10 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service

1. Stay in contact with customers on a regular basis. Offer them a free e-zine subscription. Ask customers if they want to be updated by e-mail when you make changes to your Web site. After every sale, follow-up with the customer to see if they are satisfied with their purchase.

2. Create a customer focus group. Invite ten to twenty of your most loyal customers to meet regularly. They will give you ideas and input on how to improve your customer service. You could pay them, take them out to dinner or give them free products.

3. Make it easy for your customers to navigate on your web site. Have a "FAQ" page on your Web site to explain anything that might confuse your customers. Ask them to fill out an electronic survey to find out how make your web site more customer friendly.

4. Resolve your customers complaints quickly and successfully. Answer all e-mail and phone calls within an hour. If possible, you the owner of the business, personally take care of the problem. This will show your customers you really care about them.

5. Make it easy for your customers to contact you. Offer as many contact methods as possible. Allow customers to contact you by e-mail. Hyperlink your e-mail address so customers won't have to type it. Offer toll free numbers for phone and fax contacts.

6. Make sure employees know and use your customer service policy. Give your employees bonuses or incentives to practice excellent customer service. Tell employees to be flexible with each individual customer, each one has different concerns, needs and wants.

7. Give your customers more than they expect. Send thank you gifts to lifetime customers. E-mail them online greeting cards on holidays or birthdays. Award bonuses to your customers who make a big purchase.

8. Always be polite to your customers. Use the words your welcome, please, and thank you. Be polite to your customers even if they are being irate with you. Always apologize to your customers should you make a mistake. Admit your mistakes quickly and make it up to them in a big way.

9. Reward customers a point for every one dollar they spend. Let's say customers can get a free computer for 300 points. That means customers will spend $300 dollars on your products and services to get enough points to get the free computer.

10. Build strong relationships with your customers. Invite them to company meetings, luncheons, workshops or seminars. Create special events for your customers like parties, barbecue's, dances etc. This will make them feel important when you include them in regular business operations and special events.

8 Ways To Increase The Perceived Value Of Your Freebies

Almost everyone is giving away a freebie so they can attract people to their web site. They are giving away free e-zines, ebooks, services, etc. What's happening to all this free stuff? It's loosing it's perceived value. Every time you surf the internet or check your e-mail you see at least 20 to 50 freebies offers.

Don't get me wrong freebies do increase traffic, but not like they did when the internet was new. The key is to increase the perceived value of your freebies so they will be more attractive to your audience. How do you do this? Well, here are eight ways:

1. You could tell them what the freebie is worth with a dollar amount. For example, "Subscribe to my free e-zine! A $199 value!"

2. You could add other freebies to your freebie that will increase the value. For example, "Subscribe to my free e-zine and get free access to our "subscribers only" private web site!"

3. You could tell them the freebie is only available for a limited time. For example, " Download our free ebook, this free offer will only be available until May 30, 2000."

4. You could tell them the freebie is only available to a limited number of people. For example, " Our free software will only be available for the next 100 people that download it.

5. You could give more details about the freebie. List the benefits, features, what problems the freebie will solve, etc.

6. You could describe your freebie to sound more attractive. For example, instead of "free report" you could say "free never released top secret document"

7. You could list testimonials for your freebie. Most businesses don't give testimonials for their freebies. This would defiantly increase your freebies value.

8. You could tell people how many people have already receive your freebie. For example, "15,000 people have already subscribed to my free e-zine! Can they all be wrong?

These are only a few ways you can add value to your freebies. You could be creative and think up some other ways to increase the perceived value of your freebies. Also test each idea to see which one draws the most traffic to your web site.

8 Benefits Of Helping An Online Business Newbie

Do your remember when you first ventured out in the online business world? You probably had questions and problems along the way. Wouldn't it have been easier if you had help? When a newbie asks for your advice, educate them; answer their questions and help them solve their online business problems. If you do not have the knowledge to help them out, point them in the right direction.

You'll get many benefits from helping online business newbies. Below are eight possible benefits you could receive:

1. You will feel good knowing that you had a part in helping them build their business. You can sit back and say "I had a part in their success."

2. They may become one of your best friends. Most people can use new friends, even business owners. You may even become business partners and create a totally new business together.

3. You could end up being strategic business allies in the future. You could regularly do joint venture and cross promotion deals with each other.

4. They may help you out with your business. Maybe they will give you some testimonials or endorsements for your products or services.

5. You might gain some valuable referrals from them. They may also join your affiliate program and make sales for your business.

6. They might offer you some free advertising space on their web site or in their e-zine for your help. You could also exchange advertising with them.

7. You both could end up developing a new product or service together. The product or service could be a combination of your current ones.

8. They might purchase the products you sell and become one of your best customers. You could sell them many back end products or services in the future.

There are probably many other benefits you could get from helping a new online business owner. Always remember to help them out because it's the nice thing to do and not just to benefit your own business.

5 New And Lesser-Known Online Business Ideas

1. Ask people to find a hidden link in your ad copy. If they find the hidden link tell them they will get a prize or freebie by clicking on it. This will increase the chance that they will buy your product or service because they will read your whole ad copy.

2. Start a members only web site. Tell visitors what's in your members only site and what it costs to get access. Offer them a free membership, if, in exchange they link to your web site, post your banner on their home page or agree to advertise your web site in their e-zine for a set period of time. Usually they will agree to the free advertising to save money. This is a powerful way to get free advertising.

3. Want a popular discussion board? This technique is based on the number of postings made by any one person. You could give away a free product or service to any person that posts ten or more messages on your discussion in a month. It could be a free e-book, report, e-mail consulting etc. Just keep track of everyone's postings each month. This could also work for e-mail discussion lists.

4. Give your visitors an instant article directory. Tell your visitors they can instantly add a free article directory to their web site by linking to yours. Just place your ad or banner ad on top of the article directory for your main product or service. All those links can add up to a large amount of traffic for your web site.

5. There a millions of web sites on the internet. Instead of marketing your web site as a web site. Market it as a free web book. Design your web site with a title page, table of contents, chapters, etc. Just place your ad or banner for your product or service on the top of each web page.

5 Innovative Ways To Advertise Your Web Site

1. Directory Linking
Create a directory of web sites on a specific topic. Give people the option of adding the directory to their web site by linking to it. Put your business  advertisement at the top of the director's home page. This technique will get lots of people to link to your web site and give you free advertising.

2. Bonus Advertising
Do you have a product or service that doesn't sell good? Offer it as a free bonus for someone else's product or service. Get free advertising by placing your web site or business ad on the product or in the product package.

3. Autoresponder Trade
Trade autoresponder ads with other businesses. If both of you send out information with auto-responders just exchange a small classified ad to put at the bottom or top of each other's autoresponder message.

4. Tip Line
Start a free tip line. Offer a free daily, weekly, or monthly tip recorded on your voice mail. The tips should be related to your business. Include your ad for your web site or business at the beginning or end of your message.

5. Content Swap
Exchange content with other web sites and ezines. You could trade articles, top ten lists, etc. Both parties could include a resource box at the end of the content.