I LOVE Sage. (Note to Mother - Yes you are converting me - Note to self, I should know someone/some company is good when my mother evangelises them!)
You know, the guys who supply accounting software (have a look yourself here). On your/our own in business you need easy to use software - that should be a given.
But how about this......
Ordered the bundled software through Amazon - delivered no problem but a manual missing for the payroll module......bit like me I thought I could struggle through but when calling Sage to register the product I was prompted to say something.
Prompting is important here. I'd given all my details and was just thinking I had finished when I was asked (with proper conviction) whether there was anything else I needed or assistance that could be given.
I mentioned the manual and 'Steve' said he'd have a look to see what he could do.
Less than 48 hours later the manual (free) dropped on to my door mat. Very impressed.
What I take from this story is not how difficult it is to send the manual, and why it should be free, but that this guy wanted to do more for me. I haven't had enough dealings with Sage yet to see if this is endemic across the organisation but it reminded me of something I read in 'Small Giants' recently (got to get round to doing a review but available here on Amazon).
I can't remember the exact phrasing but they were talking about a restaurant where instead of asking 'Was everything OK?' in a hollow/scripted tone, as do most restaurants, to which we all give the reply .....'Fine thanks' these guys ask a different question. 'Is there anything we could have done differently to make the evening more perfect/better etc'.
Cut to the chase....we are looking for advice from our customers on how to do things better and how to make them happier with our service/products whatever.
AND guess what - the customers (us, specifically me in this case) are more than willing to give it PLUS they feel even better about the experience for it - A PERFECT CIRCLE.
Talk to your customers.....ask them how you can help them, ask them how you could be better......I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Had a similar experience.....let me know
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A free guide to Marketing |
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Here at C&T we feel our duty is to find, evaluate and distribute best practices. This we do through our normal paid services but through our blog we also push out a lot of free and valuable advice (and of course.....everyone loves the free part !!).
The idea of on-demand business solutions has always been a great belief of our founder, and salesforce.com was one of the first to commercialise this properly and provide a real and viable alternative to internal infrastructure and software.
salesforce.com have produced two fantastic narrated slideshows called 'Marketing in the Google Era Part I' and predictably, 'Marketing in the Google Era Part II'.
These explore, both generically and through the use of salesforce.com's own marketing strategy, how companies need (read MUST) take the web and it's audience (i.e. your customers and most importantly your potential customers !) very, very seriously.
And of course this is no gimmick. salesforce.com currently have 29,800 customers with over 646,000 individual subscribers........all with services marketed and delivered through the web.
I urge you to spend the time to watch these presentations - check the
links above (and remember when watching......what if
someone wanted to view information on my company?......do I/we have a tour
on the web?)
Justin Halfpenny
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