Vacation
Posted on 8/9/2009 at 9:57:58 PM
Title: Vacation
Description: Available for emergencies
Start Date: 2009-08-15
End Date: 2009-08-30
Posted in Daily | Comments Off
Way to Keep Us Safe
Posted on 7/3/2009 at 6:54:57 AM
This is old news, but its been bugging the hell out of me lately.
WTF.
Posted in In the Biz | Comments Off
Just Stuff …
Posted on 6/28/2009 at 6:40:42 PM
I am now offering basic Mobile Design of your site at High Heel Designs.
Am also getting fired up for my 4th of July giftie to myself: Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd @ Summerfest in Milwaukee! Whoo-hoo.
This will be the third time I’ve seen each of them – first time together.
Yay – go me!
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How’s That Working For You?
Posted on 5/12/2009 at 10:19:28 AM
“The economy is terrible – blah-blah-blah …”
Sure it is, but there are just some luxuries or extras that people will not give up. For me it’s a daily Cappucino and my tabloid mags – gotta have ‘em.
And here’s the thing – cappucino and tabloids haven’t gone down in price because the economy is “tanking”.
So … have your dropped your prices, even “temporarily”? How is that working for you? Are you aware that once you drop your prices, the odds of being successful at returning to your previous price are very low?
In a down economy it is necessary to increase the value of the service you offer without lowering your prices.
Lowering your prices, even for a short time, also means you may have to work harder (more clients) and it MAY mean having to deal with those potential clients that you don’t WANT (the “frugal” client who is always looking for a deal).
Keeping your prices the same (or even RAISING them) and offering added value for that price prevents the possibility of losing your current clients.
Look at your marketing efforts, look at what you’re offering for the value – has it helped or hurt you? Are you working harder and making decisions that you really don’t want to in order to keep your head above water?
Is that what you really want to do?
Promise Them the Moon
Posted on 4/13/2009 at 5:51:38 AM
I’ve been in one area of the service industry or another for over thirty years. I am helpless in that I cast a critical eye on every service provider I come in contact with during my day to day dealings, whether it’s the counter person at the local deli, the young lady who performed my facial last week or the new bartender at my favorite watering hole. I can’t help it – my mother was a bartender and waitress for her entire life and I started waiting table when I was fourteen years old, learning at her knee that the core of customer service is your customer.
I’ve worked in hair salons, restaurants, as a housekeeper in a four-star hotel, nail salons, greenhouses, motorcycle body shops and now as a website designer and have honed my customer service to fine point.
It’s also made me highly critical of other businesses and how they treat their customers. I can’t walk into an establishment where I’m going to be “served” without checking out how they do business. And I learn something new every time, even though their business is DIFFERENT than mine.
One concept applies to every service based business – you MUST care about your customers and make them feel as though they are the ONLY customer you have. Oh, they know you have other customers and if you follow my mother’s rules of customer care, they’ll even send you MORE customers, but in the back of their mind they’ll be thinking “Mom always liked me best.”
Promise them the moon, and then deliver. If you follow that thought, you will never lack for customers (or an income) even in a bad economy.
Make a point to know your customers – their time with you whether, it’s ten minutes or an hour, is all about THEM. Make this effort even with the clients that you may never see again; you never know who THEY know and will sing your praises to.
Even if you deliver a spectacular service at an incredibly low price, if it’s done unemotionally – if your customer doesn’t FEEL it – they won’t be impressed.
And they WILL tell others, good or bad.
This is the age of Facebook, Twitter, blogging and online messaging … can you afford to possibly blemish your name by coming off as impersonal or worse, indifferent, to your clients, their friends and perhaps the entire world?
