Can you Make It Easy?

Arrrrr me hearties, its International Talk Like A Pirate Day www.talklikeapirate.com/

To get in to the spirits me buccaneers, Oi have put on me pirates gear so’s I have.

Aaaaany way, to prevent further pain I will stop typing like a pirate!!

Today’s method to Get More Clients is to Make It Easy

I am stunned by the way so many stores make it hard to be a client. 
Myer seems to have fewer and fewer service assistants. It is not uncommon to have to walk a big chunk of the floor to find someone to help you, let alone a person at a register to help you buy the item.
Coles and Woolworths have put in new self serve checkouts all over the place. It saves them a lot of staffing costs. While some of us techno friendly people love it, I have seen non-techno people tormented by them and the assistant not be able to tolerate the customer not getting it.

What about for us as home based businesses, how do we make it hard for people to be our customers?

I love to buy resources off the internet but if it is a multi-stage process, it just gets too hard. If I have to re-enter the same information over and over again, I have cancelled sales. I find it very annoying to enter all my details and then be sent to PayPal or some other payment gateway and have to enter them again. It is a lost sale if I like what you have and then have to ring between the hours of 10am and 2pm to order it over the phone. At Trade Shows, if we make people fill out forms to enter a prize rather than just put their business card in a bowl, we can miss a prospect.

Are you getting the idea?

Too many sales are lost or prospects missed because we are considering what makes things easy for me and not for you.

The cracker in my mind at the moment is ordering movie tickets on-line from Village. They spend a lot of effort telling everyone how easy it is to order on-line or on your phone. No waiting in line, pick your own seat, all nice and easy. Yet when you go to do it, there is an additional fee of around $2 for each ticket you buy on-line. Why would you do that? To my mind, having people order on line or on the phone will save staff costs, paper cost (no issue of tickets) and increase customer satisfaction. I would make it $1 cheaper and people will flock to it. Plus you then get all of their ordering details as they have to sign in to order. You can then do direct marketing to them. Surely that is worth something?

So how can you make it easy for your customers to deal with you?  Here are some thoughts:

• Accept credit cards
• Give a rock solid guarantee (mine is a 200%, money back guarantee)
• Have a single step check out
• Smile when dealing with customers
• Have accurate signage (don’t laugh, some business signage is ridiculous)
• Under promise and Over deliver 
• You pay the postage (increase the price to cover it if you need)

What will you do?

Arrrr…. enjoy talk like a pirate day ye land lubbers and Oi will see you on the ocean of business

Warwick One Eye Merry
Arrr