You have your store set up and your products or services are being sold, but are your customers satisfied? Could you provide excellent customer service in such a brute force manner, that it deters scams, or convinces customers to be easy on their review?
My friend who sold on Amazon, is currently at 98% satisfactory ratings after several years. He always gave good advice and principles to refer back to when faced with an unsatisfied customer. I was ecstatic when I learned his secret! It was not a secret, it is in every marketing book for the past few decades! It is the idea of creating customer value. He always observed for ways to create extra value and he made his listings better, and continued to do well. I asked though if he is already entrenched in the market why does he not skyrocket the price , why does he still have to appease the customer? Even the other sellers who piggybacked on his listing never changed the changes he made, as it increased sales for everyone. His ability to be creative with marketing ideas gave him success and it baffled me until I learned his philosophy.
Your marketing philosophy can actually be very specific and effective. In order to do this though; one must know their focus with each marketing action. Understand that the fulfillment of a focus or goal can be arrived at from different directions. There are some basic questions to start with, concerning your focus at a particular time.
Focusing on the Market, you should ask, “What do customers need or want? How can I solve other people’s problems?” On the best tools of creating value for the market is the combination of coordination and structure.
If you focused on production you should ask, “What can we do better than others? What can we make? What extra value can your firm bring to table”?
Focusing on sales you should ask, “How can we increase or somehow encourage more sales? This is where one of the biggest tools for achieving maximum sales volume could be abused if not done properly which is promotion.
Marketing professionals are taught that their are some general ways of creating value for customers (in fact these are standard, so you should know and contemplate before you start). These ways are…
- Commitment that is organization-wide
- Cooperatively develop products with customer’s experience
- Earn trust from consumers
- Inform of products and specifications so customer feels empowered or comfortable with product
- Support after sales
- Avoid unreasonable pricing strategies
Unreasonable pricing strategies can ruin you reputation. Among competitors and customers, so choose wisely and if you go low be considerate. There are also illegal pricing strategies which you should avoid.
There is also the philosophy of Relationships marketing that we employed at the store, This is crucial too, because a seller can create a customer service program that can be better than Amazon Customer Service at times. Many times Amazon Customer Service Reps would forward customer complaints, this is not effective as the Amazon Customer Service Reps may not be empowered enough to solve issues effectively with customers since they deal with so many sellers. Although many times they are spot on, it can be beneficial to encourage an effective relationship between our firm and the customer, regarding that there are a few widely adopted techniques.
- Cooperation – in an environment among employees. This creates cohesion and efficiency within an organization. Quality Control confirms the product works, distribution gets the product to customer and a customer service representative makes sure the customer takes ownership and is happy with the experience, together create a synchronized process that creates value on a large scale.
- Effective Training – To have informed employees who represent your firm and create positive experiences for customers. Effective training instills employees with the ideals of your business so they will one day be able to make decisions that represent the whole firm.
- Empowerment – Giving employees many tools to solve problems and leaving enough responsibilities in their control that they feel empowered and able to solve issues. This is crucial, otherwise problem solving becomes a slow process waiting for approval and taking up time from actual complex and more expensive challenges.
- Representation – your employees know they represent your firm and empower them enough so they do so effectively, and positively. Representation is trhe hardest to get, as customers could chop down our employees and their efforts for creating value. This is where we find exceptional individual’s who are able to do so no matter their position.
These are the techniques taught and in practice by Professionals in the Human Resource and Marketing departments in some of the biggest firms! Do not let your Amazon Store or eCommerce operation leave the mentioned strategies all for the biggest players!
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