Before you paid for the product/service, the seller was courteous, and told you all the things you wanted to hear. Convinced, you paid him/her.
But when you finally got the product/service delivered to you, and subsequently had a need to request support to solve a problem or use it, s/he was not as forthcoming as before.
Especially when you had to make repeat requests for more support, due to the fact that the issue you’d raised had not been addressed too your satisfaction.
The above scenario is one that many of us can readily relate to on a personal level. In this article, I illustrate, using a real life client story, how providing superior after-sales support to buyers can lead to repeat business and powerful referrals for you as a business owner!
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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) Newsletter
Monday 2rd July 2017
NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.
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PII 073 : You Need Superior After Sales Support to Win Repeat Business & Unsolicited Referrals
Before you paid for the product/service, the seller was courteous, and told you all the things you wanted to hear. Convinced, you paid him/her.
But when you finally got the product/service delivered to you, and subsequently had a need to request support to solve a problem or use it, s/he was not as forthcoming as before.
Especially when you had to make repeat requests for more support, due to the fact that the issue you’d raised had not been addressed too your satisfaction.
The above scenario is one that many of us can readily relate to on a personal level. In this article, I illustrate, using a real life client story, how providing superior after-sales support to buyers can lead to repeat business and powerful referrals for you as a business owner!
How you treat your buyers AFTER they’ve sent you money for the product or service you promise them matters…if you want to GROW your brand and be positively recognized for what you do, in a manner that generates sales for you.
Sadly, despite the fact that most people know the above truth, many fail to diligently apply themselves to making sure they deliver what they promise once prospective buyers/clients send them money.
This is especially true in my part of the world – Nigeria/Africa – for people who do business face to face. Little wonder then that most people out here are wary of doing business with others via the web, in which case they are unable to interact one on one, physically, with the seller.
Simply put, the crucial ingredient of TRUST, which is the basis of which long term successful business relationships are built, is often hard to establish out here.
The irony is that in this same society, those who take the pains to make themselves worthy of being given trust by their target audiences, often achieve superior sales results that prove it’s the right way to do business.
One therefore wonders why the majority still find it hard to do business in that ideal way
Being the keen student of human behavior that I am, I have carefully studied people engaged in business dealings with me, and others for a long time, in order to understand why they behave the way they do.
My observations and experiences convince me that the number one reason why majority of business persons find it hard to keep their promises to buyers after they collect money, is that they lack passion for what they do.
You see, sending or giving the product to the buyer is NOT what it takes to keep your promise to him/her.
Nope. Anyone can do that i.e. send a product or deliver a service to the buyer.
It’s how well you do it, and what you do AFTER the buyer has received the product/service that counts!
For instance, what would you do, if for some reason s/he has to come back to you for something related to the purchase s/he has made, which will NOT involve giving you more money?
It’s never exciting to have to redo a job, or replace a product. But sometimes an authentic client complaint can make it necessary to do just that, if one is to show integrity.
In other words, s/he may have a complaint about something not looking or working right with the provided solution.
Or s/he could be in need to your guidance to make successful use of it. How you respond to such follow up (after sales) requests is what really tells anyone if you are able to keep your promise to buyers.
Sellers who are able to respond satisfactorily frequently end up setting themselves apart from the crowd of others, and typically find themselves followed and patronized by a tribe of loyal buyers.
Business owners who sell in the above described manner typically end up getting a lot of repeat business from their clients
I say this from VERY personal experience. It is how I live and work – and I enjoy a lot of repeat business from doing so. I have lots of true stories to tell, including names and contact details of buyers involved, to back up my claims.
Let me share a most recent example, which happened during the past week…
Below is a screenshot showing an email sent to me by a new Farm CEO client confirming that he’d finally been able to resolve the problem he’d been having making use of my Excel-VB Ration Formulator, which he’d purchased along with the Feed Formulation Handbook.
We’d had to exchange a series of emails in which I’d gotten him to give me specific details of the problems he was having, to which I then offered tips for him to use.
Eventually, as the screenshots below show, he used the video I recorded showing how I logged in successfully to his copy of the app, to revisit what he was doing and get the app working right for him.
What is most noteworthy however is the fact that he specifically expressed appreciation to me for “being there” to support him all through that process (See screenshot above)
You must understand that all through the entire episode, I consistently told him that I was sure the app would work as expected and that I would support him to get it to do so.
My confidence came from years of supporting other clients to make use of that app, and others that I sell. So, I knew it was unlikely to be anything wrong with my product.
But that did not make me get impatient with the client. I understood, as is stated in my code of ethics, that not everyone has the time and training to make use of solutions like those I sell.
So, I go the extra mile to support ALL my buyers – way beyond what most providers would willingly do.
Now, some people would consider doing the above as an invitation to get used and dumped by clients.
My Web Marketing System for client recruitment however ensures I rarely have such an experience – because those who come to me will often have invested heavily upfront in what I sell (taking a leap of faith since they cannot meet me face to face) BEFORE I even start working with them in this manner.
And THAT is why I never find it difficult to do all I do for my clients.
Apart from the fact that I have a passion for what I do, and therefore do not see it as work, but as fun, the truth is that doing it like I do, often gives my clients the confidence to make additional purchases from me – as happened with the client example I gave above.
[NB; I could have done what many others do i.e simply stop responding. Some do this because they are sure the fault is the client’s. Others do it because they don’t care once they’ve been paid. Neither attitude is right. And those sellers who act in that manner rarely get to record repeat business from such buyers!]
See screenshot below for his email stating that he’d sent payment to take up a promo offer I’d sent him right not long after I’d told him what to do for me to help him resolve his problem with the product he already bought.
Notice that I did NOT even wait to solve THAT first pending problem for him, before making my offer. That shows just how confident I was that it was NOT something to worry about.
Little wonder that he chose to sign up – and the best part is that he ended up resolving the problem himself.
If you form the habit of being there for your client when it matters most, especially LONG after taking money from him/her, rest assured that s/he will NEVER forget you for it, and will tell others about you. Nothing beats unsolicited word of mouth advertisement – which is what THAT amounts to!
Excel-VB Driven Ration Formulator
1. Click here to learn more about this app – watch demo videos etc
2. Click here to watch a 4 part video in which I demonstrate how to use this app to formulate rations using real life data sent to me by an Algerian PhD student.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
EXCEL-VB DRIVEN POULTRY LAYER FARM MANAGER SOFTWARE
Click here to download a detailed PDF user guide and watch 15 screen shot user guide tutorials of the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager that I now offer Farm CEOs.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
SDN Blog™
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Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist
*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
http://www.tayosolagbade.com
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement
Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.
Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc).
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
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[IMPORTANT NOTE:====
On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Here’s an article Tayo wrote, to inspire others to defy adversity, and bounce back to even greater reckoning at what they do EVERY time:
And he wrote the one below, to explain why losing a domain name, no matter how old, NO LONGER determines your online success or otherwise:
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
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