Solid Cactus Call Center Culture

Two weeks ago I passed a turkey farm that lies along the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Allentown. The birds were a-plenty!

The other day, I passed that same turkey farm. Its lack of foul reminded me that Thanksgiving is only few days away.

For brick-and-mortars the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday and is typically their busiest day of the year. For Internet retailers, our payday comes on the Monday following Thanksgiving, which has been dubbed Cyber Monday.

For the last four weeks, I have delivered a message to our customers about the importance of providing service not only during the holidays, but every day of the year.

In the first email I asked four questions:

1. Do you have a toll-free number clearly visible on your site so customers can easily contact you?
2. Do you answer email in a timely fashion?
3. Can your customers contact you during hours that are convenient to them?
4. Are you using live chat on your website to engage site visitors?
5. If you have your own customer service department, are you prepared to handle the holiday rush?

Every single eCommerce store owner should be able to answer every one of those questions in the affirmative. If not, then you need to look at improving the way you interact with your customers.
In subsequent emails I told you about bad customer service experiences I had and how Solid Cactus can help you improve your company’s service by enlisting the help of our call center.

I hate to use the term “call center” to describe what we do, because we’re not just a call center. We are a complete customer service solution for your business. Whether you want us to take all of your phone calls, or calls that come in during certain hours or after a certain wait-time, we can do it. Need help processing orders, interacting with your vendors or tracking shipments or deliveries? We can do it.

Becky Pokorny described what we do best in one of the videos we did for the email campaign, “we’re an office in a box.” We are an extension of your business, acting as you, doing work that frees you up so you can concentrate on making money. After all isn’t that the goal?

I want you to be successful this holiday and I want you to take advantage of some of the services we offer in our call center to make that happen. Please join me on Wednesday, November 18th at 2pm ET for a free webinar that will introduce you to our services and show you how you can begin using us right away so that you are 100% prepared for the holidays. And most importantly, 100% prepared to offer your customers the service they not only expect, but deserve.

Here are some videos that talk about some of the services we can provide at Solid Cactus Call Center:

Video Transcript:

Just because you don’t have a brick and mortar store doesn’t mean you don’t have to provide service to your customers.

Today’s online shoppers demand service. If they have a product question, they want an answer right now. If they want to see where their order is, they want that package tracked right now. And if they’re credit card is in their hand and they’re ready to buy, you want that order, well, right now.

But if you’re too busy juggling every aspect of your online business besides customer service, you need Call Center Services from Solid Cactus.

Founded by two e-commerce pioneers, with nearly two decades of experience in running online businesses, Solid Cactus clearly understands the needs of small and medium size businesses and works everyday to provide solutions to run those businesses better.

Call Center Services from Solid Cactus is a complete customer service solution that gives your business a fully staffed customer service department at a price that’s much less than doing it yourself.

Product questions, package tracking, returns authorization and order taking are handled by a team of customer service professionals trained in the art of salesmanship and satisfaction.

Unlike other call centers, Solid Cactus maintains a workforce based entirely in the United States where pleasant, English speaking reps handle your customers as if they were their own.

If you’re ready to learn more about the inbound, outbound and virtual office services that Solid Cactus Call Center can provide for your business, visit us today at http://callcenter.solidcactus.com or call 888.361.9814.

And remember, good customer service doesn’t cost, it pays.

I recently sat down with Lori Richard, Joyce Field and Cindy Cruikshank to discuss the Virtual Office services from Solid Cactus Call Center. Watch this short video below:

Last week I, along with Greg Davis and Kurt Illian from my team, had the pleasure to attend the first web.com E-Commerce Marketing Summit held at company headquarters in Jacksonville, FL. As the newest member of the web.com “family” it was great to learn about what the other divisions of the company offer as well as meet the key people in charge of marketing.

At Solid Cactus, my role is to spearhead the marketing efforts we do for our various products and services such as e-commerce store programming and design, Internet Marketing, Call Center & Virtual Office and our various Software as a Service (SaaS) products.

Over the last few weeks my department has grown a bit, and now may be a good time to introduce members of the Solid Cactus Marketing Team. Some of their names may be familiar to you as they have worked in other departments and some may be new, but here’s the lineup:

Greg Davis is the department leader who is responsible for the day-to-day operations within the group. While most of his work is managing projects and people, he’s a “hands-on” guy as well, assisting with projects and working with me on campaigns and brain-storming sessions.

Kurt Illian I like to call the “Charts & Graphs Wizard.” I often joke that the only time Kurt e-mails me is when he has a new pie chart to show me! Since all the marketing we do needs to have a level or return, it’s Kurt’s job to decipher the numbers and determine what works and what doesn’t. (In case you even encounter the trivia question, “Who was the first Solid Cactus employee?” The answer would be Kurt.)

Jeff “Spike” Li is Batman. Our super-hero webmaster who is in charge of maintaining the various Solid Cactus customer facing websites, and we have a lot of them and they’re on all different platforms. Jeff has been immersed in launching micro-sites for our various services such as Yahoo! Store design and programming and Call Center Services and is currently working on launching our new Internet Marketing and corporate websites.

Randy Llewellyn is the guy responsible for the great designs we put out in marketing. When I say “designs,” I mean more than just great looking Cactus websites. Randy is the designer of our bi-monthly customer magazine, eBiz Insider, and designs all our print material such as sell sheets, brochures, business cards, logos and so much more.

Karen Snyder is our technical writer who translates all the “programmer speak” that our talented programmers give her when a new product or feature is released. She then creates documents for both internal and customer use that documents the features, benefits and installation instructions in simple, easy-to-understand “English.”

Scott Carey came to us as an intern and loved the place so much he decided to stay! He is our “jack-of-all-trades” and is responsible for everything from content writing to putting together Power Points for our bi-weekly webinars.

New to the marketing team are Greg Paone and Donna Talarico. Greg’s sole responsibility is product development for Yahoo! Store features. It’s something we take very seriously and to have someone dedicated to this task shows our commitment to the product. Greg not only does the product research but also the product development, something we call “full circle development.” Two really big home runs for Greg lately have been our Flash Sequence Banners and our Scratch & Save. Be on the lookout for many, many new and exciting features from Greg coming soon.

Donna Talarico is like “Julie” from the television show, “The Love Boat.” She’s our social director. No we don’t have karaoke Tuesday’s or high-tea in the afternoon, Donna’s socializing takes place online on the social networking sites. It’s Donna’s job to spread the Solid Cactus message in forums, Twitter, Facebook, etc. She’s also our chief copywriter who’s responsible for writing the creative content for our websites and sales collateral and works hard as wordsmith for our bi-monthly magazine, eBiz Insider.

So next time you get a copy of eBiz in the mail, an e-mail in your inbox or you visit one of our websites, you’ll know the members of the Solid Cactus Marketing Team who worked hard to make it look and sound just right.

Customer service is a definition of a businesses character and core values. The first impression given can make or break a potential lifetime customer. Recently, I encountered superb customer service and wanted to share my story with you.

Earlier this year – I was reviewing a list of newly designed Solid Cactus sites and found DellAndKimsTeeParty.com – a site that can put rhinestones on ANYTHING! After searching the site – I found some adorable tote bags that would be perfect for my beach trip later this year; I was not quite ready to purchase, so I bookmarked the page with intentions of ordering at a later date. About three weeks later – I returned to the book mark to make my purchase, but was disappointed to see the item was removed from the site. This was make or break time – I decided I wouldn’t find something this unique anywhere else, so it was worth the e-mail to see if the tote bags would be re-listed on the site.

Within 3 hours of e-mailing the company, Dell – one of the owners, responded. She advised the totes were still available- however they were low on inventory and didn’t want to run the risk of someone ordering and not being able to fulfill. This was a great first impression – it made me feel like this website owner truly cares about her customers and wants to make sure it’s a pleasant purchasing experience. After I explained to Dell what I was looking for, she went as far as creating a special listing for me to purchase the tote bags, which already contained all my personalization choices! It was the easiest shopping experience of my life – I literally had to list my bill to/ship to addresses and credit card number, that was it! As if the special listing wasn’t enough – Dell included a great shout-out to my friends and I under the item description “for a Solid Cactus beach babe and her friends. Have fun at the beach!”.

Within 5 days of placing my order online – I had the tote bags in hand. They were more beautiful than I could have ever expected. To make the purchase even better – Dell included a hand written note of appreciation to me, which truly made me feel like a special customer. Being that I work in the industry, I understand the need for “processing times” and longer lead times for personalized items… to have the product finished and in hand within 5 days was incredible! I have become a lifetime customer because of the quality, service and the overall friendliness I encountered. DellAndKimsTeeParty.com is a true example of excellent customer service. I would recommend this site to anyone – it truly was a delightful shopping experience.