I’ve had a busy week of personal and technical difficulties, and just gotta single out a few folks. Sort of.
Real Mac Software is a smart company, and has a great community in place to offer suggestions, develop companion products. As a result they have an active user base on their forums, offering user-to-user technical support and there are many fine folks on the RapidWeaver forums, who have provided invaluable assistance over the years.
A couple days ago one such individual (from the Netherlands!) made of awesome sauce even rolled up his sleeves, jumped right in and SOLVED MY PROBLEM. The next morning, I gave him some PayPal love, happy to do it.
Being helpful earned this guy some business.
I called a service agency yesterday and “met” the most helpful person in the world regarding my problem. She listened patiently, offered smart suggestions, even pointed out things for me to look out for as I vet her competitors. It’s personal, so I won’t give the company name or hers but I will say this: if I need her services, she is so hired.
Seriously this is how you train your employees and customer service reps:
- Be real, listen and respond thoughtfully without the hard sell
- Be helpful, offer worthwhile suggestions and meaningful advice
- Be honest, be nice, give straight forward answers with professional respect
Being helpful may win this woman and her company some business.
In fact in the last 48 hours I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with a number of open, helpful people. And in a way it has me rethinking things every so slightly.
While I’ll always BOLO for the tire kickers and brain pickers, I am more than happy to discuss your public relations or marketing project with you. I had such a conversation with a nice woman a few weeks ago, and while she failed one of my qualifiers (cannot get a return email, or short RFP from her) I’m still glad I took the call.
If you need marketing communications, public relations or social media for your small business, I’m here to help.
Has being helping to others helped your business? Tell me how.