Customer Service, Marketing and Humanity..

Great Marketers are well aware that the highest form of public relations is human relations. They are able to blend warm relationships with sizzling profits.
No matter how good your marketing is, it can rarely bring customers back for more if they were disappointed with their first go-round with you. It cannot generate profits for you if your word-of-mouth marketing works against it. It can only get prospects to buy from you once. The rest is up to you -- and up to your sense of humanity in marketing.

If you can't see the connection, perhaps marketing is not your strong point and you should become involved with something that does not involve human beings. Marketing very definitely does involve them. The more humanity they experience from your company, the more involved they'll be with you -- and they'll prove it with repeat and referral business.

One Great Marketers truism is that people like to buy from friends. Another is that it is crucial to make the human bond before you can make a lasting business bond.

To avoid the depersonalization that has been an unpleasant side effect of the digital age and endemic within the business community, several Great Marketers marketing weapons may be employed to add more humanity to your marketing and more profits to your tiller.

On the retail level, it means using the weapons -- and don't you dare underestimate their importance just because they're free -- of a warm, sincere smile, clear eye contact, and whenever possible, using the person's name. Think of ways to make it possible. Realize that it feels human. It feels comfy. And that makes the person feel good. When the customer feels good, the customer connects you with that good feeling. That's why good feelings lead to good business.

Naturally, this should be your modus operandi during trade shows, whether you're an exhibitor or a browser. Parties on trade show evenings for key customers and prospects have been wise investments for the companies that want to intensify their human bonds. Great Marketers do not hesitate for a moment to play favorites.

The personality of your company, as heard on the telephone, can turn your customers on -- or it can turn them off. A warm, friendly person answering the phone can lead to a warm, friendly relationship with your company. A cold, unfriendly person on the phone can make the caller feel intrusive, like an interruption of work rather than like the reason you exist.

If you absolutely must put the callers on hold, let them benefit from your on-hold marketing by listening to music in your identity and fascinating news about your company, especially about special offers and new products and services. Instead of resenting you, callers will appreciate you.

All contact time with customers should be oriented to the customer's needs, devoted to saving time for the customer. Even with your respect for the customer's time, there is still ample opportunity to strengthen the human bond by making the purchasing process as simple as possible. The idea is to be personable, to be streamlined, to be easy to do business with.

Accept all credit cards. Provide partial payment plans. Offer overnight delivery. Encourage telephone ordering. Engage in sales training that includes pointers about human behavior and the immense power of a smile. Offer memory training to salespeople so they can connect names with faces. Be certain that your reps -- anyone who will be in contact with your public -- are clear, pleasant, warm and a reflection of your company identity. Naturally, the best way to do this is when you are hiring. It is very difficult to train for lovability.

Your prospects are going to have to buy you and your reps before they buy what you and your reps are selling. Humanity that is sincerely added to a cold business situation warms up the transaction. It motivates the customer to be a source of repeat business and word-of-mouth referring.

Add humanity by asking questions, listening attentively to the answers, wanting to be of maximum service to the customer, providing fee date in the form of brochures, newsletters, videos, an online service that responds instantly, the full gamut of Great Marketers marketing weapons.

Make warmth and humanity part of your written marketing plan. As Chicago Bull Coach Phil Jackson says that his starting point in all relationships is compassion, make yours caring.

Most of the marketing weapons I've mentioned cost very little money. They are attitudes that serve to warm up your overall marketing. They make doing business with you more of a pleasure than a chore. When your customers feel your caring, feel a sense of well-being because they're your customers, you have succeeded at one-on-one public relations. Who would ever think that a hallmark of the Great Marketers is love? I hope you think it now.

Good Luck,

Compiled by,

Bernice Kanini

Clients Realations

Dolphins Training & Consultants ltd-Dolphins Group.