Posts Tagged ‘customer service’
Small Business and Startups: For Great Service, Speed Counts
Mike | December 5th, 2011I have written several times about customer service and how important it is for small businesses and startups to deliver it effectively. Great customer service is about several things: accuracy, honesty, fairness, efficiency, and – perhaps most important of all – speed of delivery. How many times have you sat on the phone listening to [...]
Startup tips: 5 great tools for freelancers (and small businesses)
Mike | October 17th, 2011What is a freelancer if not a small business? Just like small businesses, freelancers must engage in marketing, manage payables and receivables and other accounting tasks, perform HR functions, direct production, and plan strategy. 1. Planning and strategy. There are lots of great tools and apps out there that will help you to plan and [...]
Small business tips: mobile technology, the iPad, and your business
Mike | October 3rd, 2011Last week I was struck by a news story that was unusual in several respects. I turned on the news to see video of a small group of rock climbers rappelling down the exterior of the Washington Monument. The sported the typical gear one would expect to see on such folks: harnesses, helmets, ropes, and [...]
Small business and startup tips: training day!
Mike | July 18th, 2011Just like our larger brethren in the Fortune 100, lots of small businesses have training programs for their workers: lectures, classes, role-playing exercises, and motivational speaker sessions. However, most small businesses and startups ignore training programs altogether, or cobble together ad hoc strategies when on-boarding new hires. These differing approaches are sometimes stylistic, sometimes strategic, [...]
Lean Marketing: Customer service strategies for small businesses and startups
Mike | March 14th, 2011Of the many things businesses can do well (or fail at) none is more important than customer service. Although the marketing textbooks, don’t consider it to be one aspect of a solid marketing plan, this key function should be considered as a part of your marketing and approached the same way you would approach any [...]
Tips for small business and entrepreneurs: the right customer service when things go wrong
Mike | February 14th, 2011Ross wrote a short post the other day about a funny customer service request we received and mentioned that we have handled well over 100,000 customer service contacts since we launched less than 3 year ago. I looked at that number and my jaw dropped; I know intellectually that we handle a huge volume of [...]
Masked Vigilantes, Punk Rock, Customer Service and Why Apples Turn Brown
Ross | February 11th, 2011Our customer service team has answered well over 100,000 questions from customers. As our community has grown (crowdSPRING now has over 120,000 buyers and creatives on crowdSPRING, from nearly every country in the world), we sometimes receive unusual notes from customers. For example, last year, one customer wrote to us with the following opening line: [...]
