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Ain’t Easy Being an Online Retailer Anymore!
Nov 8, 2009 01:35 PM
Categories: Internet, Marketing, Sales, Starting a Business, Technology, Tools Town: Portland
It was easier being an internet retailer back before social networks. Your business was your website and what people read about your company came from that website or the occasional news article. That’s not the case anymore. First came the user reviews and now social networks. These days, you have to have a stiff spine to sell online.
The problem is, despite what you might read elsewhere, customers are not so quick to write a nice comment about your quality products and superior customer service. If you have 1000 customers and 99% receive a great product backed by an unusually high level of customer service, you might get a comment or two. But, that 1% that experienced a problem, half of them are going to flame you. That gives you two good reviews and five bad reviews. It’s not fair.
That’s why you have to be pro-active with social networking. If you are going to survive as an online retailer, you have to get out there and post about your company. Start a Blog. Open a Facebook account. Begin to Twitter. Put one foot in and one foot out. Shake it all about.
When someone searches for your company, you need to have enough material indexed by the search engines from enough places to temper the bad posts that those bad customers left. You need to build and manage the social chatter about your company.
A good place to begin is to work on turning the bad customer in to a good customer. Even when you read a post with language worse than you ever heard in high school directed at your company, pull your boots up and march right in to face the jerk down. No wait! Most of that is correct but, instead of facing ‘em down, confront the issue one on one. Ask your customer what can be done to change the situation from a bad experience to a positive experience. In many cases you’ll find that the person that began trashing your company can become a strong advocate. You made it personal for them and they will usually appreciate it. - If not, try calling their Mom
Sometimes you just need to tuck and run. If you are an online retailer with any kind of volume, you will get people putting up bad posts about you and they want nothing more than to rant. Your good efforts to resolve the problem are scorned. So, you need to counter these with posts from you and your customers.
The next thing to do is to ask your regular customers to help you out. Ask people to post about your company and your products. It may seem a bit self serving but most of your customers will understand and be happy to help. Some companies go as far as to send every customer a follow up email asking for them to send comments and evaluate their experience with your company. This is fantastic information and a great way to garner strong accolades. Post your favorites in your blog and on Facebook. Twitter about them. Get it out there for the world to see.
Finally, just begin blogging about subjects you think your customers would like to know about. Join a few forums and contribute what you can. Comment on other people’s blogs. Start a Yahoo Group. Just start being a part of the social networks you enjoy.
The best part is that this is not just an exercise in futility trying to counter posts by unhappy customers. This is simply good business. You are reaching out to your customers and doing the best you can to make their experience with your company a rewarding one. In the process, you are giving your website the best SEO (search engine optimization) it can get anywhere. That’s right. This effort will drive traffic as well.
SEO is no longer primarily about your website. It’s about your website’s street cred. It’s about what the rest of the word thinks about your site. Check this article out called “Will All You Learned About SEO Be Worthless?” - http://gillin.com/2009/11/will-all-you-learned-about-seo-be-worthless/ This article points out that search results for your company are going to include a lot more than your url and your competitors urls. It’ll include social networks, blogs, tweets, and more.
Use this to your advantage. Get out there and create the material Google, Yahoo, Bing and the rest are looking for. This is key to being an online retailer. You can dominate your search results this way. It has nothing to do with meta tags or with keywords in your urls. It has everything to do with being a solid member of your online community.
It’s easier than you think. Spend a fair bit of time for a few weeks signing up for accounts and getting used to it. Then, set aside a half hour a day. Fifteen minutes a day will work. Ask your employees and friends to do the same. Begin building content around your website and you will win.
It may not seem like it now but, with time, you might read a rant about your company and be happy to have found it. The effort put in to turning that disgruntled customer in to a happy one is good customer service and great marketing.
The problem is, despite what you might read elsewhere, customers are not so quick to write a nice comment about your quality products and superior customer service. If you have 1000 customers and 99% receive a great product backed by an unusually high level of customer service, you might get a comment or two. But, that 1% that experienced a problem, half of them are going to flame you. That gives you two good reviews and five bad reviews. It’s not fair.
That’s why you have to be pro-active with social networking. If you are going to survive as an online retailer, you have to get out there and post about your company. Start a Blog. Open a Facebook account. Begin to Twitter. Put one foot in and one foot out. Shake it all about.
When someone searches for your company, you need to have enough material indexed by the search engines from enough places to temper the bad posts that those bad customers left. You need to build and manage the social chatter about your company.
A good place to begin is to work on turning the bad customer in to a good customer. Even when you read a post with language worse than you ever heard in high school directed at your company, pull your boots up and march right in to face the jerk down. No wait! Most of that is correct but, instead of facing ‘em down, confront the issue one on one. Ask your customer what can be done to change the situation from a bad experience to a positive experience. In many cases you’ll find that the person that began trashing your company can become a strong advocate. You made it personal for them and they will usually appreciate it. - If not, try calling their Mom
Sometimes you just need to tuck and run. If you are an online retailer with any kind of volume, you will get people putting up bad posts about you and they want nothing more than to rant. Your good efforts to resolve the problem are scorned. So, you need to counter these with posts from you and your customers.
The next thing to do is to ask your regular customers to help you out. Ask people to post about your company and your products. It may seem a bit self serving but most of your customers will understand and be happy to help. Some companies go as far as to send every customer a follow up email asking for them to send comments and evaluate their experience with your company. This is fantastic information and a great way to garner strong accolades. Post your favorites in your blog and on Facebook. Twitter about them. Get it out there for the world to see.
Finally, just begin blogging about subjects you think your customers would like to know about. Join a few forums and contribute what you can. Comment on other people’s blogs. Start a Yahoo Group. Just start being a part of the social networks you enjoy.
The best part is that this is not just an exercise in futility trying to counter posts by unhappy customers. This is simply good business. You are reaching out to your customers and doing the best you can to make their experience with your company a rewarding one. In the process, you are giving your website the best SEO (search engine optimization) it can get anywhere. That’s right. This effort will drive traffic as well.
SEO is no longer primarily about your website. It’s about your website’s street cred. It’s about what the rest of the word thinks about your site. Check this article out called “Will All You Learned About SEO Be Worthless?” - http://gillin.com/2009/11/will-all-you-learned-about-seo-be-worthless/ This article points out that search results for your company are going to include a lot more than your url and your competitors urls. It’ll include social networks, blogs, tweets, and more.
Use this to your advantage. Get out there and create the material Google, Yahoo, Bing and the rest are looking for. This is key to being an online retailer. You can dominate your search results this way. It has nothing to do with meta tags or with keywords in your urls. It has everything to do with being a solid member of your online community.
It’s easier than you think. Spend a fair bit of time for a few weeks signing up for accounts and getting used to it. Then, set aside a half hour a day. Fifteen minutes a day will work. Ask your employees and friends to do the same. Begin building content around your website and you will win.
It may not seem like it now but, with time, you might read a rant about your company and be happy to have found it. The effort put in to turning that disgruntled customer in to a happy one is good customer service and great marketing.
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