Slow Down Marketing

Saturday, December 12, 2009 ·

by: Stephan Miller

I work in retail as my day job and meet over a hundred people a day. Interesting people, strange people, people I may like to know, people I know I would hate, people that I wished I would never had met, people with problems, people with solutions, people that don't seem to take the hint that I am paid to be there an help them, that I am finally thinking of becoming a monk.

Wait, did I say that. I know that this is not the correct way to think, but it hits me right away at work. Competition in the retail marketplace has forced many stores to cut costs to the bone so that they can cut prices, which, of course means that they must cut back on labor costs. And this leads to treating customers like cattle, whether you want to or not. Get them in, shake them down for as much money as you can and get them out. And how does the corporate office try to get employees to fake customer service? By using canned phone answering techniques, greeting the customers at the door, and basically creating a frontline of expendable, robotic employees. Why do I bring this up?

Because as a internet marketer, auction seller or retailer, you can take advantage of this. Slow down, keep your business small, and provide true customer service. Your customers will notice the difference. Wait I have to come up with a new word here. "Customer" has become a four letter word to me. Let use patron. Someone who furthers you work, supports you, and comes back to your site.

Take a little test. Which of following can you recognize right away?

- A telemarketer
- An ezine personalized with your name
- Would you like fries with that?
- Spam
- A memorized sales pitch from a salesman
- An autoresponder message
- Please press 1 for yes and 2 for no
- Microsofts help system

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