Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26 in Community Help Boards in Community

Last Post Jan 26, 2007 3:05 PM by: deirdre@ebay.com

Replies: 83

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Dec 31, 2006 10:52 PM

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Topic: Member Workshop: Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Host: planthabit and jill.of.all.trades
Date: Friday 01/26
Time: 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm PT
Location: Workshop Board

Description: Please join Janelle Elms, lead instructor with eBay University, and Phil Dunn, author and Fortune 500 marketing consultant, for the sixth installment of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing workshop series. This session covers customer satisfaction and retention practices that help you grow your business. We'll show you how to effectively convey trustworthiness, personalize your communications, leverage one-to-one marketing techniques and promotions, use direct mail, and generate positive feedback.

Cheers,

Deirdre
eBay Community Development

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Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:43 PM

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Hello and welcome!

Making your current customers happy makes you money. It spares you loss of profit in sending refunds, loss of shipping fees, and loss of time wasted in such unprofitable activities. It builds the ever-important eBay feedback necessary to gain the trust of new customers.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:44 PM

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Exemplary customer service is also a strong asset in building your eBay brand. If you think of your brand as a promise that you make to your customers, good customer service is a means of honoring that promise.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:44 PM

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This workshop will examine strategies to help you increase customer satisfaction, including how to do the following:

• Convey trustworthiness
• Create concise terms of sale
• Communicate and ship promptly
• Put personality in customer communications
• Give and receive feedback
• Personalize your customer relationships
• Market to customers one-to-one
• Create newsletters and e-mail campaigns
• Use direct mail opportunities in every package you send
• Offer gifts and inspire reciprocation
• Utilize promotions and incentives for return business

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:44 PM

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Customer satisfaction builds customer loyalty, and customer retention is the key to the long-term success of your business. Professional marketers understand these concepts well—we see it in airline frequent flyer programs, grocery store shopping clubs, and the daily deluge of brand loyalty messages in advertisements. It’s easy to incorporate the same sort of strategies into your eBay business, turning one-time shoppers into loyal customers.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:44 PM

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First, let's talk about the HIT factor – Honesty, Integrity and Transparency.

These three factors are the foundation of excellent customer relations. This might sound like a page torn from a Boy Scout manual, but these values underlie all other customer service strategies.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:44 PM

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Honesty is important when creating your item descriptions and communicating with customers. It’s important that you utilize the copywriting techniques discussed in Workshop #4 (Link) to highlight the best aspects of your merchandise and persuade the browser to become a buyer. But remember that truth-stretching and outright misrepresentation is a direct path to ticked-off customers and, ultimately, the failure of your business. Sing the praises of your merchandise, but don’t try to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:45 PM

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Integrity is built by establishing solid customer service policies, clearly communicating those policies, and then delivering on the promises you make. Offer your customers guarantees of your merchandise. Either give a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee, or guarantee them that the item they receive will arrive as you described it in your listing. Honor that policy should a customer wish to return an item. Happy customers are those who feel that your product (and you) live up to their expectations.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:45 PM

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The concept of transparency is a little less tangible. Think of a magician who states, “There’s nothing up my sleeve.” Of course, he usually does have a trick up his sleeve when he says this. For your business, you want the reality of your customers’ experience to match the appearance you convey. No smoke and mirrors, no tricks, no fine print—just clear and concise communication with your customers. Consider the concept of full disclosure for stock sales of publicly traded companies. They open their accounting books to public scrutiny in an effort to inspire confidence in their shareholders.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:45 PM

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If you instill the sense of absolute legitimacy in every aspect of your eBay business, you dispel online shopping fears and build the foundation for satisfied customers.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:45 PM

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Along with well-written, honest, and persuasive item description copy, you must include clearly stated policies or terms of sale for effective customer service. Direct communication with your customers about your expectations of them and exactly what they can expect from you works wonders in the satisfaction department. Be thoughtful with your sales policies, word them carefully, and be sure to include information concerning the following:

• Payment types accepted
• Shipping methods and costs
• Sales tax
• Warranties and guarantees
• Return and refund policies
• Feedback
• Additional customer service policies, including timeframes for submitting
payments, offers for expedited shipping, or other instructions for payment

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:45 PM

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Your terms of sale should appear in three locations:
• In the body text of each and every item description
• In the appropriate spots for shipping and payment information on the Sell Your Item form
• In your About Me page or as a customized page in your eBay Store

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:46 PM

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Tip: Avoid using larger typeface, red lettering, or all capital letters for your terms of sale. It’s the text equivalent of screaming at your customers, and no one likes to have rules and regulations screamed at them. Even though some eBay buyers simply don’t read stated policies carefully, using such typefaces insults the intelligence of every potential customer who browses your item listings. Insulting potential customers is no way to win friends and influence people—and certainly no way to run a business.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:46 PM

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Let's take a second to talk about shipping and handling. That's a big part of customer service on eBay, because each eBay purchase has built-in delayed gratification. Everyone's stalking the postal trucks and brown trucks once they've ordered something online. Also, each listing has different shipping and handling charges based on the seller's preferences and the locations of the seller and buyer.

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Jan 26, 2007 1:46 PM

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First of all, resist the temptation to pad your shipping and handling costs. Most eBay buyers are knowledgeable when it comes to postage rates. They resent attempts by sellers to squeeze a few extra bucks out of them with padded S&H costs. If you charge a handling fee, be sure that it is a reasonable amount so as not to raise buyers’ eyebrows when they check your S&H rates.

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Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26

Customer Satisfaction and Retention - Jan 26