Use Time Management Skills to Keep Customers Happy

Customers are the greatest asset an Internet marketer has and savvy entrepreneurs know how to get them and just as important, how to keep them. While Internet shoppers spend billions and billions of dollars online each year, the competition for those dollars is fierce, and only those who are meeting and exceeding customer expectations will survive.  Therefore, it is absolutely essential that you deliver what you promise your customers 100% of the time. Without effective time management skills, you could be in danger of letting your customers down so realize early on that time really does mean money.

Turnaround Time

If you’re a marketer who ships goods to buyers, have you set aside certain days for shipping?  Are you meeting your promised delivery times?  If not, this is something you should immediately address before you lose loyal customers.  Some Internet marketers rely on positive feedback or ratings from customers to help draw in new customers, some of which will only purchase from those with extremely high ratings.  However, even if you’re not operating under this type of system, rest assured that your customers will rate you and spread the word about their experience with you or your company.  They may blog about it, tell their friends, or cancel their order so don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are not operating under some type of rating system.  You are!

Do You Need to Hire Help?

Anytime you have difficulty keeping up with customer demand you may need to assess whether or not you need to hire someone to help you to keep up.  Even if you can’t afford to hire full-time help, having a dedicated person to respond to customer inquiries can help you to retain those customers and attract more, which will profit your bottom line and move you to a position where you can afford full-time help.  If that just isn’t possible, schedule a block of time each day to ensure you  are on time with such tasks as answering customer questions or complaints, issuing refunds, processing orders, and anything else that your customers need from you.  If you’ve promised customers an immediate refund upon request, make sure you keep that promise. If you need to set aside one day a week to take care of such tasks, indicate in writing that requests will be processed within that time frame.  That way, if it takes a week for customers to receive a refund or another type of communication, they will be expecting to wait a few days instead of fuming because they haven’t heard from you.

Take the time to put your customers first, whether they are complaining or buying, and they will return the favor by putting you first when they are deciding where to spend their share of the billions of e-commerce dollars spent annually. Once you’re able to discern how much time you need daily or weekly to tend to customer concerns, utilize time management skills to stay on schedule.