Support Tickets and Building Relationships
Support Tickets…You just either Love them Or you Hate them.
When I first started marketing I decided I would answer my support tickets all myself. I was told I was crazy and that it would not last for long.
Well I am happy to say that after my first year of Marketing I still am answering my support tickets myself.
Some days I go in with one eye closed praying there are none to answer…this usually is after I have had a customer that I just can’t satisfy no matter how hard I try. Usually it is not even over anything I have did wrong. It is usually over someone else’s product or service that is giving poor support to their customers and they are coming to me because they know I will try and help.
What I am finding to be the biggest trouble is the lack of trust in support desks by the customers. To many have had such bad experiences that they put in a ticket just expecting it not to get answered or some other kind of bad experience. Marketers with poor support give support desks a bad name, it isn’t the support desk.
I recently dealt with a customer over a product I promoted that no matter what I did I could not make him happy. What I soon realized was that I was not going to make him happy. He was just looking for an excuse as to why he was not able to take action on a product that he bought.
Even though I was answering his support that he sent to my personal email and my support desk…he still was bound and determined he was going to criticize my support. I did the only thing I could to help him out. I signed him up for a program I am starting in July and am going to try to work with him.
Probably a bad move on my part as I know he can get on my webinars and start up more trouble. When he does he will be confronted right then and there and then I will do the next best thing… unsubscribe him from my list. I know it should have been the first thing I should have done. Hey I am a sucker when it comes to helping people what can I say.
OK that is the bad about my support so what is it that I like?
Well 2 very good reasons…
1. I learn a lot from people and what their needs are and this allows me to develop products and services to help meet these needs.
2. It helps me build a more personal and one-on-one relationship with my customers. Responding to them personally opens up a dialogue that really helps me to get to know those that are on my list.
It has been amazing how many people I have brought into my programs just by building a trust factor with the person that sent me support. I get support asking me to help them get in touch with a different marketer that I might have promoted a product for… I love this… usually the support from the other marketer continues to be non existent and I win the trust of that person and they unsubscribe from one list and continue on mine, because I meet their needs and build trust.
I know it sounds kind of mean spirited of me to Love the fact that another marketer is giving bad support… Well one thing you need to do to get ahead of the pack is to fill the holes and if one of them is offering better support over my competition then I am going to be all over it.
Is my support perfect all the time. Well let’s say I do my best…I finally realized I could not make everyone happy…all I can do is do the best job I possibly can and keep listening to the customer. By the way the customer is not always right… but I will sure make you feel as if you were…I learned a lot from my Grandpa Norm Freeman… He used to tell me all the time that the customer is always right if I would argue with one when I worked for him on his fruit market. One day I disagreed with him after he dealt with me for arguing with a customer that was WRONG… he told me he knew the customer was wrong and that I was right and then he went on to explain to me the reason that the customer was always right and how to deal with people correctly.
Now when I see one of my customers trying to pull something over on me I just smile and send the best email of my life back to that person. Usually all is well but occasionally you come across the one like the gentleman that I have been dealing with lately that I probably wil never be able to help. Mostly because he really doesn’t want the help to begin with.
So I guess I shall continue answering my support myself and doing the best job I possibly can.
Time consuming? YES! Worth it in the end? Most definitely. I love building relationships with my list and helping them in any way I can.
I was new at this to a year ago and I know what I needed the most…HELP!
Hope this is of some help to any that read this.
Enjoy your day!
Laying Off Your Boss Together.
Jeff Wellman
http://www.layoffyourboss2.com
you are doing fine,,,,
Thanks loved it, Good Luck, I don’t know were you get all the time…lol
Ok so far so good… I like good comments Thanks Mick. It does take a lot of time but it is something I feel I need to keep doing.
Well, Jeff, I have not been shy about submitting any tickets! In fact, didn’t someone tell me to LAY OFF? Oh, that was Lay Off the BOSS. I remember now.
It probably is not fair for me to comment because I have not had vast experience in the internet world BUT I am thinking that people come into a program with great expectations. FOR YOU. NOT for themselves.
When peeps are unhappy it provides opportunities for both sides to learn from the experience.
I would commend you and Dixie both for personalizing your support. It FEELS to me as if you care (because you do; I know that.) and you both seem to be making every effort to do your best to run a good program. I think you proved that when you accepted ooaching from a mentor–you are a good role model!
Maybe we don’t KNOW what we need. Maybe we only know what we WANT.
I appreciate that you stick your necks out, put it on the chopping block and let us have our say. Very courageous, brave, honest and Wellman/Brown-esque of you guys.
Thanks to YOU and to Dixie, as well as the MasterMind groups you have supported. It makes ALL the difference for me.
Jeff,
You are doing a fantastic job with customer support! Congratulations! You’ve been an inspiration to me! Dorothea
Hi Jeffery,
Liked the post about a support desk. Must be hard to do that part all on your own, but I see why you do. No one else is as familiar with your business, right. Its that personal touch that really makes you stand out Jeff.
I would be interested in learning the ins and outs of having a support desk. Thats something you dont see much about . Dont worry, dealing with the public you always have one or two that you just cant help, thats not your fault, its theirs.
Kathryn
Sir: Estensplace is not flying at the present time. I’m working on it at godaddy’s. Now to the problem. I’m new at this, really I am. I have not made a cent on or from the internet. Money is the problem, anyway, it seems that every time I try to download something time seems to run out and internet exployer does not have time to complete the download. Time is the essance when being on dial up. It is slow when downloading plus my machine is getting old a loaded. I have had it since 02. I do have some things from you. I also will have to come back to get the url or whatever it is called to put on my website when it gets launched and flying. I have a lot to learn when it comes to marketing and computers. Thanks for listening and have a great day. Esten
Ok, I know that you are looking for ways to improve your support services, but I thought I would share this with everyone.
I started looking for ways to make money online about two or three years ago (to date I have made zero dollars). This is my fault, not anyoe else’s. I bought Jeff’s first product about laying off your boss. I did not “get it” and asked for a refund. Jeff did not moan and gran about it, nor did he hound me with annoying emails. He cheerfully refunded my money! I was so shocked by the simplicity of it all. I never thought it would have been this easy to get a refund.
Anyway, that was a while back and a lot of money and wasted time ago. Not all wasted because along the way I have learned some valuable lessons.
I did not delete Jeff from my mailing list and have been keeping an eye on him and I must say I am impressed! Jeff seems to REALLY care about people and I feel that feeling listening and reading his material (by the way, Jeff did not pay me to say any of this…..lol).
So, the only thing that I can say slightly negative about your support efforts is that maybe you gave up on me too easily I needed a push (in fact, a lot of pushing!) to help me see the light. I really didn’t know anything about what I was doing and it has taken me a long time to come to the realization that information products (interviews, ebooks, etc.) are the way to go, at least for me. And that it takes a lot of coordinated effort and friends to help me get there. This is not meant to be a one-man show and the more support you can get from friends and people that are out there to help you the better off you will be.
So when you ask for a refund for a product,, step back and re-evaluate the material and don’t be so quick to judge whether a product is right for you until you have had the chance to really put it into effect.
I will be looking at Jeff’s materials again because I do feel he geninely cares about my future endeavors. Sorry this ws so long and that I rambled on, but I have a tendancy to do that and sometimes I come up with some good stuff……lol.
Hi Jeff
I market a lot of stuff on behalf of other marketers and when their system doesn’t work it’s always my fault. I used to hate it but now it gives me the opportunity to get to know that customer better and give them the best service I can. I also try a lot of things out and it can get quite messy when things just don’t work. However it makes great content for an article or report.
Personally I feel that if I have done the best I can then I’ve done a good job because as you say most of the time they are just looking for an excuse for their own problems which has nothing to do with me. Yes people still expect miracles to happen without them lifting a finger when they buy an ebook or product too.
Good on you Jeff for manning your support desk yourself as that’s the engine room of your business and one needs to as they say fix litle things before they become big things.
Keries
Hey Jeff,
I think it’s really important to do as much of your own support as possible. Yes, some days it’s a pain, but when you see the same issue over and over, it’s something that one needs to fix… last week! Would an outsourced helper be as motivated to fix it as you are?
And it goes without saying that there is always going to be the one strange one that has a problem with something, like your gentleman, and it hurts, I know.
If it didn’t hurt, that’s usually when you should worry. If it doesn’t bother you, you should get out of the biz. That’s why you got in - because you saw a need, and you had a way to fill it.
This gentleman doesn’t have as deep a need as is needed in order for him to do what it takes to fill it just yet. He may never, who knows.
Thanks for sharing this with us - it deepens the relationship we have with you, even if none of us so far has given you anything to work with here.
For what it’s worth, I get many emails promoting many of the same things… and when I get yours, I click on it. “Well if Jeff sent it to me…” you know.
Keep up the good work. Let me know if there’s anything I can ever do for you - seriously.