Internet Marketing Strategies -- Customer Follow Up

Following up with your customer, once you've made a sale, is
an important part of providing good customer service. Not
only is it an important part of developing a good
relationship with your customer, but it will also enable you
to introduce your new products.

Although sending out a personal message to each of your
customers may not be possible, you can provide them with the
illusion that your message was personally sent. By using
autoresponders, you can eliminate the need to manually
respond each time you make a sale.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are one of the best promotional tools on the
Internet. They were designed to automatically respond to any
email message sent to a specific address with an automatic
response. The more advanced autoresponders will enable you
to set up a series of autoresponse messages to be sent out
at a specified time.

You can use autoresponders to send all of the following:

- Thank you messages
- Welcome letters
- Order confirmations

Autoresponders can eliminate many of your routine follow-
ups. However, they cannot eliminate your customers' support
requests and your future mailings.

Customer Service

In order to develop a good relationship with your customers,
you must provide them with quality customer service. Let
them know that, should they have any questions or problems,
they are free to contact you. Provide them with all of your
contact information to make the process simple. Even if you
can't personally assist them, make sure that you have a good
customer support group ready to help. Reply to their support
requests as quickly as possible and assist them until the
problem is resolved.

Your customer service is one of the most important factors
in determining your customers' satisfaction. Even if you
have a great product or service, if your customer support
is poor, your sales will suffer.

For every dissatisfied customer, you can expect to lose one
hundred new customers. Why? When one customer has a bad
experience with your company, you can be certain that
they'll tell everyone they know about their bad experience.
It will travel through the grapevine and ultimately cost you
sales.

Follow-up with your customers and ask them how they like
your product or if they have any questions. This is a great
way to not only provide good customer service, but to also
obtain feedback about your product. By listening to your
customers, you will know exactly what they want, what
they're having problems with and how you can develop a
better product.

Mailing List

The best way to follow-up with your customers is to set up a
mailing list. No matter what mailing program you use, make
sure that it will allow you to send personalized messages.
Your customers need that personal touch. They don't want to
feel as if the message they received was sent to an entire
list. They want to feel as if it was personally sent to
them.

By following up with your customers and providing great
customer service, you are creating a life-long relationship.
Satisfied customers are more apt to purchase your new
products in the future. Treat them with the utmost respect
and go above and beyond the expected.

Copyright © Shelley Lowery 2001-2002