...I guess.

So this holiday season I decided to buy employees "cool" jackets with the VR logo embroidered on it. Not the ordinary kind that fall apart the minute you wash them. For the girls, easy, I went to Banana and got stylin' jackets. People in the store were nice to me, and even gave me discounts. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get anything for the guys in there, I didn't like the selection and I'm kinda snobby that way.

Next stop, the GAP. I find a great jacket in the store and ask for about 20 of them.

Sales Prevention Guy (SPG): "We don't have that many but here's the number to call and they'll sell them to you. I called, they have them." Great! Easy! Or so I thought.

Next day I call and tell GAP Customer Service person (GCS1) exactly what I need and she says, "I'm sorry, this is corporate sales and we don't carry that."

Janine: "Hmmm, the nice salesguy in your store told me you had them. OK, whattaya got?"
GCS1: "Go to our site and choose from there."
Janine: Showing my age I accidentally type in www.thegap.com, and low and behold, it doesn't even redirect to www.gap.com, it goes nowhere. HOPEFULLY they own the URL. "Wow, you have ONE sweatshirt for guys and it's not even a zip up."
GCS1: "Yup."
Janine: "You have all of these great clothes and only offer one sweatshirt? Thanks anyways."

So off to the Gap site to purchase the 20 shirts. I put through the purchase and waited for days, no shirts arrived. Questioning this, since the process thus far has been slightly murky, I logged into my account and the order had been canceled. Didn't tell me, didn't email me.

Back to GAP CS.

Janine: "Hi, my order seems to have been canceled."
GCS2: "That's right. You can't order more than 10 pieces. It's because of people selling our stuff on eBay."
Janine: "Seems like you could have stopped the order on your site or given me an error code. Instead you just canceled it without notifying me? I just want to buy these as gifts, I would think you'd want people to buy more."
GCS2: "Sorry, that's the policy."

ANNOYING. Hey Gap, if you're not going to sell more than 10 pieces of an item on your site I've got a GREAT idea for you: PUT MORE THAN ONE SWEATSHIRT ON THE CORPORATE SITE.

So what do you do? You place two orders of 10 with two different credit cards. Hmmm, people ARE smart Gappers. Take some lessons from your brothers and sisters at Banana.

This is the very reason why we put such a high emphasis on Customer Service here at VerticalResponse. We believe we've won a lot of customers because of the fact that we pick up the phones, return calls, listen to our customer's great ideas and above all put out a product that people want and make it easy for them to buy.

In our experience making it easy for any customer to do business with you is key to happy customer relationships.

Gap failed on a number of occasions here.

1. SPG guy was nice, but didn't have any facts straight. He told me, "Not a problem."
2. CS1 wasn't overly helpful, made me feel like I was making my living off of eBay.
3. They didn't give me an error code when I ordered more than 10 and then canceled my order with NO notification.   CS2 didn't seem to care.
4. They put out a poor product, there site has nothing to choose from.
5. And ouch, there are a lot of people that remember you as The Gap, you might want to redirect that URL.

And while they still got my money in the end, I may think twice about doing business with them again. Now,  I'll leave them alone for a while.

Got a story of your own? Comment!