Customer Retention Uses of Web-based Learning Management Systems (LMSs)
8) Around-the-clock, 24-7 tech support. A web-based LMS used to deliver training and product support is able to provide 24-7 customer support, with courses on installation procedures and other types of important information. Top-notch customer support will therefore improve customer loyalty.
9) Map the perception of your company's product and services on your customer's mind. A web-based learning management system used to deliver training and product support works to reinforce the positive perception of your products and/or service's and the company's perception in your market.
10) Research, test, and introduce new products, add-ons, and services. A web-based learning management system can be used to introduce new products and services to your customer base. Use the system reports to tweak your product introduction campaigns to quickly build product saturation amongst your existing customer base.
11) Sell and market additional products, add-ons, and services to your existing customer base. As mentioned in item (7) above, a web-based LMS has features and functionality that can be used to sell and market your products to your current customers. The built-in online survey, E-mail messaging, system messaging, and web conferencing tool give sales and marketing professionals many options for promoting their products and services.
12) Insure a continuous loop of communication with your customers to build loyalty. A web-based LMS can be used to build a never-ending stream of dialog between you and your customers. According to the Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls and David Weinberger, and Seth Godin's Permission Marketing, markets are conversations. A web-based learning management system is an efficient, cost-effective mechanism in which to maintain a dialog with your customers on many levels through different online mechanisms.
Why is this important?
In customer acquisition sales and marketing in a business-to-business context, more and varied touches of the prospect are needed in order to close the sale. Depending upon the complexity of the product and the sales situation in a business-to-business context, a prospect needs a minimum of six touches or even more per stakeholder to come to a close.
When deployed as part of your tactical customer acquisition strategy, a web-based learning management system is a potent and inexpensive way to generate many different types of touches for each of the stakeholders in the business-to-business sales process. This system used in conjunction with web marketing, direct mail, telemarketing, and other techniques will shorten your company's sales cycle and help to close more sales.
In customer retention sales and marketing in a business-to-business context, they have already purchased your products and services. Your product or service is being used to solve one or a combination of their business challenges. Many times they are more inclined to come back to you again to see if you have another product/service that can help them solve another business problem.
Customer retention sales and marketing should facilitate customers buying additional products and services. A web-based learning management system used in business-to-business, value-added, manufacturing, and technology industries can become an important conduit between your company's products and services and your customers.
12 Ways To Use E-learning For Customer Acquisition And Retention, Part 2
Advertising? Consider Product Life Cycle & Customer Buying Habits
When you create advertising for small businesses, consider both the life cycle of your product or service along with customer buying habits.
Today, both sellers and buyers alike want fast results. You should recognize that the actual process of turning your prospects into customers still takes time. Buying cycle times may be shorter today, but the process still exists. People often buy according to their past purchasing habits and patterns. These habits can be hard to change.
Classic marketing theory details the life cycle of a product or service as (1) introduction, (2) growth, (3) maturity, (4) decline, and (5) phase-out. In other words: when it's (1) New, (2) Rapidly Accepted, (3) The Industry Standard, (4) Fading, and (5) Hard to Find.
Furthermore, the people who buy those products/services can be profiled in different stages as (a) innovative adapters, (b) majority adapters, or (c) stragglers.
Profiles of these three buyer categories (a) (b) (c) are helpful in creating advertising tailored to each phase of the five life cycles of the product or service. Judge accordingly.
For example, when you introduce a new product or service, one of your prime target markets should be the early adapters, the innovators. It has been estimated somewhere around 10 to 20 percent of people do their own research and experimentation about their purchases. (An ever-increasing number do their research on the web – before they contact anyone.)
The other 80 percent or so are followers (b) (c). They read, listen to, or watch ads; try recommendations from their friends, neighbors or co-workers; or use coupons, etc.
It is advertising that educates and entices prospects at these different purchasing stages to try something new for them. Most importantly, it happens person-by-person. Over time, good advertising can remind, motivate and change buying habits for those in each type of profile.
So it is important to let each group know your product or service is there and ready for them when they want to buy. Plan to have your advertising message repeated often enough where it will be available to them when they are ready to explore and make a buying decision.
It only takes money and time. Be patient. Keep chipping away at it. Soon, your targeted advertising message will be part of your product life cycle and customer buying habits.
© 2006 Jon Sinish
This article may be reprinted and distributed as long as the resource information remains intact.
12 Ways To Use E-learning For Customer Acquisition And Retention, Part 1
Customer acquisition and customer retention are important issues for any company today. A simple definition of "customer acquisition" is the process of acquiring or obtaining new customers, and/or converting prospects to customers. "Customer retention" is the process of keeping, sustaining, and/or growing the relationship your customers have with your company and its products and services.
These activities become more involved for business-to-business, value-added, manufacturing, and technology companies that create and distribute complex products and services that require training and specific product knowledge in order to use the product or service effectively. Using e-learning, i.e., a learning management system to deliver web-based training and support for complex products and services has several advantages.
Customer Acquisition Uses of Web-Based Learning Management Systems (LMSs)
1) Educate your prospects on your products and services. One advantage of using a e-learning to deliver product training and support is that the web-based LMS becomes an effective way in which to educate a prospect on your products and services. Sales cycles for complex products and services can take from three to eighteen months or more to make the sale. In business-to-business selling situations, several people at many different levels need to evaluate the product and must be educated on your company's wares before they can come to a decision.
2) Customize your approach to each of the different stakeholders involved in the sale process. The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) will have a different set of concerns about your products and services than Chief Information Officer (CIO). The user interface layout and content of the web-based learning management system can be customized to each of the specific stakeholders' needs. A web-based learning management system can contain several courses, training modules, or repositories of information specifically designed to meet the needs and address the concerns of all the various stakeholders in the decision making process.
Most of the decision makers involved in business-to-business purchases are busy, executive-level managers. Since the information is web-based, they can access it and do a training module at their convenience.
3) Establish a knowledge base for salespeople, resellers, and partners. A web-based LMS used to deliver training and product support is a great resource and knowledge base for your sales team, resellers, and partners. It can provide a backup for sales people, resellers, and partners that might not have the same level of understanding of your products your field engineers. Your sales executives, resellers, and partners will feel more confident about offering your products and services with a good library of training courses and helps available 24-7 on the web.
4) Ramp up your new salespeople more quickly and keep them on the road. An e-learning system can be used to train your sales force on your company's products and services. New sales people are able to ramp up more rapidly and start to sell your products and services in less time. With this system, they do not have to lose time off the road to be updated on the latest features and functionality.
5) Track your prospects as they move through the sales process. Web-based LMSs can track and provide data about your prospects as they move through the stages of the sales process. With a custom reports feature, the LMS allows the sales or marketing manager to go directly to the web to pull the latest reports on all prospect activity.
6) Harvest other types of information from your market to help your company close business more quickly. In addition to the data collected on your prospects, a web-based learning management system can be used to monitor your sales force or other users' activities. The sales or marketing manager can access web-based reports to see what products the sales force is actually working to sell and deploy. This data can be used for research and development, to plan product initiatives, to obtain insight on repositioning, and other tactical and strategic initiatives.
7) Promote your products and services to prospects using the features in the web-based learning management system. Once a prospect's information has been loaded into the LMS, you can use the features and functionality of the system to promote your products and services. For example, a built-in, online survey tool allows you to send surveys to your prospects with the data being recorded in the learning management system. E-mail messaging capabilities in a web-based LMS allow you to send e-mail marketing campaigns your prospects. Sales and marketing people can use the learning management system to conduct "webinars" using its integrated web conferencing technology. The web conference can then be archived and used in the future. Creative marketers can develop promotions using the testing feature with the information returning to the LMS database.
Battling with Customer Service: How to Win the War, Part 1 of 2
Customer service, how I loathe thee. Let me count the ways. The never-ending loop of obnoxious hold music. The pressure to buy new products and services. The poor-quality, outsourced call to a distant land.
A call to customer service can be an infuriating ending to a frustrating experience. You’re upset and looking for empathy, but all you encounter is disappointment. Could Company X have done something differently? Probably, but if you follow these tips when dealing with customer service, you’ll be in the driver’s seat for the next dispute.
1. Be prepared.
Seems basic, right? Unless you’ve called Company X several times, you’re probably not familiar with their required information. Have every tracking number, account number, itemized statement, and order number before you call. Customer service representatives are held responsible for torturous call-handling metrics designed by masochistic management. Length of call, resolution (if the customer calls back to the company within an allocated amount of time), and randomly monitored calls are measured stringently. Bottom line: they want to help you quickly and completely, lest a superior crack a whip.
2. Be nice.
Customer service representatives speak with upset, irritated, and/or irate people all day. Every day. You may not agree with a credit denial, but screaming “the customer is always right, (expletive)!” will not help. Be pleasant and the rules may be malleable. Be another unpleasant customer and the guidelines will be set in stone.
3. Know when to call, know when to write.
If you need to request a price quote, add/remove a feature, or ask for explanation of a bill, e-mail is the most efficient route for your correspondence. For repair concerns or credit requests, call customer service. Repair specialists will need to troubleshoot and get access information should a technician need to be dispatched. Credit requests can be handled via e-mail, however, it is easier to reply with a “credit denied” form letter than to deny credit to a real, live person.
4. Get on record.
If something is not working properly, call the company immediately. If there is a cable, satellite, or phone outage, Company X will only be able to diagnose and correct the problem if they are notified a problem exists. This also establishes a record of communication should you need to request a credit or refund at a later date.
5. Be persistent, but not obnoxious.
Many companies have guidelines for dispensing credit that require denial the first time for any request that is not a previously-reported “out of service” issue or a known billing error. The second time a credit request is made, these guidelines can be relaxed. If you have followed the “be nice” tip above, you may be rewarded with your credit request.
Following these five tips will help you get what you want in the most efficient manner possible. Stay tuned for the next installment to find out how you can aggravate the customer service experience and actually delay resolution!
Battling with Customer Service: How to Win the War, Part 2 of 2
If you’ve already read Part 1 of “Battling with Customer Service: How to Win the War,” congratulations! You’re halfway to becoming a pro. Follow these last five steps and you’ll be on track to bending the minds of customer service representatives everywhere. Without further ado…
6. Don’t drink and dial.
It seems like a good idea at first; the mind says no, but the six-pack says yes. You’ve had a great relationship for years. Why throw it all away over a silly dispute? You decide to pick up that phone, one last time, and see if they realize what they’re missing. Has this logic ever worked? Here’s a hint: no. Calling customer service in an obviously altered state of mind will cause your pleas to fall on deaf, yet slightly amused, ears. If you want customer service to take a complaint or concern seriously, save the six-pack for when you call your ex.
7. Call during off-hours.
Yes, hold music is corporate America’s version of water torture. To keep your sanity intact, try calling during off-hours. What are off-hours, you ask? If Company X has 24x7 customer service, try calling after 10pm. If not, try calling Tuesday-Thursday between 10am-8pm or any time on Sunday.
8. Don’t call a “special number.”
The blog of a spurned employee, a news station, or a radio show might give you some kind of “secret” and “internal” number to Company X. They may claim it will eliminate hold time. Oftentimes, these “special numbers” are specifically for field technicians or an obscure department that cannot handle the concern. Call the main customer service number and pick the correct department. The towering inferno that is the Voice Response Unit may mistake your spoken request to “pay a bill in Iowa” for “cancelling all services immediately in Connecticut,” but simply stating “agent” to the VRU may get you to a real, live person. If “agent” does not work, try similar terms such as “operator,” “representative,” “customer service,” “parasite from the nether world,” or “spawn of Satan.”
9. Escalate, but only if necessary.
If there’s no light at the end of a bleak tunnel, ask for a supervisor; however, do not immediately ask for management if you were mishandled on a previous call. Customer service representatives undergo weeks of training and, oftentimes, are more familiar with current customer issues than their supervisors. Supervisors are there to ensure that customer service representatives are doing their jobs; it is the job of the customer service representative to handle your call and concern.
10. Carefully consider contacting outside regulatory authorities.
If absolutely necessary, contact the Federal Communications Commission, established in 1934 to regulate communications by wire, cable, satellite, radio, and television. Complaints to the FCC are taken seriously and will be handled at Company X by a department well trained on their rules and regulations. Due to the escalated nature of this department, they may have higher hold times and more restricted hours of operation than regular customer service. If you’ve been completely, hideously, utterly, and unforgivably wronged, feel free to call a regulatory organization. If you’d like to voice a complaint, but do not need any further action taken regarding your concern, call or e-mail the company itself.
If you follow these ten tips, the balance may swing in your favor. May the customer service workforce be with you.
Are you Serious about Customer Service
Is your online company really serious about Internet customer service? When it comes down to it, excellent customer service is pretty much the only way you will convert visitors to customers. You can also increase your ROI and improve online sales with excellent customer service.
If you are truly serious about offering quality customer service, your best option would be customer service software. With customer service software you can reduce customer service costs and increase your conversion rate at the same time. All the while, you will be making your customers happier, which will lead to more sales and an increase in ROI.
Customer service software helps small businesses and large businesses alike by offering customer service messenger, support messenger and support messenger. These offer 24/7 customer service to customers and potential customers. They can also allow you track customers online and track consumer behavior online as well.
Customer service software can offer live chat help and/ore animated avatar help, animated avatar service, animated avatar support and animated avatar guide. Many people prefer the avatar because it makes them feel more like they are talking to an actual person.
Serious quality customer service means a serious customer service solution. Consider customer service software for your online business if you would like to convert visitors to buyers and improve your ROI.
Airline Customer Service Careers
The US airline industry is gradually moving away from all the bloodletting that brought about the bankruptcy of four major carriers over the past several years while at the same time marked the emergence of many discount carriers into the forefront of the business. Indeed, the face of commercial aviation has changed dramatically over the past decade and it now appears that the worst is behind us. This does not mean that further layoffs and downsizings are not possible, but for the person seeking a customer service career in the aviation industry, the future has brightened considerably.
Customer service opportunities with the airlines includes the following job titles: reservation agents, ramp agents, line service technicians, customer service agents, baggage handlers, and various management positions including station manager, customer service manager, and airport operations manager. Similar job titles exist, but for the sake of brevity in using the term “airline customer service” I mean those ground personnel tasked with assisting customers as they get to and from their destinations.
So, exactly who is hiring? Well, on any given day just about everyone could be. The turn over rate for customer service personnel can be high, depending on the airline and the working conditions. To make it easier on you, the following is a break down of the various airlines who hire customer service agents. In most cases you will work directly for the airline but in some cases a position may be with a vendor or for the airport authority itself.
Legacy Carriers – American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and USAir all qualify as legacy carriers. Simply defined these are the carriers that helped the airline industry get its start in the U.S. Out of the six listed, only American and Continental have avoided bankruptcy. Thus, a career with a legacy carrier can be a risky proposition.
Foreign Carriers – Many foreign carriers fly in and out of the U.S. and are worth a look. Depending on the carrier selected, you may be required to speak the language of the carrier’s country in addition to speaking English. Chief carriers include: Air Canada, Mexicana, Air France, British Airways, Japan Airlines, Korean Airlines, KLM, Lufthansa, and flag carriers as well as discount carriers from dozens of countries from around the globe.
Discount Carriers – Some of the strongest carriers in operation today are discount airlines. Two of the best are Southwest and JetBlue, both of which are expanding and are hiring on a regular basis. Other discount carriers include: Spirit, USA3000, and many small more regional carriers.
Regional Operators – Working as “feeder” airlines for the big carriers, regional operators include Colgan, Republic, Shuttle America, American Eagle, Comair, and Great Lakes. Some of these carriers are awash in cash with very promising futures.
Charter Carriers – A few airlines fly chartered flights principally although some have scheduled flights too. Some of the more noted charter operators include: Miami Air, Xtra Airways, and Sun Country.
Cargo Carriers -- Not every carrier moves people. Some carriers move goods, merchandise, and equipment. Customer service jobs as sales agents and equipment handlers are an option for potential employees. Chief cargo companies include: DHL, FEDEX, UPS, Emery Worldwide, and Amerijet.
Two recently launched carriers, EOS Airlines and Maxjet Airways, went through a hiring surge immediately preceding their first flights in Autumn 2005. As with any start up, long term career possibilities are a big question as most start ups eventually fail.
In all, the opportunities for you in the airline industry have improved. While pay for hourly workers is generally low the benefits, including flight privileges, are usually fairly good. In spite of everything, the airline industry remains a point of interest for so many people and with decreasing fuel prices and strength in the economy, the job market for customer service personnel is on an upswing.
What's in it For the Customer?
Anyone who is going to spend money usually wants to know what the purchase will do for him or her. In fact, 70% of all purchases are made on an emotional level. So for the most part, buyers aren't concerned about the logical points of the purchase. If they were, the vast majority of us would be driving small, fuel-efficient cars with one-speaker radios.
Think of your brand as a promise ... a promise you make to your clients, prospects, employees, and even your vendors. It is necessary that you are able to back it up. You cannot build a successful, long-term brand on unsupported claims and wishful thinking.
To separate you from your competition, your brand -- your promise -- has to differentiate you from others in the minds of your prospects. This is the reason you cannot use quality, integrity, or price when positioning yourself in your marketplace. So many companies claim to offer these particular characteristics that none of them stand out from the others.
Logos, brochures, advertising and other forms of marketing may, in certain instances, be individual components of a branding campaign, but unless they are part of the system of determining a company's capabilities, direction, opportunities, and indeed its essence, they cannot--and should not--be referred to as branding. To say that a new logo, for instance, is equivalent to a new brand is to believe that I can compete at Daytona International Speedway by slapping decals all over my car. Even if it ends up looking good, it's still not ready to -- or able to -- compete.
What this all boils down to is the fact that every business -- including yours -- has a brand. The question is whether your brand is being determined by outside factors, or if are you actively building it on your terms.