As my company designs, develops and manages websites for small businesses, I am often asked for advice and tips. One of the simplest pieces of advice and also the most important is to answer email promptly. If you have a contact form on your site or even just an email link, people are looking for immediate responses. I tell people if at all possible answer within a day. I know, many of you are saying to yourselves, DUH! But the truth is many small businesses take days to respond and many times never even reply. To me this is like a guy coming into your store, putting a purchase on the counter and you just flat out ignore the customers existence. You wouldn’t do that in your brick and mortar store, so don’t do it online. The same principals should apply.
If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends.
If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.
~JEFF BEZOS
If you can’t answer promptly, then remove the form and the email link from your site. Let people know that they should call. I think it defeats much of what people are looking for going to your website, but still preferable to ignoring them. Another alternative is to have an autoresponder telling them you will be calling back and tell them to call if they require immediate attention.
Bottom Line: Responding to customer’s email is typically the first experience people have with your company. Make it a positive one and you may begin a relationship which will hopefully be long and profitable.
vi·sion·ar·y = Adjective: (esp. of a person) Thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom:
Few people are true visionaries. We would like to think we are, but thinking outside the box is far harder than it sounds. Steve Jobs simply made the products everyone wanted. And if they didn’t know they wanted it, they did after all the buzz that surrounds an Apple release. I admit, I thought early on Apple missed the boat keeping products in house while Windows spread like a wildfire (or a virus is probably closer to reality ) Obviously Steve Jobs knew how to control a brand and grow it into one the most lucrative on the planet.
I started out a PC guy, and remained one until I bought my wife the mac mini when it came out. From there I was hooked. I have since bought, 5 macs, and love the products. With a PC your life is about anti virus software, and crazy executable files designed to ruin the world. With a mac it is about productivity.
And every release of an apple product helps me be more productive. As a web developer I spend all day on my computer, and Macs make that day more enjoyable, productive and profitable.
Then there is the iPad. I admit I wasn’t sold on it until I bought one for my wife. She uses it for almost all her needs. The product has revolutionized the industry and you better be developing websites that look ok on the iPad or you are missing a huge part of your market. Travel to any board room and watch Senior Executives. They pull out the iPad. The iPad also showed how the computer industry just wants to hang back, see what Apple does and create an inferior copy. It hasn’t worked, and the Pads which have come out, aren’t as good and don’t sell. Perhaps with Steve stepping down, other computer makers will actually think for themselves and create something great, to quote a great ad, “think different”.
So, with sadness, I wish Steve Jobs Godspeed. Thank you for Apple and all you have done. Few have really changed the world. You Have.
