by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Sales
We are down to the wire for achieving 2019 goals… how did you do? Did you hit your numbers? Did you achieve the things you wanted? While some goals are very tangible and measurable (hitting sales goals, achieving your desired ACOS, etc.), there are plenty of goals and achievements that you won’t find on a spreadsheet. Let’s talk about some of those metrics you might want to look at as you’re wrapping up the year?
Sales Numbers
As product sellers, sales are the number one metric used to measure success. If you met or surpassed sales goals, that’s reason enough to pop open the bubbly! Congrats! If you didn’t, take some time to reflect on where you fell short. Was there a certain quarter that was lacking, and caused a deficit the rest of the year? If so, how can you make that quarter more robust the coming year?
Engagement
Our clients who see the best results selling online (Amazon or elsewhere) are definitely striving to not only sell products, but they are looking to improve the lives of their customers with those products. They are genuinely concerned with who is buying their product, what they want from the brand, and meeting those needs. Take some time to reflect on how your customers interacted with you this year. Did you boost your social media numbers and offer free content that was valuable to your community? Think about how you can, in the coming year, provide more value to your customers, and really encourage your customers to become fans instead of seeing your product as a simple transaction. Afterall, engaged customers will be the ones that become repeat buyers and your first purchasers as you launch new products!
Customer Service
This is such a critical part of the success of any business, online or elsewhere and I want you to think about how you improved the customer service experience this year. Did you respond to questions being asked or address critical reviews? How quickly and efficiently did you resolve issues for unhappy customers? Even if you really excelled in this area, there’s always room for improvement. Think about how you’d like to be treated if you were the customer and make changes accordingly.
At TurnKey, we are all about helping new sellers get started on Amazon the right way and showing established sellers how to make improvements to their listing, systems, and management, and to set new goals for crushing it in 2020. We’d love to help you if you’re feeling stuck, so head over here to find out EXACTLY how we can help.
Happy New Year!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Customer Service
Let’s be honest. Hiring can be one of the hardest things to do in your business. It can be difficult to let go of certain tasks or responsibilities, because are worried that you’ll never find someone who will be able to do them like you. Am I right?
The fact is, when you take the time to hire the right person and properly train them to execute tasks according to your systems and standards, you’ll find that hiring is the best thing that ever happened to you. So let’s talk about hiring for your customer service team. Here are three tools you should focus on building prior to hiring your first team member:
A Tone Guide
Whoever is doing your customer service is a representative of your company. That’s why it’s important that they learn to speak like the company “speaks”. We recommend creating a tone guide so that they know the way in which you want communication from your company to feel. Is your brand formal or more laid back? Would you close and email with “Love, Jenny” or would that be totally strange coming from your gym equipment brand? Listing out words and phrases that reflect your brand will help your customer service team members communicate in a way that is aligned with your brand while still feeling spontaneous.
Task Videos
We love using Loom videos to train our employees. Making a video of yourself performing the task you are wanting to delegate is a great way to ensure your team gets the job done exactly the way you would do it. Walk them step by step through every part of the process, and be sure to narrate as you go along so they have a reference that is both visual and auditory.
FAQ Sheets
In any business, employees are going to run into questions or scenarios that are unexpected. That’s why it’s important to establish a process that your customer service employee can use if they don’t know how to handle a particular situation. In addition to having someone above them that can answer their question directly, you should also create a document where these responses are recorded in case the same issue comes up again. Don’t just consider these scenarios one-time occurrences. Make sure the information is easy to document and disseminate across the whole team for future reference.
Customer service is one of the first positions we recommend hiring for in order to free up your time from more pressing tasks! With the right team members ensuring your customers are happy, just imagine what other goals you’ll be focus on and accomplish! If you have any other questions about building your team and growing your business, we’d love to share more with you. Head over to www.turnkeyproductmanagement.com/apply/.
Good luck!
by Jessica Dahlquist, Director of Operations | Customer Service
Whether you are shopping in a store or purchasing something online, we have all had experiences where we feel one of two things:
- What a professional company! I feel like a part of their community and I trust that they have my best interest in mind as they are creating product, fulfilling my order, and making sure I’m satisfied. Or…
- We’ll see how this product actually works. It may be a piece of junk. I probably won’t be able to return it if it arrives broken. Who do I contact to make my problem right?
Ya feel me? Customer service is a huge part of what makes a company successful. Especially at this time of year when you are enjoying the benefits of the holiday shopping season, don’t miss out on this critical opportunity to delight your customers and express your gratitude to them. For our full list of ways to show gratitude to your customers, check out Playbook for Amazon Podcast Episode 25, but for now, let me tell you WHY showing gratitude is important when you are selling online.
Loyalty
When you are showing gratitude to your customers, they become your raving fans. Not only are they more likely to buy from you again, but they are more likely to recommend your products to others.
Peace of mind
When customers feel that you are genuinely grateful for their purchase, they feel connected to you which develops trust. This helps them believe that if anything is wrong with the purchase, you’ve got their back.
Humanizing your brand
While there are definitely sellers who are just trying to get rich quick, there are other sellers that are invested in making their customers’ lives better. They want to develop quality products that solve problems. We live in a time where “shopping small” is all the rage. If you can offer personal connection to your customer, you’ll be able to endear you brand to them. Customers will feel like their purchase isn’t just another box being shipped out.
If you haven’t been through your own sales process in a while, we highly recommend going through it as if you were a new customer. How does it feel? Are there any glitches? Would you be WOW’d by the experience? If not, now’s the time to make some tweaks. If your customer experience feels sterile and lacks connection, make sure you begin expressing gratitude to your customers. And if you aren’t sure where to start, we love helping companies audit their listings and sales processes, so check out our listing audit for more information.
by TurnKey Guest Blogger | Guest Posts
This post was written by our friends at SellerFunding for the TurnKey Success Blog
Fund your growing company with an Amazon business loan, and watch as you organically gain more 5-star reviews than your competitors.
How many 5-star reviews do your best products have on Amazon? Now search your targeted keywords, and scroll to the top listing. Notice a difference? More than likely, the items taking up the front page on Amazon have hundreds, if not thousands, of customer reviews. Even though you offer a superior product, you struggle to obtain reviews from your customers. As a result, it’s impossible to stay relevant in keyword searches.
Reviews are powerful. Potential buyers take the time to read reviews from your past customers, both good and bad. The more 5-star reviews you have, the more likely you are to close a sale. But, without the proper funding, you may not have a way to gain new customers and get more reviews. Taking out an Amazon business loan could be the boost you need to improve upon the customer experience your company provides.
Providing the Ideal Customer Experience Requires Money
The most successful small businesses are the ones that offer the best customer service. They know how to make every shopper feel like a member of the family. But, you probably don’t have much manpower to help run this aspect of your business. You’re busy behind-the-scenes wearing other hats, so your customer service department often gets overlooked.
However, if you want to succeed on Amazon’s platform, you need to reevaluate the customer experience you provide. Investing in an automated customer service platform is often the best decision, but you need money to accomplish this. A business loan can help you get the funds you need to grow a loyal customer base.
Instead of taking out a high-interest rate bank loan with ambiguous terms, it’s best to work with a lender who truly understands the demands of running an e-commerce business. Look for an online lender who specializes in financing for Amazon sellers like you. With the right amount of funding, you’ll have enough leverage to improve your customer experience and surpass your competition.
Want More Reviews? Create a Raving Fan Base
Think about the businesses you frequent. What makes you come back time and time again? You most likely get amazing service and find everything you need. Coffee drinkers enjoy the experience they get from their favorite barista every morning. They come in for the caffeine boost but return because of the customer service.
However, as an Amazon seller, it’s trickier to personalize your company. The anonymity of shopping online reduces how much face-to-face contact shoppers have. Without any personalization, they are less likely to become loyal fans.
While you may think brand loyalty is a dying concept, this couldn’t be further from the truth. According to Forbes, 37% of customers make up brand loyalists. What loyalists want are personal and meaningful engagements with a brand.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Now that you finally have the funds, you can afford to invest in providing a better customer experience. Outsourcing your customer service department may mean the difference between receiving a trickle of compliments or an avalanche of 5-star reviews. Best of all, it all happens organically. Here’s what you can expect to see in return:
- Customers receive top-notch service from your automated customer service department.
- Shoppers feel appreciated and more connected to your brand.
- They become repeat buyers, or better yet, raving fans.
- Your loyal fan base wants to see you succeed and leaves glowing 5-star reviews.
- You sit back and watch as your product listing rises in search rankings.
- Sales soar, and you exceed your quarterly goals.
Great Customer Service Never Goes Out of Style
Whether you are a new Amazon business or have been on the platform for years, customer service should remain at the forefront. Excited, satisfied customers leave 5-star reviews. Obtaining additional funding with an Amazon business loan makes it possible to personalize your customer service department and transform average shoppers into Beatlemania-like fans.
About the Author: Ricardo Pero, Chief Executive Officer of SellersFunding, received an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and has 20+ years of experience in Corporate Treasury and Wealth and Asset Management. As an investor and advisor to companies in the U.S. and Latin America, he enjoys helping start-up e-commerce businesses of all sizes to achieve success.
Need a bit more help generating the reviews you need to gain sales? Check out our Review Generation Accelerator for step-by-step strategies to increase your review numbers!
by TurnKey Guest Blogger | Guest Posts
This post was written by our friends at FeedbackWhiz for the TurnKey Success Blog
Getting product reviews doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. With effective automated email marketing, you can make the emails do the hard work for you.
To succeed on Amazon, you need to have a decent number of product reviews. Unfortunately, these are not easy to come by. In fact, most buyers will not leave a product review on their own, they often need a little prompting.
This is what makes automated email marketing such an important part of your seller’s toolkit. As simple as this sounds, it can be a challenge to get it right.
Here are some tips to help you automate Amazon product review requests:
About email marketing
Amazon allows you to contact buyers by email as part of the selling process. They have, however, very strict rules about the ways in which you can and cannot contact people.
The messages that you send must be related specifically to the product you are selling and you must never ask for a positive product review or offer incentives in exchange for one.
With the recently introduced buyer opt-outs, you must be careful to never communicate with a buyer who has opted out of receiving emails from you and limit all communication to urgent messages pertaining only to their specific order.
Having said all that, email marketing is still an effective way to build engagement with your customers and increase the chances that you receive a product review.
Emails are worth sending for all sorts of reasons – aside from the fact that email engagement makes it more likely that you’ll receive feedback, it simply makes good sense to keep the lines of communication open.
The key to successful emails
The most successful automated email sequences are friendly, helpful, and direct.
Using FeedbackWhiz, you can create automated email templates to make your life easier. By using an email template builder, you can quickly and easily design eye-catching and effective emails. You can create different emails for different purposes and schedule them to go out when you want them to.
It’s a simple way to design the perfect email sequence and boost customer engagement.
The perfect email sequence
So, what does that perfect email sequence look like?
Well, as with so many things in life, timing is everything. Every situation will be different and you may find your own schedules which work better for you, but generally speaking, we’d suggest a strategy using three separate emails.
The first email goes out as soon as you have sent the order. This is the order confirmation and reassures the customer that their purchase is on its way. This first email is also a useful way to build anticipation in advance of the package dropping through their mailbox.
Include a friendly note to say the product is on its way and include a link to tracking information. It might also be worth it to include contact details so that if the buyer has any questions, he or she can reach out to you for answers.
The second email in the sequence should go out shortly after the product has been delivered to the buyer. The timing of this email will depend on the product you are selling. Remember, some products require time before someone has a real sense of it. Most people need at least a week with the product before they are ready to leave a product review.
This email should contain a message checking in to make sure that everything is okay with the product as well as a brief prompt to leave a product review. Remind the buyer that Amazon depends on people like them leaving reviews so other people can make a more informed decision.
After this second email, you may want to stop. However, some sellers like to send a third email. This is basically a final follow-up that goes to anyone who has yet to leave a product review. Perhaps they have simply forgotten or maybe one more nudge may persuade them to spend a few minutes writing something.
Different strategies work for different sellers so it’s a good idea to mix, match and choose the approach that works best for you. The content of your emails will be crucial. You want it to be urgent and compelling, but also not sales oriented as this can put off the reader. It’s a fine balancing act and is not an easy one to get right.
FeedbackWhiz’s automated Amazon email templates allow you can track metrics about the performance of your emails. You can track open rates and use A/B testing to ensure you are delivering the right message, at the right time. Try out different variables in your email marketing to find the exact right approach.
FeedbackWhiz makes it easier to design and send out emails, but it also gives you metrics on how those emails are being received. Once you understand that you can design better and more impactful emails, you can elicit more product reviews and, in turn, boost your sales numbers.
Need a bit more help generating the reviews you need to gain sales? Check out our Review Generation Accelerator for step-by-step strategies to increase your review numbers!
