How do we, as small businesses, beat the ‘big players’ in our market?

From recent experiences it seems that the level of service that we can expect from the larger companies, using the excuse ‘owing to covid’, has become one of an ongoing and continuing reduction in free live telephone support and an inexorable move towards online automated ‘Chat Bots’.

Now large companies have made us move from waiting endlessly on the phone after pressing countless buttons, to now having to hope for a Human Chat operative after answering innumerable questions for help that the bot is completely incapable of offering. Recently, the waiting time from automated bot to chat to a human operative, on a well know online selling platform that will not be named, but rhymes with ‘Knee Play’, was listed as more than 10 minutes. So much for the instant communication that this used to offer. At one time it was recommended to not have a Chat facility on your website unless you had members of staff available to answer quickly, as a long delay to answer a question was seen as a massive negative and could damage your customer relationship.

Just to give a further example, a search for some new office furniture brought up the usual suspects but slightly further down the page was a local supplier listing. Not as cheap as the others but they offered free delivery and a guarantee of great service. So, after a phone call where we spoke directly to the salesman, they had what we needed and it was delivered the same day. So what, you say, but how much time did we save and what is that worth to us?

How can all this help small business owners? Quite simply, you can use technology against the big players in your market by making a point of listing your sales telephone number and answering it! No Automated Chat Bots and no pressing what feels like a thousand buttons to speak to your company.

Most visitors or potential customers still value the ability to speak to someone about an issue quickly and to have it resolved, or to check that you have what they need in stock. In this way you can move the focus away from the value of that one sale and look more to the lifetime value of your customer. Give great service from start to finish and suddenly a seemingly large, cheap, competitors price starts to come with massively unwanted baggage.

Creatively Yours…

Creatively Yours Ltd helps businesses like yours succeed online through website design, website development, and our Helponomics system that offers support and training as you need it and highlights areas that could increase your sales.

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