Automated reminders

Sandy is a hugely useful tool that sends reminders to you of everything you need to do. In the morning, you get a heads up of all that you should be doing today, and as you send in simple textual notes to yourself that Sandy then feeds back to you in time to remember that important meeting, to take the supper out, what someone is called etc.

It's quite similar to backpack, which I've also used to try and make it easier to deal with all the many things there in a day to remember.

The next thing to focus on is to rid the days of quite so many things for the brain to cope with. I am now researching Get Organized Now and Get Things Done, both of whom offer a system, folders, stickers etc to make dealing with projects, clients, and even household chores more efficient.

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Customer Service...people powered

GET SATISFACTION.com
One of the things the Internet has become full of is customer service complaints. There are so many dissatisifed customers out there it seems, and not just for the big companies, but also the small ones. Tracking these complaints online can be a full time job, which is why I mentioned filtrbox

But how can you provide excellent, transparent customer service when you have limited resources? Well, today's great discovery is getsatisfaction.com

It is an online forum type application where people can post messages, ideas, feedback, ask questions, etc to your company. Basically, it allows you to support your customers, as well as allowing them to support each other. Which reduces the amount of support you need to provide when your loyal customer base are helping each other out.

It is free and well worth joining up to check it out. If you can support a few of your customers through an application such as this, then you will inevitably increase the chances of them buying from you again, recommending you to others, and probably checking back occasionally to see if they can help anyone else out in return.

The site is easy to use, very Web 2.0 in appearance and structure, and has been clearly thought out. The fact that it is being used by some large companies, probably as a trial, as well as some of the busy sites such as Twitter, implies that it may well have legs.

Give it a go - get satisfaction!

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Tracking information you need to know

I have discovered Filtrbox I'm not sure why this application has taken so long to be developed as it really is quite an obvious one for those who suffer from information overload, but now it has been, I have to say it is very good.

As an Internet marketer, with many other interests, keeping abreast of all the latest goings on for clients, my business, as well as all the techie and non-techie interests, has become increasingly difficult. Google alerts, technorati, and all the many email newsletters that need to be read mean that some (errr...many!) often get overlooked.

Just tracking industry happenings, mentions of a product name, event news, a possible link etc etc for a single client can mean setting up a huge number of Google alerts or similar for those keywords. Just opening and reading all those alerts and seeing whether they are relevant to a client is time-consuming, and doesn't necessarily offer an obvious payback, unless you are well-informed about the client's niche, and can spot trends, important information etc.

For a small business, the time that this can take up is often unavailable because just dealing with email enquiries, orders etc eats into the little time available to a small or micro SME. Hence farming it out to your friendly (and increasingly time-strapped Internet marketer!)

It is however, hugely important to keep an eye on what is happening in your field, what is being said about your company etc: with the competition, whether anyone is bad mouthing your company, posting bad reviews, undercutting your prices, or even raving about how wonderful you are.

In the old days, you would pay a press cutting service or similar to monitor magazines, the newspapers, journals, events for any information about you or your competition. With the growth of the Internet, there are far more places to scan for information of relevance to you, for instance stocks and shares, investment opportunities, and it really is a full-time job to keep abreast of it all.

This is where filtrbox comes in. It automatically scans news sites, RSS feeds, and forums for your keywords and phrases, removes duplicates, and makes it very easy to scan through the results to see if there is anything of interest.

For any company, large or small, this is an incredibly useful tool, condensing the many sources of information into one place. For those of us with far too many outside interests, you can group information sources together so that you can easily check one particular topic or niche without needing to wade through the results for something entirely unrelated.

It is currently in beta, but if you want to give it a try, it is most definitely worth a shot so click here.

I'd put my money on this going a long way and becoming very popular.....these aggregation Web 2.0 tools that make life easier are always going to be winners!

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Customer Service

After writing the last post, thought I should write about today.

Was busy, lost in Google Analytics for a client, trying to work out how on earth Google could be so far wrong with the number of visitors they are recording on two separate sites against the other traffic stats. (If Google was right, nearly every single visitor bought a product, which is so blatantly not true) when....

Knock at the door.

Open door to find a lady on the doorstep, with a dog.

"Can you fix computers?"

Said the lady, obviously.

Methinks: here we go again. "Um, yes". (Wonder who has grassed me up now).

"Mine has stopped working. I can't get on the Internet."

I was having a bad day and if I were a doctor, a casual observer would no doubt have said that my doorstep/bedside manner left a lot to be desired. And I've lost a veneer off my front tooth and currently don't actually want to open my mouth in public either.

But, this is a small village and what goes around comes around so fire brain up into diagnostics mode and suggest the basics, through a semi-closed mouth - turn it all off at the plugs, make a coffee, try turning it back on again.

"I've been trying that since Sunday."

Hmmm. I know BT have been pratting about up the village - work ongoing for over a year now since the big storm - and also there is an email doing the ISP rounds about major BT infrastructure work due this week. "Sunday, you say. Who are you with?" "Pipex. Could you come and look?"

"Yep. But, um, not now."

I'm in the middle of "Mum, where are you?" texts as I'd ignored daughter 2's pleas to drive 5 miles to collect her from school to buy the ingredients for Thai green curry. After all, I was WORKING and determined to crack this Google analytics problem for a PAYING client - the one who will be paying for next month's ingredients. (For food which somehow won't even make it home, and will never be cooked here either, ever).

Sprog 2 is now sitting outside the Co-op in the rain.

Then I face the really awful question. "I recognise the dog, but errr, where exactly do you live?" Followed immediately by the pacifier, "I can be there at 7ish, I just have to go and buy ingredients for my daughter's cookery at the Co-op first". (And pick her up....).

How can you recognise someone's dog and be absolutely clueless about where in this tiny village they live? Had either twin been available (other one is grounded after dyeing the almost finished, after 5 years, newly decorated bathroom - floor, bath, sink and surfaces - bright and indelibly pink last night in a failed attempt to dye her black hair), they could have told me instantly.

Not that I would necessarily have listened as I am still incandescent about the stupidity of the hair dye incident. In fact, I am almost the same "seething" colour as the bathroom, really.

So, bought the ingredients, rescued daughter, (not in that order), failed abysmally to correctly read the ingredients on some new form of hurried supper - panini from the Co-op - and nearly blew the microwave up. "Remove from plastic packaging and remove the sauce sachet" should have been in MUCH bigger writing. Put supper in oven for rest of family, and walked casually up the street to what felt like a far-flung outpost of the village, and arrived wheezing on the doorstep.

Within 2 minutes of sitting down, I was cursing all ISPs for their abject failure to support their customers, and British pharmawotsits for not letting us just buy an inhaler over the counter like every other country I have ever been to.

And also that my wifi doesn't work through the trees around this house so I can just get online and find the answers for what suddenly appears to be an ISDN line, not ADSL. (Jeez, that's what they did with ISDN? Stuck it into rural homes and called it broadband?? I must check.)

Speak to her husband on the phone, who also cannot remember where they might have put the paperwork for a connection they had every right to assume would not just go pear-shaped overnight, and silently curse Pipex and most ISPs (except SWBB) a little more.

Am as honest as it is feasible to be in between wishing I'd remembered to get a box of Ventolin inhalers in Bolivia, and say, call me on this number if the customer service department can't help.

When offered anything financial for walking up the village, I obviously refused. After all, I hadn't solved the problem and it was a lovely evening, and exercising legs and lungs (occasionally at least) appears to be something I ought to be doing daily.

Some 2 hours later, am totally unsurprised to get a phone call asking for further assistance.

I'm not being rude but this lady is from a generation where you maybe feel embarrassed to ask for help from a company / supplier of product as it feels like you could be asking too much from them.

(Say this to me in 20+ years time and I'll abandon my pacifist principles, hit you, and then spend the evening boring you shedless with examples of CRM and customer service working, until you come round!)

Actually I don't even know that it is a generation gap thing. I think many of us are so totally fed up with being put on hold, trying to communicate with customer service reps who don't even speak our language, being treated like idiots etc that we seek, and pay for, local help. Hence my post the other day about this virtual sales agent....(scroll down!)

So, I've looked up all the Pipex info, written it down, and am wandering up there again tomorrow. With my tooth covered in Tippex and a better bedside manner. And, depending on how long it takes me (and the fact I probably have an entire new bathroom suite and floor to buy), and with a quick prayer to the god of computing and Internet, I think I'll charge half for me, and ask her to give something to the Primary School. And I'll go in the car instead of walking, until I can renew my Ventolin 'script. However environmentally friendly that might not be.

And when I get home, I'll spend the evening writing complaints letters to Pipex, ThinkBroadband, and Sunpat about customer service.

The last because it is bloody time they redesigned their jars so us consumers can actually reach the last bits of peanut butter from those stupid ridges at both the top and bottom of the jar when we get home and need summat to eat. Or at least give us some vouchers to buy the special knife you must need to get into those nooks and crannies. Because that Sunpat jar is a prime example of 21st century poor customer service.

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E-commerce or Ebay?

I was stopped in the street the other day. Usual thing...."Is it true you know about computers?"

Now, normally, I try to find a way to answer "No" as I can't fix many technical problems with computers and can't be bothered with, "My motherboard seems to have blown" or "The hard drive has just re-formatted itself, please can you rescue all my files?".

Let's be truthful...I'm an Internet marketer, not some sort of hardware geek (honest!). I have an exceptional contact list that has taken years to build up to solve problems I can't deal with. (Doh, I'm female, not stupid! I also ask directions when I'm lost.....).



But, back to the point: it's someone I know and respect and, if the next question was beyond me, then at least I know I know someone (probably locally) to help. So, I said, "Yes".

The next question put it much more into my realm...."Do you know about websites?". Bring it on, much more my sort of thang!

"I've got all my numbers....." (Hmmm?) "...and I need a website built to sell my products, can you help me?" Thought we'd better clarify the numbers thing, thinking I'd fallen back into some sort of pre ICANN timewarp to when Compuserve existed etc and everything ran on IP addresses only.

Managed to abate the panic enough to finally work out he meant his ftp details. "Ah, those numbers! Yep, that's fine".

God, I was so relieved. I hated trying to remember IP addresses in the old days - humans are only made to remember a certain number of telephone numbers, not IPs as well! I have a friend who seems to remember the IP address of every server and website he has ever worked on, as well as the BBC and other sites - just in case the DNS goes down, I guess, but...hell, how sad is that?! (But, then that's why he is in my address book - just in case that day ever comes!)

And this is why, of course, mobile phone address books are so important to us and we all panic if we lose our phone. None of us can remember all the numbers our friends and family now have. You hear wails of "But I don't know how to reach my boyfriend/husband/mum/kids...." etc at the site of a mobile phone loss or theft.

I guess that's another post about backing up, and WRITING things down!! (Oh yes, and then there's that fantabulous money making idea for a directory enquiry service that doesn't belong to BT et al with all our numbers in it so we can be found.....!)

But I digress (as Tom Lehrer said so infamously).

Back to this acquaintance of mine who was looking for a website.....I knew from the moment he pulled up, this is never going to be a site build that will make me rich as I wouldn't ever want to charge him more than a couple of hundred quid at the mostest, but you think on your feet when you are faced with 'on the street' pitches!

That'll be the third cheapo website in a week I have been asked for, so if you are a website designer who can churn these things out, get in touch - nowt fancy required).

"Do you have an Ebay store?" "No, can you do that for me too?"

Now, instantly, what I see, as someone who has right gone off work during my period of enforced retirement, is an easy way out. Build ebay store, spend half a day on it, teach [unnamed person] to use it and add items etc, charge a coupla quid (probably in Guinness), walk away.

"Yep", she says, ready to return to walking down the street.

"Well, I want one of those as well as a website".

"Oh...OK. What are you selling?"

Now, because I am determined that this blog and its contents will be transferred to the new Web PR site and win all sorts of organic search challenges, I am going to add these keywords. Not just to enhance the value of this story, you understand, which I think it does anyway!

"Sheep shearers".

Now, I saw the Thorn Birds, way back when with Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward, and Brian Brown (who everyone swears blind wasn't the guy who spoke backwards in that kids programme with the talking aspidistra - The Adventure Game, wasn't it?!).

Sheep shearers? Australian ones? In Cumbria? In Eden? Definitely bring them on!!! I'll build the site!!!

"I'll come round with some ideas in the next few days," he added, and drove off into the night.

Now, I spend my life looking at keywords - synonyms, antonyms, phrases, potential keywords, you name it. He'd gone about 10yds before my boringly Thesaurus-trained mind came up with sheep clippers. As in: the item you use to clip sheep. Not a full-blooded sweaty Australian or New Zealand male shearer, but an electric clipping machine. Or even, which potentially it could be knowing this guy, an antique, hand-powered, or even an environmentally-friendly bicicyle-powered clipping thingamijig.

I nearly called him back and said unless he could guarantee that he was bringing some new, good to look at blokes around here, who were likely to drink in our local, I wasn't doing it. And then some part of me thought, "No, you owe him anyway, build him the Ebay site and a 3 page site with a content management tool on it, and just be glad of the work."

But, when he comes round about this website, I am going to suggest that there may be some mileage in this "bringing over guys to shear sheep in UK" suggestion, and if he would pay, I am willing to go to Oz and NZ and look into it as a business proposition for him. Cos, after all, the Down underers are busy nicking all our best skilled people and farming in this country is suffering (as are rural females), so why not?!

[Note to partner: this is a blog post! It is keyword rich and tongue in cheek! But, PHWOAAA!]

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Capturing lost sales

I was having a discussion just today about setting up goals for Google analytics to see what number of drop outs are occurring during their sales process. The client said that if they could average 3 sales a day throughout the eyar, that would be fantastic, but if they could increase it to 4..... Some days they see 7 sales a day of their niche product, but obviously there are other days with very few sales.

We talked about having Live chat or help agents to try and capture anyone 'dithering' over a sale who needed an instant answer to any questions they might have, which could help them to purchase.


One of the problems small businesses face is not having enough manpower to monitor issues such as this, let alone cater for the CRM side of the online business.

Then, oddly, one of those dreaded mass emails from another internet marketer dropped in. (They are always selling a "friend's" product, or promoting a colleague's attempt at becoming an Amazon Best Seller -today only! I tend to read through the middle of them to see what the latest sales technique is between internet marketers as that is who they generally have on their lists!

Today, it caught my eye because it happened to be for a virtual sales agent. And, most importantly, it was not a product/service that was particularly costly, or being pushed on a pay per sale, or lifetime cost, but a one off fee of $97. Which is about £50 even on a good day so it's not hugely expensive.

I read the blurb, pages and pages of it, which is now the general mechanism for selling internet marketing tools, and looked beyond the calls to action, and emotional triggers. Mainly because having read something similar the other day which seemed like a bit of a 'no brainer', the catch was the need to have a hosting account with a different company. At extra cost, obviously.

The small print here appears to be what your host is running on their server in the way of PHP and Unix/Linux. So, if you are on a Windows box, you can't use this software, but that's a minor issue if the sales agent works to 1) capture sales you were potentially going to lose 2) build an opt-in list of interested parties for follow ups and 3) get an email newsletter tool thrown in.

Anyway, before it goes up in price, I'm going to buy one and stick it on our Linux server and have a play with it. Because it seems to me that it is all very well having an e-commerce shop open 24/7, but if your customers leave without getting their questions answered, and without a personal approach by one of your sales staff (even if they are an avatar), you may not just be adding that extra touch that could bring back the money you are potentially losing. And it's got a lifetime money back guarantee on it, so what is there to lose in trying it?

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