The little things make a big difference in customer service

In the past, when someone was unhappy with a business, they told 10 people.

Not anymore. When someone is unhappy now, they post it on facebook, twitter tons of followers, rail about it in a blog and visit a website specially designed for complaints that hundreds, if not thousands, of people see.

If you think that service has to be really bad for someone to get riled up, think again.

A series of little snafus can cause as much anger as a big one--the work order that doesn't go through, so the system crashes almost as soon as it goes up. Or the tech guy who doesn't know there will be downtime during the transition.

Or take doctors. At most offices, you sign your name and wait until called 10-15 minutes later.

The receptionist who doesn't look up, smile or even acknowledge your presence is taken for granted in healthcare.

Nevertheless, I left a dentist who ran late for one who doesn't. Quite frankly, the new dentist may not be as good as the old, but I don't care.

My time is as important as my teeth. When they say it will take 30 minutes, I can plan on spending 30 minutes there--and no more.

In the end, it's the little things that make all the difference.

For more information, please call Dell Richards Publicity at 916-455-4790 or visit our website at http://www.dellrichards.com/.

How do you get your clients?

You know what works if you track your marketing by asking new clients where they heard of you.

Because we’ve worked hard at satisfying clients in different sectors over the years, we’ve created a network of past clients who send us referrals.

Clients also come from vendor lists and websites that have our information.

Some come from this blog or articles published years ago.

Some find us on the Google, like the look of our website and call us.

A few come from people we actively cultivate and people we have asked for referrals. When business slows, we turn to friends and colleagues.

Enough business usually comes in after making a few calls, there’s rarely time to complete this ongoing list.

Does this mean we should spend more time on growing the business?

Maybe, but not necessarily.

As long as we’re satisfying our clients and doing enough marketing to keep busy, we believe enough work will come to will keep us happy—and sane.

For more information, call us at 916. 455.4790 or contact us through our website at http://www.dellrichards.com/

Those who post can be seen and heard

It doesn’t matter what Internet media you use. Writing something—from a blog to a facebook post, even to a tweet—gets your name, face or logo out there.

Recent research by Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski on Conversation Starter of the Harvard Business Publishing website partially titled “…Nobody Tweets” found that:
· 80 percent of twitter content is generated by 10 percent of users.
· the lifetime tweets of the average user is one. This would probably mean that people open accounts not to tweet, but to follow others.
· On Wikipedia, top 15 percent of the users generate 90 percent of the content.
· Social networks only expand a little more broadly with the top 10 percent creating 30 percent of use.

My experience on facebook bears this out. Most of the daily postings on my personal page are generated by 5 percent of my friends. Only 15-20 percent of the friends post, though more comment.

I don’t know what blog stats are, but I’d bet they’re similar.

Which means that if you generate information and send it out through the various available channels—as well as your email group lists—you will not only be seen, but heard.

In this day and age, that often means business.

For more information, contact Dell Richards Publicity at 916. 455.4790 or visit us at www.dellrichards.com.