Rarely are marketing programs or campaigns perfect. Things always go wrong although the customers may not be aware of it especially as you present a picture of all being well. Having experienced this as a marketer and customer the problem often stems back to the planning and checking the details. Taking a little time upfront can save you lots of problems especially with customer relationships.





Comments


Written by Hurrah_Productions
5230 days ago

Attention to detail is everything as is the quality of the work you're actually marketing to sell yourself with. In many trades and professions you will very often be judged on the quality of the work you have already done to date.



Written by m4bmarketing
5231 days ago

That is very true Shawn and I think one of the problems with what happened. Apart from the lack of planning how to handle everything they had a lot of elements.



Written by yoni67
5231 days ago

Shawn,

I noticed your great post on Anita yesterday. I wanted to vote, but it was never submitted to BizSugar?

Yoni



Written by m4bmarketing
5232 days ago

Hi Yoni,

Sorry to hear about your troubles. It sounds terrible especially when you know you are in the right. The human touch can make all the difference especially soothing a customer who is upset.

I hope it is settled soon and thank you for sharing your story.

Susan



Written by ShawnHessinger
5231 days ago

Sometimes the key to success in a marketing campaign or anything else you do in your small business is to make things as simple as possible thus eliminating the kinds of details that cause a plan of any kind to go wrong. This simplicity can also make it easier to measure results. If you want to improve your Website's ranking, for example, just focus on building inbound links by a certain number each month. Sure, there are a million other things you could do as well, but if you don't pick just one to focus on at first, you run the risk of not doing any of them well. Managing details is important, but sometimes the problem is that we've added too many details to our plan. Try simplifying your campaign to minimize the number of things that can go wrong and make it easier to judge performance after the fact,



Written by yoni67
5232 days ago

Susan,

Great, sound advice all around. Paying attention to details is key, and foresseing problems which may arise is perhaps equalliy important. This leads to "how will these potential problems be dealt with."

We recently received a phone bill for 34,000 shekels (about $9,000). I called the phone company immediately and told them our average bill is approximately $60. We did not make calls to anywhere other than our usual numbers despite the fact that we are being billed for hundreds of calls to Moldova, Bulgaria, Germany and the Czech Republic! The representative and her cadre of supervisors all told us the same thing, "Our computers don't lie!

We have retained a lawyer who will, no doubt, get to the bottom of this. Unfortunately our phone service will be disconnected for non-payment in the coming days!

The phone company obviously does not know how to treat or retain customers as we will be transferring to a new company ASAP!

Yoni



Written by ShawnHessinger
5231 days ago

Wow, Yoni. This sounds horrible. We've had our own run-ins with service providers but nothing on this order. I'm not sure how much choice you have in these services, but one of the truly liberating things at least in our region of the U.S. at the moment is that there is so much competition that, when any kind of nonsense occurs, you simply tell them you're discontinuing with them and going with a competitor. Sometimes they change their tune and sometimes they don't. But even if they don't, you often find that once you walk they're soon trying to get you back with a better deal. I have heard of businesses ranging from banks to other service providers erasing fees when this tactic is used (especially when they know deep down they're in the wrong.) But I must confess I've never heard craziness on the order you're describing before.



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Share your small business tips with the community!
Share your small business tips with the community!
Share your small business tips with the community!