Category Archives: Customer Relationship

“A Job WELL DONE” Praise from Mobile Giving Foundation

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Last year in December of 2010, we were hired by Mobile Giving Foundation to help them with their complex reporting tools.

It was a great experience for my team to be exposed to this type of project, but the best thing was our working relationship with Mike Silva (he was the COO of the company back then).

Mike was thorough in giving us the project requirements, supportive,  and very understanding during the programming/development process.

I wish him all the best with his new business endeavor…

Here is some comments from him about my team:

“Rio and the Sky Soft team implemented a php/web front-end to a mySQL database for the Mobile Giving Foundation.

The project was confidential, mission critical, and required a great deal of expertise across a broad spectrum of disciplines. Sky Soft delivered on time, on budget, and were excellent communicators throughout the process.

As the project scope changed (as all projects do) Sky Soft was very accommodating and proactive in adjusting the spec and timeline to the change requests.

I would highly recommend Rio and his team without reservation. Please message me with any specific questions you may have or for a more detailed recommendation.” March 9, 2011, Source: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rionaldsoerjanto

I am so PROUD of my team!!!!!

About Mobile Giving Foundation:

The Mobile Giving Foundation brings the power and reach of mobile phones to nonprofit organizations as a new fundraising and donor interaction mechanism. Through the Mobile Giving Foundation, non profits can leverage the ubiquity of mobile without the complexity, expand and cultivate a new base of givers and create permissive donor interaction.

Five Social Media Models

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It’s a good idea to know how others are using social media so you can incorporate those models into your own campaigns.

Here are five common social media models that are being used by most people (some of whom are our own clients):

Branding. Some companies use social media strictly as a branding tool. Typically, this means running a YouTube campaign that (hopefully) gets a lot of buzz around the water cooler. In our opinion, using social media simply as a branding tool is a twentieth century mindset. If you really want to supercharge your social media campaigns, you’ll incorporate one or all of the next four highly measurable approaches.

eCommerce. If you can sell your product or service online, then you’ll want to drive people to a landing page on your website where they can buy your goods. How can you accomplish this? Just do what Dell does—they Tweet about special promotions available only to the people who follow them on Twitter. The promotional links are easily tracked so they can see how many people went to the landing page and how many converted from a prospect to a customer. They generate millions of dollars in revenue each quarter by using this method.

Research. Many companies are using social media as a tool to do research. Sometimes, this involves building a website to track the results. Starbucks has done this famously with their MyStarbucksIdea.com website. Other times, using social media as a research tool can be as simple as doing a poll on LinkedIn, SurveyMonkey, or via email.

Customer Retention. A good rule of thumb is that it costs three to five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Given that, wouldn’t it be smart to use social media as a tool to keep customers loyal and engaged? That’s what Comcast and Southwest Airlines do—they communicate via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms to help solve customer service issues.

Lead Generation. What do you do if you can’t sell your product or service online? Then you’ll want to do what many B2B companies do—that is, to use social media to drive prospects to a website where they can download a whitepaper, listen to a Podcast, or watch a video. Once you’ve captured the prospect’s contact information, you can re-market to them via email, direct mail, or any number of other methods.

Importance of Case Studies and Testimonials

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Case studies and testimonials introduce two powerful ways in which brands can successfully magnify the happy voices of their customers and win over more followers. Creating case studies enables companies to convert passionate customers into influential “evangelists” who will spread specific messages and thus initiate word-of-mouth marketing.

Case studies and testimonials not only allow marketers to harness the power of peer-to-peer influence, but they also equip salespeople with targeted examples of customer success stories. In this way, they empower businesses to “show” and not only “tell” about the value their product or service brings. Case studies provide sales people with examples of solutions relevant for potential audiences. The palpable results and personal quotes of featured customers demonstrate the real value of your product or service.

Strong correlation between increased satisfaction and increased profits

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There is a strong correlation between increased customer satisfaction and increased profits for commercial website. It is simply because:

  1. Customers can find products and services more easily and are thus more likely to return in the future
  2. Support cost are reduced because of a lower number of people calling to ask questions, emails, etc to help desk, as well as a lower number of product returns.

Here is a case study taken from a book called “The Design of Sites.” Several years ago, IBM found that its website was not working well. Quick analysis revealed that search feature was the most used function. However, the website was so confusing that IBM’s customers could not figure out how to find what they wanted. Then they discovered that the second most visited page was the help page. Because the search function didn’t work properly, people went to help page to find assistance.

Paying close attention to customer needs, IBM redesigned the website from ground up to be more consistent in its navigation.

A week after launching the redesigned site, customers’ reliance on the search and help features dropped dramatically and online sales rose 400%.

Commercial websites that are not relevant, fast, trustworthy, satisfying, and easy to use will have a hard attracting new customers and retaining existing customers, especially if competitors are only a click away.

Customer Service Strategy

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The internet is not only a key reason why the expectations of both B2C and B2B customers are rising, it can also be a way to meet their expectations in a cost-effective manner.

The graph below suggests an evolution in the way customer service is delivered that has the potential to improve service without increasing the cost providing it.

It involves, first, moving away from total reliance on telephone call centers for live customer service to customer service provided on the Internet, either with or without direct human intervention.

The ultimate step would then be one of “preventive medicine,” anticipating customer service needs before they are even recognized by the customer and delivering the needed service and support in a proactive manner.

Take the full advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet to deliver satisfying customer service at a reasonable cost.

How the customer wants to be treated

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I tried to call some of my clients and asked what they want salespeople to do, how they want salespeople to act and what they want salespeople to say.

I listened and I wrote:

  • Get to the point and give me the facts
  • Tell me the truth
  • I want an ethical salesperson. Salespeople often get bum rap because a few without ethics
  • Don’t use a bunch of time-worn sales techniques to pressure me to buy
  • Give me a good reason why this product/service is perfect for me
  • Show me some proof
  • Show me I am not alone. Tell me about a similar situation where someone like me succeeded
  • Tell me and show me you will serve me after you sell me
  • Listen to me when I talk
  • Help me buy – don’t sell me

I hope this helps…

The Value of Customer Loyalty

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Loyal customers have always been important to an organization’s long-term success. Due to the heightened competition of today’s market, customer loyalty is arguably more important than ever before.

According to a Customer Loyalty expert Frederick Reichheld, of management consulting Bain & Company, 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase an organization’s profitability by 25 to 100 percent. On the other hand, an organization that sees its customer retention rate slip by 5 percent may see its bottom line drop by as much as half.

How does customer retention produce such dramatic economic benefits?

  1. Acquire new customers is more expensive than maintain
  2. Loyal customers tend to increase the volume of their purchase over time
  3. Long term customers typically cost less to serve as they are generally more familiar with your policies and processes
  4. Loyal customers are the best source of REFERRALS
  5. Loyal customers are generally less price sensitive than other customers and are more willing to pay a premium for products and service

Building customer loyalty rests on establishing strong relationships with your customers!