Most of the time when we create a product or write an article, it is not always clear whether or not people like it.  Occasionally we get a wonderful testimonial in our inbox like the one we got from James from Nerds on Site that said:

WOW! Absolute wow! I couldn’t quite grasp my head around Quickbooks, Quicken, or Simply, but instantly was able to start using this application! Best of all, as I learn more about accounting, I know that Clarity Accounting will grow WITH me, rather than use a ’simplified’ or dumbed-down accounting “package” which would have left my year-end accountant pulling his/her hair out!

Or Justine, from Cherish Childbirth Care who said:

I have been avoiding doing my accounting for the whole 2.5 years I’ve been in business for myself.  Clarity Accounting has taken all the fear out of it.  In fact, I am even enjoying getting it done.  The customer support has also been amazing.  Thanks Clarity Accounting!

My business partner and I walked out for lunch today and ran into a Clarity Accounting user (I think the business must be growing when I start to run into our users on the street!) who stopped to tell us how much she loved how our online accounting software has empowered her to enter all her income and expenses for the year 2008 within a short period of time. 

What was interesting about this experience is that my business partner and I realized that we found different aspects of the business rewarding.  My business partner, Dobes Vandermeer – who is the lead software engineer for Clarity Accounting, found it rewarding that people liked the software.  I, on the other hand, found it rewarding that people are using Clarity Accounting to transform their relationship with their finances by using our super easy accounting software.  I guess this makes me an ideal customer support person.

If you have any comments regarding Clarity Accounting (whether good or bad), we would love to hear from you.  You can fill out an online form, or call us directly at (778) 370-1880.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Are you having problems providing good customer service online?

Are you finding yourself struggling to connect with your clients?

Before I reveal my good customer services methods it’s important to know there is a new breed of online shoppers that have very different profiles, characteristics and needs.

The challenge to provide good customer service is increasing due to the heavy number of online software vendors.

The traditional methods of creating customer satisfaction often entailed face to face meetings and phone conversations. In the new era of good customer service people now prefer email correspondence and only the occasional phone conversation.

Three years ago, I was a customer service representative for an online retail store selling after market printer ink. I was able to increase sales by 70% my first four months by providing good customer service.

I will share with you the pearls of my discovery and how I successfully increased our bottom line.

Good Customer Service is providing Good Email Correspondence

The invention of the Internet and Email has drastically changed the way people communicate. Email is often the preferred method of communication for most clients. It is not unusual for a client to send an email consisting of only one sentence.

For example I have a client after taking our thirty day trial they down loaded our online accounting software and sent me the following e-mail:“how do I activate multi-user support?”

When people send you a one sentence question this is a perfect opening to show your good customer service skills. Instead of responding with a one sentence answer like, “go to your business profile on your dashboard and click on ‘grant / remove user access’. You now have an opportunity to build on generating customer retention along with an ongoing business relationship.

An Outstanding E-mail Example of Good Customer Service

My response to the question: “how do I activate multi-user support?”

Dear Customer,

Thank you for using our accounting software we really appreciate having you as a client. We would like you to know that if you have any suggestions about improving our service please feel free to contact us. We value your business and customer satisfaction is extremely important to us.

Following are the instructions on how to add multiple users to your business account.

1. Log in to your account
2. On the left vertical navigation bar, go to the Setup section
3. Click on “Business Profile”
4. Under your business information, click on “Grant/Revoke Access”
5. An “Access Control” pop-up will occur
6. Enter the email of the person you wish to give access to
7. Select the level of access you wish to give this person by using the drop down arrow
8. Click on the link “Add User”
9. The email address you have entered should show up with their access level
10. Click on the “Done” button
11. Ask the new user(s) to sign up for an account using the email addresses you have provided
12. Once they signed up and verified their email addresses, they should be able to log in
13. They will see a list of businesses they have access to under the “Navigation” bar by using the drop down icon.

We hope we were able to answer your questions. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or comments.

Warm Regards,
Clarity Accounting Support Team.
Phone: (778) 370-1880
Email: support@clarityaccounting.com
Web : www.clarityaccounting.com

Some key points in improving customer retention and customer satisfaction when submitting an email response:

• Thank your customers for sending you an email
• Thank them for their support and/or patience depending on the nature of the customer’s inquiry
• Always invite your customers to contact you again if they have any questions or comments.

The Proper Way to Handle Complaints While Providing Good Customer Service

Complaints are the emails you need to respond to ASAP. If the complaint is something that cannot be resolved instantly, you would still want to respond to the complaint immediately by saying: “Thank you for submitting your issue. We are sorry for the inconvenience and we are currently working on resolving state the problem here. We will contact you as soon as we have the problem resolved.

This will alleviate your customers anxiety while giving them a feeling of customer satisfaction.
Recently I had an experience with an online service company that did not provide good customer service. They did a software upgrade and I could no longer export any of my contacts. Since this drastically affected my work flow, I decided to send them an email saying this has affected me greatly and I needed this feature back.

They did not respond for 3 days and when they did get around to emailing me, they were casual and vague. I didn’t feel as if they cared about my problem nor did I feel valued as a customer.

If they had dealt with this situation in a professional and timely manner I would be recommending them to my clients and be more likely to purchase their next product, instead I was left with a bad customer experience.

Here are some appropriate guidelines to follow when responding to a customer compliant:

1. Set up an auto- responder on your web site that acknowledges the client immediately, letting them know with in a 24 hour time frame you will get back to back to them.
2. Respond in a timely manner honoring the time set in your auto responder e-mail.
3. Reply in a friendly and professional manner.
4. Offer to make up for any delay or lack of a promised service.
5. Be clear when stating appropriate time frames for the resolution.
6. Extend an invitation to be contacted concerning any other needs they may have.

How to Make a Good Customer Service Call without Alienating your Clients

There is a reason why people are buying online instead of showing up at a store front. They want an easy, hassle free customer experience minus the sales calls. Customers find it inconvenient to be interrupted by a service call.

The proper way to go about creating a good customer service experience is to a send an e-mail requesting a convenient time to talk. Now that you have their complete attention you can go over all of your customers needs and inquire about any additional suggestions they may have in better serving them.
There is one exception to this however, when your customers call you, your response time should be as soon as possible.

How Good Customer Service Converts to Excellent Customer Retention

Here at Clarity Accounting we have a policy to get back to our customers the very same day. We believe in going the extra mile while providing that human touch that is missing with so many big companies. When you sign up for our astounding on-line accounting software program you find that we have thought of every angle to respond to your needs. We even respond to e-mail inquires outside of the normal office hours.

We have found that this policy has greatly improved our customer retention and puts us on top when it comes to customer satisfaction.

There is nothing we won’t do for our customers. Our motto is if you’re doing business with us you are part of our family. Therefore we would like to welcome you to our family by extending an invitation for you to start your 30 day free trial of our remarkable on line accounting software that creates automatic data backup and gives you anywhere access. You won’t find another program that is as easy and simple while taking care of all your accounting needs.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting

Today I was reading a post from Seth Godin’s blog titled “The bitter taste of nickels and dimes” where he went to a Whole Foods store to get his favorite Rooibos tea and requested a cup of ice from the server.  Since there was a company policy to charge $0.50 extra for ice, and Seth didn’t want to pay $0.50 extra for the ice, he ended up getting hot tea instead of iced tea.

I think the essence of running a business is often lost when companies began to apply rules about what a customer service person can or cannot do.  In my opinion, the essence of any business is customer satisfaction.  The employee at Whole Foods was just following the rules that has been created by the company, however, her rule-abiding actions has triggered one of the greatest marketing gurus to write about his bad experience at the Whole Foods store.  It really didn’t matter how great the Rooibos tea was…

I think a very important aspect of running a business is to ensure that customers feel like they have been listened to and appreciated.  I had an interesting experience when we first started our online accounting software project.  At some point along the way when we began to move in to beta, I realized it was time to get a CRM solution organized.  Since we provide a Web 2.0 accounting solution, I thought it would be a great idea to try out other web hosted CRM solutions.  Naturally, I searched around Google and found Salesforce — who is undoubtedly the largest online CRM solution on the web today.  I saw a link on the website that said, “sign up for a free trial today and get a free copy of the book Salesforce for Dummies“.  I thought, what a great deal! I am a dummy user and I get a free book just by signing up for a free trial.  So, I click on the banner that said free trial Salesforce for 30 days and began the sign up process.  I must say that Salesforce has a great follow up system.  I get an email and a call almost immediately after my sign up, offering to support me in any way possible.  I was delighted.  After a week or so, I realized that I haven’t received my free book Salesforce for Dummies so I decided to mention it in one of the phone conversations with a customer service rep.  I was told that I had “clicked on the wrong link” and therefore, I am not eligible to get a free book.  But I signed up for a free trial! I thought to myself.  So I very politely asked the sales rep if I could get a free book anyways since this is one of their offers for people who have signed up for a free trial.  This was what I was told: since I didn’t click on the right link, I was not on the list to get a free book. If I really wanted to get a free book, I would have to go back and click on the right link and sign up all over again.  I could feel the sense of annoyance and betrayal stirring inside of me and feeling cheated by Salesforce.  Then I was even more annoyed when I was told that I had to pay annually up front when the marketing message on the website said, “Full Featured CRM starting at $65/month/user“.  I thought I was going to be able to pay $65/month to ensure I have better cashflow and I was told that I had to pay $780 / year / user at the end of my 30 day trial.  So I asked, “I thought it said on your website that you charge $65/month?”  The sales rep told me that $780/ year works out to be $65/ month.  Now I really feel cheated.  Why can’t they just do what they say they would do on their website?  Is it that much trouble to ensure that I get a free book?  Maybe even change their marketing message on their website to $780/ year / user.  Now they have got me ranting on them months after my bad experience with them.  I told the sales rep not to contact me anymore because I have had a bad experience.  I was asked to explain myself and I felt so betrayed I didn’t even bother.  Now I am ranting on the world wide web instead.

Just like the server at the Whole Foods store could have made an exception for Seth as a valued customer who loved his Rooibos tea with ice, the Salesforce team could have understood my desire to learn more about Salesforce by ensuring that I get a free book.  To think that they have now over 43,600 clients paying at least $780/month/user which translates to a minimum revenue of 34 million dollars per year, the least they could have done was send me a free book like their website said they would.

I can assure people that when it comes to serving customers, I always do what I say I will do and I try my best to understand their needs.  I am really hoping that when our online accounts software gets to serve millions of happy customers and making more than 30 million dollars in revenue, I will ensure that people at all levels of my company remember that while there may be rules, the common sense will always be doing the little things that create happy customers.

Bookmark this post:

• Learn more about Clarity Accounting
• Try a demo
• Sign up for a 30-day free trial
• Log in to Clarity Accounting