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Alan Smith - Web Design and Development

Alan Smith is a web designer and web developer using WordPress as a CMS and the Genesis Framework. I am a devoted husband and father, a Christ Follower and a Georgia Bulldog Fan (Go SEC!).

Putting “Service” back in “Customer Service” – Part 3 of 4

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We have been looking at how to build a quality customer service program for your online business. The first article looked at giving personal responses to customers emails. Even though you may be using the company approved responses, make the message personal. The second article discussed the need to be clear and sincere in your email responses. If you wouldn’t be satisfied with the response if you were the customer, don’t send the message.

STEP THREE: Offer Live Customer Support

Email has become an acceptable form of communication, however, live customer support is still necessary. The internet is filled with information to the point of overloading your customers. It is your job to help provide answers to their questions in a professional manner.

Set your company apart from the competition by providing customers with a real person to talk to. Live phone support is an invaluable way to cultivate a level of trust with your online customers. When a customer has reached the end of their Internet rope, and need some quality HELP, your live support is the answer they have been looking for.

Blog Post About Email Marketing

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Media317 has located a few stories that we think would be helpful to our readers and clients. These blog post give tips and pointers on using email as an effective marketing tool. Media317 encourages you to review them for ways to improve your marketing efforts.

Putting the “Service” back in “Customer Service” – Part 2 of 4

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ApathyCustomer Service is just as important today in a technology driven world as it ever was in a brick and mortar world.  Just because we do most of our business in virtual stores we are dealing with real customers who want and deserve REAL service and support.

In the first installment of this series we discussed the value of giving each customer a personal response.  Even if we are using the company line and standard messages, we can add an opening and closing to make the message personal.

STEP TWO: Be clear, But Sincere

The second important aspect of bringing back Customer Service in a digital age is to be clear and sincere in your message.  When you take the time to respond to a customer’s email, be sincere and to the point in what you say.  Before you hit the send button, turn the tables and play the part of the customer.  Ask yourself this question, “Would this answer satisfy ME if I were the customer?”

If you answer yes, the send the message and move on to the next.  If, however, you answer no, then take the time to give the customer the help they deserve.  It might mean the difference between a satisfied and loyal customer and a credit card charge back!

Putting the “Service” back in “Customer Service” – Part 1 of 4

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customerserviceIt used to be that if you did not have high quality customer service, you were doomed to fail.  Now you can go into stores, whether it be brick and mortar or virtual, and you are fortunate if you even get your questions answered.  Today, technology is making it easier for businesses to provide a high quality, real time customer support and service better than ever.  The danger with the use of technology, however, is you run the risk of impersonal, automated, general assistance that is cold and impersonal.

Offering stand-out customer service over the Internet isn’t as hard is one may think, it is however rare.  This series of articles is to provide four simple steps  to provide old-style service in a new-age environment.

STEP ONE: Give each customer a personal response

When a customer or client sits down and takes the time to send your company an email, it’s because they truly have a need or an significant issue.  They have chosen to use email because it is quick and easy, but their request still warrants a personal and meaningful response!  Just because it is email does not make it any less important.

Companies who are eager to provide quality customer support and service recognize that automated email responses to their customers emails is not really customer service.  It saves time and money, but each customer has a unique question or concern and deserve a unique and specific answer.  Even if you chose to use your companies stock response, take the time to alter the opening and closing so the message does not sound as robotic.  Include their name and reference their email.

Small amounts of time spent making each response personal and unique, will send the message that we care about our customers.

Email Deliverability Tips

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Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM

Compliance The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

* http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
* http://www.bondedsender.com
* http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Mashable is the Social Networking center of the universe

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If you are trying to develop a social network for you business or organization, you have probably spent a lot of time search the internet for “how to” and “what for.”  In my search to help me grasp the workings of developing a quality social network, I have found Mashable.com.  Mashable.com is arguably the center of the universe when it comes to information about developing quality social networks.  If you’ve yet to visit, check them out.  You will not be disappointed.

Second Amendment Protection

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Second Amendment Protect

Media317 was contacted to create a website to promote the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States.  The client had written an e-book he wanted to promote and wanted to be able to do on his own.  Media317 created his this simply designed site to help keep the focus on the content of the site rather than the design of the site.

Professional Model site launch

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onnaleejoydotcom

Media317 was asked by an up and rising fashion model to host and design a site to highlight her modeling.  Onnaleejoy.com utilized our  premium service and we were able to produce a clean, simple look using one of our wordpress themes.  The site is build on top of WordPress and the theme is the highly customizeable theme Mandio.  By utilizing the clients artwork and customizing the theme to fit the clients desired look, Media317 was able to produce a website that is producing modeling work and contacts for this model.