• The Holy Crap Reaction to Competition —
  When you spot another company in your market that seems to be doing exactly what you’re doing, don’t panic! Focus on your strengths and core goals and press ahead. (Thanks Demetrius for the link)
• Seth’s Blog: Three humps and a stick (on pricing) —
  Seth Godin shares his ideas of how companies can price their products. He makes the interesting point that most businesses are only comfortable with one type of pricing. To be successful, you’ll need to dip into different pricing areas.
• But What Do I Write On My Business Blog? —
  John’s post talks about how he comes up with ideas for his blog. The principles are applicable to how you can see the business lessons and relevance of everyday occurrences to your life.
• How Online and Offline Have Fused into a Single Dialog (and Why Marketers Should Follow Suit) —
  Excellent article expanding the Conquer the Chasm Between Online and Local Stores post I made earlier. You can’t keep your online and offline business separate. Customers need a unified and consistent experience across all touch points with your company.

Earlier this week I posted about Logoworks’ automated email message that had a typo.

Within a few hours of posting that story to ReturnCustomer.com, I had a voice mail and two emails from a Logoworks PR representative. That is quicker than some of you even got around to reading the original post!

How did Logoworks reach me through three different channels? A little investigation and some persistence.

The first email I received was from my contact page on this site.

The second email was via my Web Development business site which she had found via my About Return Customer page.

The most surprising, however, was a voice mail left on my office line at my day job. This one took some work as I can only assume she saw where I worked on my “About” page, looked up that website, found a phone number, then asked to be transferred to me.

Persistent, yet effective!

The PR associate asked for more details on the problem so they could correct it.

I forwarded the typo email my wife had received, and was promised a quick resolution.

There are numerous ways to track what people are saying about you on the web. Once you pick up on something being said on a random blog, follow up!

I commend Logoworks for their surprisingly rapid follow-up on my issue.

My wife and I decided to try out Logoworks this past week. After starting her order, Logoworks apparently sent her an automated email showing how she could finish the process.

The email even offered help if we needed any. We could simply call their toll free number, listed as “1-800-xxx-xxxx.” The “xxx-xxxx” in the phone number weren’t digits but the letter X.

It appears as though the email designer put those in as a placeholder and no one went back to add in the real number. Now this email is being sent to countless people and Logoworks may never know.

In e-commerce, thorough testing of outgoing emails is a critical part of releasing any new updates to your system. You should test those at the time they are rolled out to your production systems.

Augment your initial roll out testing by signing up for your automated emails. If you are receiving what your customers see, you’ll more quickly spot errors, typos, or any problems. This works well for subscription type emails or even autoresponders.

Your customer should never open an email that you haven’t already seen. Naturally the content of the mail may be customized for the customer. However, the template or copy writing around any personalization must be reviewed and tested.

Your customers may be nice and willing to notify you of problems. However, many customers will never say a word when something goes wrong. If you solely rely on them to test your product, you may hear about trouble or errors after much damage has already occurred.

If you could guarantee the business of a large group of people, would you?

I’m taking my team out to lunch to celebrate our recent successes. I figured since we have a large group (17 people) that I should make reservations.

I called Olive Garden and asked if they could accommodate a group my size. They answered yes. However, they don’t take reservations. Seating is first come, first serve. I doubtfully responded, “even for a group my size?” Unfortunately, the answer was yes.

I finished that call and immediately called Carino’s Italian Grill. I asked the same questions and was cheerfully greeted and warmly welcomed. They gladly took my name and information and got us reserved for our lunch.

Many companies have special rates, arrangements, or even treatment for large groups of customers. Why? Because they understand that earning the business of a large group will guarantee a large volume of revenue. If it weren’t for the group, a company may have to struggle to earn the business of that many isolated individuals.

When individuals in a group enjoy their experience with your company, they will return with their family or friends later. Thus properly serving groups can create new, loyal customers for your business.

Don’t let company policy, or even logistics hinder your ability to look at serving customers on a larger scale. However, before you take the leap into serving larger customers or accounts, you’ll need to be able to deliver what you promise.

Just as a group of customers can turn into an army of great word of mouth, that same group can also spread the nightmare stories if you fail to serve them well.

Get your logistics in order, and encourage larger groups or accounts. You’ll find that they can generate a large portion of your revenue with only a fraction of the labor needed to serve that many individual customers.

Last week a little neighbor girl knocked on our door. She and a friend were selling lemonade, gum, and pickles. She pointed across the street so I could see their store, which was really just a table and chair on the sidewalk.

I asked how much the gum was and told her I’d take two pieces. She scurried off and returned with my order plus some extra pieces “free of charge.” When I looked at the gum, each “piece” was really a little pack of five pieces of gum.

My two piece order had multiplied by ten. Wow! I was pleasantly surprised by the bonus and rather happy with my purchase.

This reminded me of a recent video I watched from affiliate marketer John Reese. Reese outlines why it is important to always do more than is expected of you on his blog.

If you give customers more than is expected, it reassures them that they made a good decision.

When you give your suppliers or contractors more than is expected, they are that much more likely to give you great service and support the next time you need them.

I’m sure those girls in my neighborhood didn’t attend that big affiliate marketing seminar where John Reese was speaking. Nevertheless, they mastered a principle and service philosophy that would serve any business well: always do more than is expected of you.

Gross Margins are a great indicator of the health of your business. As you may know, you can calculate your gross margin with this equation:

Revenues - Cost of Goods Sold = Gross Margin

Marketing expenses usually come in further down the income statement. Therefore adjusting marketing expenses won’t directly affect gross margin, but would rather impact net income.

Since the Marketing department can do little to change the cost of goods sold, their focus falls on the top line revenue growth.

What are some things Marketing can do to help top line revenue growth?

• Drive increased sales volume to compensate for lower margin products
• Convert more website traffic to sales leads
• Upsell customers to higher margin products
• Communicate product value (not cost) and benefits to customer
• Cross-sell related products with higher margins to customer’s original purchase
• Use Good/Better/Best positioning of higher margin products
• Promote higher margins products over lower margin items

Your product lines will have varying gross margins and your marketing will need to react accordingly.

If you can convince a customer of the high value of your product, cost becomes a minimal factor in the buying decision.

Persuade a customer of your product’s value and they will:

• buy higher margin products
• not ask for or require discounts on a purchase
• buy more products
• become loyal, return customers

All of these customer actions will lead to sustained and growing gross margins.

Doug over at Service Untitled asked me if my glass was half-full.

He asked four questions:

1. How full is your glass?
2. What kind of glass is it?
3. What’s in the glass?
4. Reasons for #1, #2, & #3?

So I’m going to answer them and give the answer to #4 as I go along.

1. How full is your glass?

It is full because I just filled it up!

How full is your business’ glass?

When you think figuratively about your business and how full is that glass, you could easily apply the concept to numerous things:

• revenues
• inventory
• number of customers
• sale opportunities
• new products in your R&D pipeline
• accounts payable
• accounts receivable
• employee morale
• customer retention and loyalty

Depending on how you view your glass in these and other categories, your business outlook may be full of opportunity, or hitting a dead end. The key is that you can measure where you are currently and can identify what’s next.

2. What kind of glass is it?

A reused (yes, I washed it) plastic cup from Rudy’s BBQ. Why? Because I love Rudy’s and their cups are durable and suited to reuse.

What kind of glass is your business?

If your cup is cracked and failing, whatever it holds will soon be all over your desk. Your business is the same way. This reminds me of the Broken Windows Theory. If little things start to look bad for your customers (like an unclean store, hard to find employees, etc.), it will be perceived that there are bigger problems. Those little broken windows (or a cracked cup in our case) will drive away customers.

3. What’s in the glass?

Water with the remnants of a few ice cubes. Water is my liquid of choice to stay hydrated.

What’s in your business glass?

When you were a kid, did you ever fill up your cup at the fast food restaurant with a little bit of every soft drink? You usually got quite the flavor combination! Sometimes it was great, but other times it was awful.

We use a glass to hold something we want to continually drink from over a period of time. Your business should have its cup full of products, customers, and employees that will continually replenish and nurture your company into the future.

These four questions were started off by Terry Starbucker. To keep the meme going, I’ll pass them along to a few fellow 9rules members: Rohit, Brandon and Natalie. Is your glass half full?

I’ve seen lots of “low price guarantees” while shopping recently. The premise is usually the same regardless of the institution: if you find a lower price in 30 days, we’ll match it. Or, if you’re lucky, the business will match the lower price and give you a little bonus.

So what’s the catch?

You have to do all the work.

Yes, you the customer have to diligently track prices across stores or websites and then go back to your original vendor and prove you found a lower price.

This process is tedious, time consuming, and too complicated. Companies promise you a great price knowing full well that you won’t do your homework to prove them wrong.

The price guarantee looks great, but upon further inspection is completely unfriendly to customers.

I mentioned in my Sears fiasco that they should have an automatic price guarantee. Imagine if a store’s price guarantee required no work from the customer. Imagine if the business’ database tracked purchases and automatically compared the original price with same store and competitor pricing over the next 30 days. At the end of the month, a check would be automatically printed and sent to the customers whose products were cheaper any time after the date of purchase.

Seth Godin in his book Purple Cow, talks about making your business truly remarkable. How would you feel to receive a check from a store with a note stating you qualified for their automatic price guarantee? I’d say “wow!” I’d tell my wife, my coworkers, and friends. Why? Because such proactive customer care is remarkable.

If you’re going to compete on price, you need something to differentiate you from the competition. Give your “low price guarantee” some teeth. Revitalize your current guarantee: make it automatic!