I want life to be better for my family - I am an entrepreneur.
I like to dream big dreams and follow them - I am a maverick.
I care about other people and their needs - I am a humanitarian.
I want to be responsible to those who place their trust in me - I believe in customer support.
I believe in the power of the virtual world - I'm sold on ecommerce.
I love to make money - who doesn't?
The world of ecommerce beings together people who share a common goal. That ambition stems from the creation of wealth through the sale of online products and services. The best at this are those who are most closely aligned with the need to balance income with a true caring for those who are or will be customers.
We should create ecommerce solutions for ourselves, but also for the customer. Our aim should not be simply to attempt to increase personal wealth at any cost.
Statistics tend to show that companies that care most for customers tend to have the best chance at long-term survival. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we all like to deal with businesses we trust.
For instance if I buy something from a hardware store down the street and they don't treat me very well I probably won't be going back to the store anytime soon. If that practice is normal most who visit the store will never return.
This is true in your online business as well. If you treat your customer poorly (particularly after the sale) you can bet you will never see an order from that customer again - no matter how good your future email marketing campaigns might be.
It may be hard to wrap your thinking around the idea that your online world still represents real people. These customers could represent a woman in her fifties in New York, a farmer in Idaho or a fisherman in Maine. These are real people with real needs. Sometimes their expectations of you may be extremely high, but they deserve to be heard and treated with respect.
Your brilliant ideas and maverick spirit may be meaningless if you don't have customers to reward you for your ability to blaze new trails. Your entrepreneurial spirit may be meaningless if you can't connect with past and present customers.
That being said, if you can connect your humanitarian spirit with the needs of actual customers you may be able to bring the entire business package together to benefit everyone associated with your ecommerce idea.
If you claim a responsibility for exemplary customer support you are engaging in a very healthy part of trust management. You can disarm unhappy customers simply by being willing to listen to their complaint and working to find a solution. This could be as simple as finding a better way to pack your product or offering innovative ways to track the progress of their order. You may be surprised to learn that many customer concerns may not center on the product itself, but on peripheral issues that can actually serve to help you improve your overall business if you commit to listening to your customers.
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