Make Money at Home As a Customer Service Representative

With many retailers fearing the economic impact of the “Big Box” stores, some small business owners have leveraged the advertising dollars of their competitors to create a consistent flow of traffic to their “Small Box” stores. This incredible, simple and effective customer service and marketing strategy provides increased customer loyalty and saves thousands of dollars in advertising costs.

The first thing is that your location needs to be near the Big Box stores and on a well traveled route with noticeable signage. HINT: Location, location and location is everything and still remains true today.

Next, you need to purchase, read and study the local newspapers especially when the “advertising inserts” are included. HINT: If your Big Box stores doesn’t do local advertising, then you need to shop the store to read of their special offerings.

Then you need to look at your inventory and make sure that you have at least one of the products so that your potential customer can compare apples with apples.

Finally, when your soon to be customers come in with your Competitors’ Flyers in hand, you can show them the exact same thing and then offer them a possible upgrade along with the additional value that you bring as a small business owner.

For example, a local appliance retailer who is less than a tenth of a mile from two Big Box home improvement stores and one Big Box electronic store scans the competitor’s fliers. He then checks his inventory to ensure that he has at least one of the stoves, refrigerators or washer/dryers currently being advertised.

As the potential customer enters the store, he can steer them to the sale item, but then can ask about their needs and suggest a better appliance. The retailer then shares the value of buying from him such as his product knowledge, installation and free delivery, removal of the old appliance at no charge and same day to next to day delivery.

Not only has he used the competitors’ marketing dollars to generate traffic, he has literally saved thousands of his own dollars. By being proactive and customer loyalty focused even before the customer walks through the door, this small business owner (and you, too) can now look at the competitors with “new eyes” that are not full of fear and take advantage of their marketing strategies while YOUR cash register continues to ring up one sale after another.

Take this free audit to see if you are building customer loyalty

Are you seeking a motivational speaker
for your next conference or sales meeting? Give Leanne a call at 219.759.5601 to hear how she can help your company create a culture of high performance.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, Chief Customer Officer, helps organizations through business training coaching services to return to the purpose of business that being building ravings fans while increasing productivity and profitability. With offices in Chicago, Indianapolis and strategic partners nationwide, she can help you become the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits . Call 219.759.5601 to schedule a free business coaching consultation.

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Customer Service-people chuckle, grimace and always have some opinion about whether or not it’s available anymore. Some have even mentioned that they feel it’s one of those oxymorons like “giant shrimp”. I say you can get excellent help, if you know how.

Yes, I’m a writer-but only part-time. A girl’s gotta pay the bills and this freelance position isn’t exactly up there in the pay scale, so I have to maintain a “day job” position and for the most part my job is customer service, so I know of whence I speak.

To get someone to help you isn’t really difficult or time-consuming, it’s not even a secret-one must simply treat the person who is at the other end of the phone (or desk)as if they are not something less than dirt. Truly.

An example: Your kitchen faucet is 2 years old, the pull out hose is losing it’s finish and instead of “tuscan bronze”, polished chrome is peeking out, every time you spray something. The part is under warranty. You would like a new hose. How do you get it?

1. Look up your paperwork or at least know how it was purchased. Call the business you bought it from. With today’s computers and the proper information can be obtained in a few minutes. However, after two years, don’t expect them to remember that it was purchased under your designer’s/contractor’s name. If you can’t remember, give several options! A computer is a helpful tool, not a mind reader.

2. Don’t use profanity. Think before you speak. The person who’s asking questions is trying to help, if you call them names and scream, trust me, they will hang-up or stop even making an attempt at solving your problem. Remember, they didn’t cause the problem and without the proper information, they can’t request the item from their vendor.

3. Say “thank you”. Two simple words that might mean the difference between this human being pulling out “all the stops” in a speedy fashion or putting your desires at the bottom of their Mt. Everest-sized heap.

One office manager, who works for a large furniture company, said he literally bent over backwards trying to get a leather repair company out to a customer’s home, just because they talked to him in a pleasant tone and thanked him, ahead of time, for any help he could offer. The kicker: they admitted they were calling for help due to their cat’s claws scratching the new recliner. The young man could have just said “Gee, sorry. Here’s a number of someone we use”. Instead, because they were so polite to him, he proceeded to sweet talk the company into fixing it free of charge.

On the flipside, one business owner answered her businesses main line while the receptionist took a break, the customer on the other end starting screaming and calling “the receptionist” every name they could push out of their mouth, all over a cap on the bottom of a toilet that their plumber whacked a little too hard and broke! It was a simple fix, plenty of them in the store’s warehouse-which any of the staff would have given out free. However, since this person was so rude, the business owner put them on hold for a few minutes, then came back on the line and asked if they were feeling a little less tense yet?
She told them that help would indeed come, but only after the apologized to the “receptionist”.

Of course, with a volatile person such as this, there was no apology-so there was no help.

Customer service isn’t a thing of the past-it just takes a little finesse.

Carine Nadel looks at life in a practical way. To read more of her work, log onto: http://www.Carine-whatscooking.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carine_Nadel

Because of the advanced technology that is available to us, we have many options in the jobs that we take. Many of the available options will allow you to stay home and make money. As the economy continues to struggle, many businesses are choosing the option to hire at home workers to take care of their business needs. If you want to make money at home, you may want to consider becoming at home customer service representative.

You will find that to make money at home as a customer service representative you will have to get the necessary equipment. Your first necessary item is to purchase a computer with a lot of memory. This will allow your computer to have the ability to download the software for the company you work with and you will find that most companies will have certain requirements that your computer must meet before they can hire you. Do some research to make sure your computer meets the standards of most businesses.

You will also need to get high-speed Internet. Unfortunately, if you live in an area that will only provide you with dial up connection options, you may not be able to do this type of work to make money at home. However, research all of the options that are available to you and you may find you can get what you need by satellite.

Other equipment that you will need is a landline telephone, as well as a headset that can be hooked up to your computer. Most companies will require you to have one with noise reduction capabilities, so you may want to wait to purchase this after speaking with the company you are interested in.

Along with the necessary equipment, you must also have an area to work in that will provide absolute quiet. No company is going to want their customers to know that their workers are working out of their homes. If your kids are screaming or your dog is barking when you are the call with a customer, you may find yourself searching for work again.

If you want to stay at home and earn your income, do the research involved and you will find that working as a customer service representative from home will allow you the income you need to make and the freedom to even choose the hours you work.

Dustin Heath recommends that you visit http://www.Products-Sell.com
to learn how you can start your own home-based business earning multiple streams of income with a Plug-In Profit Site
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