Seems not in the online world where \u2018content is king\u2019 resounds more strongly.<\/p>\n
Had a great example of this recently.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m spending time with some young guns to learn more about internet marketing \u2013 there\u2019s always something else to learn in this game. I\u2019m paying a hundred bucks a month to access their knowledge, tools and lessons. So, as any customer of mine would expect, I\u2019m expecting regular content and activity as promised in their marketing materials.<\/p>\n
For ten days I\u2019ve had nothing but sales letters from their autoresponder.<\/p>\n
No updates to their site. No feedback from comments on the blog. No responses to questions. No new content. No feedback on \u2018assignments\u2019.<\/p>\n
So I sent an email and queried this. For all I knew I may have been inadvertently disabled in their course system. I also pointed out it was a good lesson to learn \u2013 to keep in touch with your paying customers in terms of their content expectations (not just through constant sales letters).<\/p>\n
The response I received however ignored my concerns and was, in my view, sarcastically arrogant. Here\u2019s the exact reply:<\/p>\n
There is a new invention called the Autoresponder. You should<\/p>\n
check it out and use it to mail while you take the weekend off with<\/p>\n
your family. Afterall, isn\u2019t that one of the main reasons we start<\/p>\n
online businesses?<\/p>\n
No, \u2018yeah sorry about that\u2019. No \u2018sorry you feel that way\u2019. No \u2018I hear you\u2019.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m no fool. I know these guys are in it to make money the easiest way possible. They\u2019re young dudes who have carved out a \u2018hot\u2019 reputation for themselves. They\u2019re clever. Their system appears to work which is why I signed up. They get raving reviews. But I do note that this attitude comes through any time someone has anything that could be seen as criticism or concern.<\/p>\n
This attitude pervades in a few areas of internet marketing. “If someone complains I don\u2019t want them as a customer\u2019. \u2018Just accept what I say, don\u2019t question it\u2019. “Do as I do\u2019. And the customer service is non-existent, woeful or locked behind a technology solution \u2013ticket system \u2013 where you can never deal with an individual. With some, you get the feeling they don\u2019t want to deal with people at all, just bank accounts!
\n![\"customer](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/j0436414.jpg?w=300\")
\nMe? I\u2019m old-fashioned. I figure if people are paying me money, they deserve to have their concerns acknowledged if not addressed. It\u2019s real easy for them to hit the \u2018cancel\u2019 button in PayPal if they don\u2019t feel they are getting what they expected. And I\u2019ve lost their ongoing custom.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve run offline businesses. Still do. Most of my business comes from referrals of people who have been happy with my products and my SERVICE. Sure there are people who are a pain. But they also know people and they talk. It takes one disgruntled customer seconds to let tons of other people know how unhappy they are with you and your service (think twitter, online forums et al).<\/p>\n
So folks, if you are serious about building an online business, don\u2019t treat your customers with contempt. Be polite, acknowledge their concerns and if you can\u2019t meet their expectations at least let them go away feeling you\u2019ve heard them.<\/p>\n
Content is critical. But if you don\u2019t have satisfied customers you\u2019ll struggle to start and sustain an online business.<\/p>\n
Or am I wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seems not in the online world where \u2018content is king\u2019 resounds more strongly. Had a great example of this recently. I\u2019m spending time with some young guns to learn more about internet marketing \u2013 there\u2019s always something else to learn in this game. I\u2019m paying a hundred bucks a month to access their knowledge, tools… Read More »The Customer is King<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[11,12,414],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-service","tag-content-is-king","tag-customer-is-king","tag-service"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3M6th-5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redhotinternetmarketing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}