Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11
Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life.
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Turning Complaints Into Compliments |
| We’ve all been there. You’re in throes of excitement about getting acquainted with a new product or service only to have something break or malfunction. Whether it’s a glitch in the software or a tear in a new shirt, when something goes wrong we want somebody to “fix it” as soon as possible.
As a business owner, it’s inevitable that a customer will run into some sort of issue with your product or service and need to make contact. Rather than viewing customer complaints as a mark against the quality of your business, why not flip it around and use it as an exercise for improvement and an opportunity to earn trust and loyalty from your customers.  Acknowledgement and validation You must find out what’s important to the customer, which ties directly back to that person’s value system. You may not agree with the complaint, but the customer wants to feel right (justified) for their grievance. For instance, if a customer complains about slow service, validate them by saying something like, “You absolutely deserve prompt service …” Apologize once up front As customers we’re not always right and we know it. But it doesn’t stop us from feeling as if being right or wrong is beside the point. Whether you are on the giving or receiving end of a complaint, once a customer always a customer. An upfront apology goes a very long way, so when you offer one make it clear that you are sorry for any inconvenience. This demonstrates empathy and understanding. Explain your company’s desire to improve Once you understand a customer’s values (e.g. speedy delivery) then you can use that as a framework for a playback of the value statement. “We understand that prompt delivery is very important to our customers, and we’re working on improving in that area.” What’s most important is to be honest. If a fix for the issue isn’t on the immediate horizon, at the very least let the customer know that their input is valued and will be noted. |
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Leads to Opportunities |
| If you are concerned about losing information when converting Leads to Contacts and Opportunities, try importing all your Contacts as “Leads”.
Create a custom drop down field labeled Type: Lead, Prospect, Partner, Customer, etc. When you import your Contacts that are leads, include an extra column in your CSV file with the header labeled as Type, and input the keyword Lead for that entire column. When you create an Opportunity for the Contact or you make a sale, you will want to manually change that custom field in the Contact Record to Prospect or Customer. (Tip compliments of Insightly power user, Micah FeldKamp, of cloudreferrals.com)
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On the Road Again
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| If your business takes you out on the road for customer visits, there’s little time to waste on logistics. Whether you’re traveling across town or to another continent, the proliferation of travel-related smartphone apps make it finger-tap simple to do everything from booking flights and hotel rooms to finding the best gym in town. Here are a few favorites that are worth exploring:
Uber offers travelers a reasonably priced option to get around town in 60 cities around the world. For the uninitiated, Uber pairs riders with private drivers. While the sign up process requires you to include your credit card information, once you’re in the system you can use the app to request a ride, prepay for the service, and get picked up in matter of minutes. No cash required. The Uber app is free and can be accessed from your iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Mac, or Windows devices. Bad weather conditions can definitely put a damper on business travel. WeatherPro provides weather information from every possible angle, including wind direction and speed, air pressure, UV index, humidity, and more. WeatherPro can be accessed on your iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Mac, or Windows devices. Price starts at $1.99.
Booking a trip is only part of the equation. Keeping all of the details organized is another. TripIt is an app that organizes all your travel plans into one master itinerary that you can access anytime, anywhere, on any device. The app can be accessed from any platform – the web, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone. It’s free to use, but for ad-free options, the mobile app can be downloaded from Google Play and iTunes for $0.99. If road trips are your preferred mode of travel, saving money on gasoline is great. GasBuddy is a mobile app that allows you to find the cheapest gas prices in the immediate area. Through the benefit of crowdsourced pricing data, you can be sort your search by price or location (via GPS or zip code). The GasBuddy mobile app is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry device users. Send Us Your TipsWould you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us!
Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial right now. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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