I’ll never forget the time that I was in a small boutique trying to buy a gift for my sister. After I had selected the item I walked up to the counter.

The salesgirl was talking quite animatedly on the phone, her back to me. I stood there for a little more than a moment until she finally turned around and saw that I was waiting. She looked right at me and then turned her back to me and continued to talk.

Now, I don’t have a problem waiting for someone who is on the phone if it is an important call- but I am pretty sure that deciding what to wear Friday night is not an important call…

So I let another 20 seconds or so go by, and then I cleared my throat. The girl stopped talking, let out a dramatic sigh and told the person on the other end to “Hang on a second”. She put the phone down, and finally turned around and approached the counter.

She gave me an icy stare as she rang up my purchase. Clearly I had interrupted her (interrupted her from not working?!), and she rushed through the transaction, stuffed the gift halfway into a bag and threw the change in my direction. She then immediately turned back around, grabbed the phone and picked up the conversation where she had left off.

Well, let me tell you, at that point I was anxious to get out of the store, but I realized that she had forgot to give me the receipt. As it was a gift, I figured I should probably hang on to the receipt just in case.

I said, “Excuse Me”, and she ignored me, so I said it again and she shot me this look of death, put her hand over the speaker of the phone and quite haughtily said “Yes?”.

I asked her for my receipt and the reaction I got is like I had asked her for her first born child!… I’m given the receipt and I leave.

Once I was outside, I realized that I hadn’t been breathing for the last several minutes and that my jaw was clenched.

I exhaled deeply and as I walked away from the store I thought two things- 1) even though I love the stuff they sell I will never go back there!, and 2) I hope my sister likes the gift because I can just imagine what a nightmare it would be to have to return it…

We have all had experiences like this before. And it doesn’t seem to matter if you are at the dollar store, or if you are buying a car- bad customer service exists everywhere. Of course, good customer service is everywhere too, and it certainly makes life easier when you can encounter it more often than the bad!

The level of customer service that a company provides has a direct impact on their profits. If a company doesn’t satisfy the needs of their customers, well then, they will soon find that they don’t have many customers.

On the other hand, if a customer has a wonderful experience when dealing with a company, they will feel good about continuing to buy a service or product, and loyal, life-long customers are always desirable to a company (and its’ bottom line).

In the first part of this article, I would like to talk about how as a business owner you need to identify customer service as having 3 stages. The second part of this article will show you how Matthew and his company, BBO Institute strive to provide superior customer service to his clients.

Customer service does not ‘start’ after a sale has been made. In fact, it starts long before the customer reaches into their pocket and pulls out their wallet (real or virtual!).

As online business owners, the way that we provide assistance and support to our customers is very different from the way in which a physical store would.

In a traditional brick-and-mortar situation, when a customer enters the store, they are usually greeted almost right away by an employee.

And even if the customer says that they are just browsing, there is someone at hand who can answer any questions that they might have regarding a product.

When someone is viewing your sales page or website, you can’t ‘be’ there to assist them. There isn’t a way of seeing live who is on your site at any one given time (well, not an inexpensive way- you could implement a Live Chat feature but most beginning marketers don’t have the time or money available for that).

You mustn’t ever underestimate the needs of a customer during Stage 1, the Pre-Purchase Phase. Some people are willing to buy something without needing a whole lot of information beforehand.

Others need to get all their questions answered before they are ready to buy- and in some cases this may take several visits to the store before they feel comfortable enough to buy, particularly in the case of ‘big-ticket’ items.

You should definitely make yourself available to the customer during this stage. Many times I have read a sales letter online and thought to myself, “Gee, that sounds like a product I would like to buy, but I have a question or two about it.”

Sure, there may be a money back guarantee offered, but I often don’t feel like bothering to make the purchase, figure out I don’t really like the product and then go through the refund process.

So, quite often, I will decide that I’m not ready to buy at that time, think about doing some more research on the product, get distracted and then forget entirely about the thing.

So, what about if on your sales letter, you had a contact form where you could provide answers to pre-purchase questions?

Someone who is interested in learning more about your product before they buy could submit their questions to you through this form. Note: You wouldn’t want to provide an email address on the sales page as you could definitely put yourself at risk for Spam.

I realize that responding to these queries could be time-consuming, but personally I would prefer to take a moment or two to answer a question regarding my product than take the chance that I might “lose” a sale.

Matthew told me about a time that he was looking for a specific piece of software for his business. He found 4 or 5 companies that had what he was looking for that offered comparable software.

He decided that he would purchase the one that had the best customer support (that way if in the future he needed assistance, he knew that he would not be left out to dry).

He sent an email to each of the companies asking a question. One company responded within an hour (which blew Matthew away!) and he bought their product right then and there.

He later told me, that it didn’t matter that he hadn’t heard back from the other companies. Even if the product turned out to be not as good as the others, the company’s support response was what impressed him the most.

He had found a company that was at the top of their game when it came to customer service and that was what had, for him, closed the sale.

If customers feel that they are taken care of, before they have even spent a dollar, then you are well on your way to establishing a relationship with them (more about customer relationships later).

I think I will save the next 2 stages of customer service for the next entry…

Until then,

Christine Alfrajani

P.S I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!