Some entrepreneurs go into business for themselves so they can make their own work hours and be their own boss. Most entrepreneurs find out that is easier said than done.

While you are living the American dream, you still need a vacation or just some time off now and again. Maybe your family wants to see you more, the dog needs a walk, your son has a big game on Thursday night. Are you going to just shut down your store? Would you advise your customers on your home page:  “ON VACATION!We will be processing all of your orders when we return in two weeks”?

For some reason, I do not think that will fair well with your potential customers.

One answer to this quagmire is to outsource your customer support to someone. Call Centers like Solid Cactus do not go on vacation nor do they get sick. Instead, they are open 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday and 12 hours a day Saturday and Sunday. They already did the HR and IT work — background checks, software fees, benefits, all of that overhead that you do not have to worry about. You don’t even have to put out a help wanted ad. It is that easy!

So, take a vacation, spend time with your family and friends. We are here to help you succeed and more importantly, relax.

Whether you hire an in-house staff of customer service agents or you decide to employ a third party call center to act as your front line, providing detailed training for your customer facing team is a necessity. Having the staff in place is only part of the equation; creating a knowledgeable team of experts is the other half.

Your customer service agents will only be as good as you let them be. If you feel your merchandise is complicated in nature, the training of your agents is even more important. Sharing your knowledge with your employees is crucial in growing your business. The more knowledgeable your front line is, the more professional your business is going to appear.

Providing written training resources, quick reference guides,  as well as classroom-type training (and even sample products) to ensure your customer service team understands your products and services — and your store’s policies — is crucial to providing high-level customer service. The more information supplied to your reps, the more comfortable they will be — and the better the customer service experience will be.

Customer service is key and it starts with knowledgeable agents. Would you open a brick and mortar store and not have well-trained, knowledgeable employees to man the store? You wouldn’t be able to do that. You should view your online store in the same fashion. If you have in-house reps, make sure they meet the rest of the staff, see how the store operates. If you use a third party call center for customers service, work with your account managers to get the team the proper training. Just because your team of reps aren’t in-house doesn’t mean they have to sound that way!

In our current economic status, being the best of the best at what you do is imperative. One way to help your bottom line is to make sure your customers are cared for properly.  That starts with properly educating the team. No one wants to call customer service only to be given an, “I don’t know…”

Please don’t make the assumption that your customers will not need anyone to speak to or they are content with e-mail and voicemail. If you don’t believe me, just check out epinions.com. That consumer review site is full of very unhappy customers are more than willing to let the world know who not to shop with. Staff up and make every effort to educate your customer service representatives.

I’ll leave off with a quote from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos:

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends.
If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.

Picture it: Nanticoke, PA. December 8, 2009.

I am sitting in my rocking chair with my laptop, rolling through Google Shopping, searching for the coveted “Optimus Prime” figurine that my son has been pleading with Santa for. After a couple of hours and plenty of eye drops, I find it. The One. The “guy” that my little boy wants more than anything else in this world (he is three-years-old, after all). To my dismay, there is no product specific information on this eCommerce site at all. Why?

So, I try to find their contact information. It is no where to be found. I proceed to look for their FAQ page thinking the toll-free number must be hidden there. What do I find? NOTHING! If you read my last blog post, you know what I am thinking. Where is the customer service?

In my searches, I already determined this is the only site carrying this particular Prime. So, I proceed against my better judgment. I desperately try to find the contact phone number just to make sure this “guy” is indeed the one that my son wants. I found it! Hidden at the bottom of the page, as if the owner did not want me to find it. I call the long distance phone number and get a voicemail. Insert irritated face here. They got me. I am stuck!

I leave a message explaining that I need the details of this product because, for the cost, I do not want to throw caution to the wind. I also asked that I be advised on the return, damage, and processing time policies so I have the knowledge prior to ordering. Why wasn’t this information also provided to me on the website? It was prime holiday shopping season and, from my experience at Solid Cactus Call Center, these are very common questions, especially this time of year.

Working for Solid Cactus has taught me a few things for which I am grateful. Our designers and programmers do such a fantastic job on sites that it pains me to see a badly designed website. This site was speaking to me. It was screaming an ominous warning: “DO NOT SHOP HERE”.

However, this toy is like the Holy Grail of Toys for my little baby. I could only think, I wish there was more information so I do not have to be put out of my way like this and feel comfortable giving my credit card information to these people.

I am sure, as eCommerce merchants, the last thing you want to do is make your customers feel uncertain about shopping with you. Creating an informational FAQ page is a necessity, just like providing your customers with a human being to speak to when they need to, on their schedule. Think of your store’s FAQ page as an extension of your customer service department. The more information you provide up front shows your customers that you thought everything out and there is no question- this is how it is. As an aside, having a great FAQ page can cut down on your customer service call times, something important if you are using a call center because it means you are saving money.

While a customer is shopping on your site and they have a question, make it easy for them to find the answer. Create a customer service FAQ page and clearly list your:

• return policy
• shipping policy
• damage policy
• exchange policy
• how they can get order status
• processing times
• and seasonal warnings or concerns

To keep a customer guessing is a guaranteed sale for your competitor. While I am sure that makes your competitor happy, it will not keep you in business.

I bet you are wondering, “So, did Donna bite the bullet and purchase this most desired toy from this merchant?”. The answer is no, I did not. I did not even get a call back from this merchant. Gee, this guy must not need my business then, huh?

I found a different (but similar) Optimus Prime, along with the other Transformer “guys” he wanted, from another website. This eCommerce site offered me free shipping, let me know that it would take 24 hours to process my order, showed me (with a colorful UPS map) how long it would take to get to me, and provided me with the information about the product I needed to make an informed decision on the purchase. The link to the FAQ was clearly listed on the header along with their toll-free number and business hours. I even received my shipment before I expected it to come in. I was in customer service heaven. And, I found another favorite site!

What a stroke of luck that was for me! I am glad he is three, and couldn’t tell the difference. Imagine how heartbroken he would have if he realized that Santa did not bring what he promised, all because an eCommerce merchant could not be bothered to provide basic information on his site? I can’t have that.

The moral of my story is…

To land first-time shoppers, give them the information they need up front on your website. And, if they call, give them the customer service they deserve. If you don’t, I can guarantee that someone else will.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not one to go to the mall. I do not like the crowds. I do not like to wait in line. I do not like to deal with exhausted clerks who would rather be home than ringing me out. The only time I actually go into a brick and mortar store is to buy my groceries — and that is a chore most times.

For these reasons, I am an online shopper. I can take my time, compare costs, and am not limited to my zip code. I can shop anywhere: L.A., New York, Minnesota, all from the comfort of my home. I do not have to feel rushed by the time constraints of store hours and crowds. However, I still expect good customer service.

You may be wondering what I define as good customer service. Well, I will satisfy your curiosity with my very own Top Ten List of Good Customer Service Examples.

1. A well-designed website where the products are easy to find and organized. Also, please tell me if the item I am buying needs batteries, what size, and a link on that page to the batteries I need.
2. Easy checkout! I don’t ask for anything complicated. Just let me check out. Sometimes, I don’t feel like creating an account.
3. I love it when eCommerce owners want my business enough to provide me with a secure checkout. I do look for “https:” in the browser address bar.
4. A customer service department that is available when I call them. I don’t generally call (I don’t think  my boss wants me to make personal calls when I am supposed to be working) but if I need to, I want to be able to.
5. Pleasant customer service representatives. If I do call, I want to speak with someone nice. There is nothing that screams “we want you to do business with us again” than someone on the other end of the call that is willing to make it right and do it with a smile.
6. E-mail order confirmation and shipping notices.
7. Tracking numbers that work.
8. Free shipping offers go a very long way with me.
9. Getting my order quickly. Nothing says love more than that!
10. Good store reviews/testimonials. I want to see if other consumers have had a good shopping experience from the eCommerce store.

Now, I do have my favorite sites but, I am always looking for new places to shop online. If a store has something I want to buy, I will look for the above customer service points. If just one is not present, I will most likely not buy from that merchant. And, I know that I am not alone.

Customer service doesn’t have to be a thing of legend any longer. It’s simple. Take care of your customers and they in turn will take care of you.

It was quiet.

Black Friday may be the busiest day of the year for brick-and-mortar retailers, but in the online arena, Black Friday is typically very slow. When I owned 39 eCommerce stores, we typically used Black Friday as the day to prepare ourselves for the onslaught of orders we were going to get over the weekend and most importantly, Cyber Monday. We used that day to clean, stock shelves and make sure we had everything we needed to pack and ship orders out quickly. We did not count on Black Friday as being a red letter day for sales.

Today however, Cyber Monday is in full-swing and that silence at the Call Center has been replaced with chatter, ringing phones, supervisors managing call flow and the cheer when a big sale is made. Looking at call volume, the 8am and 9am hours saw typical call volume, however, shortly after 10am things started going crazy!

Now I’m not going to say that people are shopping online from work….. um, yeah, nobody does that right? But I will say that since 10am call volume is way above normal and the orders are coming in on a constant basis. All our reps are working hard to upsell, cross-sell, and seal the deal while at the same time working to take as many calls as possible to keep us in within our service level standards.

We know that the customers we service at Solid Cactus Call Center are doing well this Cyber Monday, and we hope that you are too!

Happy selling!

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:

Mrs. Customer Service 2009 - Lynette Hartsfield

Mr. Customer Service 2009- Jahaad Jackson

Customer Service Week was a busy week at Solid Cactus Call Center. The week kicked off with a pizza party, with pies donated by Mr. Pizza. Aside from crowning Mr. & Mrs. Customer Service (nominees campaigned all week, baking cookies as bribery and all), there was also Call Center Bingo and puzzle contests all week. According to manager Katrina Domkowski, each call center staff member was given a packet of puzzles — word searches, crosswords, and bingo boards. Each time a puzzle was completed, the staff member was entered to win a prize. The bingo boards were completed as words were sent scrolling across computer screens.

Another addition of sharing great customer service experiences was “Caught in the Act” cards.

“There were for when great customer service was witnessed,” explained Domkowski. “The hallway entrance is covered with these. It’s a great morale booster to walk by and see a co-worker thought you did a great job.”

SC Call Center managment and supervisors with Mr. & Mrs. Customer Service: Greg Kosicki, Stephen Lewis, and Katrina Domkowski pose with their crowned customer service staff.

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.

The winning team was “Cactus After Dark” – headed by Alison Wydawski.  “Cactus After Dark” pulled together and maintained the highest quality monitoring score for the month — 95.50%! This is an amazing feat for 8 individuals to pull together and earn.

The 5-course dinner was held on Tuesday, 4/28/09.  Our conference room was transformed into an elegant fine dining room, equipped with china, linen napkins and the works.  Agents were treated to various quieche appetizers, salad, homemade shirmp bisque, garlic bread, vegetable lasagna, chicken parmagina, death by chocolate cake and homemade mini cheesecakes. 

Below are some pictures of our dinner: