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We all know it’s easier and cheaper to keep an old client than to find a new client, so why aren’t you doing everything you can to make sure your clients are satisfied and to keep your business name on their minds?
Every customer wants to be treated like they’re cared about, and not like just another email address on a list. You want to make sure that every customer is satisfied with your service and knows about any new products, services, or deals that your business may be rolling out. At the very least, you want them to remember you next time they need your service.
Follow-Ups
Sometimes, it’s enough to just check in on a customer or client’s satisfaction. “Are you happy with our service? Do you need anything else? Okay, I’m available whenever you need.” Don’t just let a person do business with you, make sure they are satisfied enough to come back or recommend you to their friends. You shouldn’t be satisfied with a one-time buy. You want to get the most out of every sale.
I bought a small piece of music equipment a few months ago from a company called Sweetwater that I found on Google. It was a small purchase and I had never intended to use them again, but just to buy and get on my way. Then, AJ called about my $8 order. He wasn’t trying to upsell me or get me on a list, he just wanted to make sure I got what I needed and that I know that if I ever need anything else, he knows a lot about that stuff and can help. He then sent an additional email when the order was shipped and another when the product arrived (with a thank-you note from AJ). I was never going to use them again but because of the way they treated my tiny $8 order, you better believe I’ll use Sweetwater again if the opportunity ever comes up. I feel very comfortable reaching out to them.
Newsletter
Just in case I forget about Sweetwater, they remind me of their existence, their products, and current deals with a monthly email newsletter. Though you have probably heard of the importance of email newsletters already, their relevance can’t be overestimated.
If you are a business, you need to collect the names and information of your customers. Use that info to tell them what you need to tell them. You have a direct line to every customer who gave you their email address, phone number, or even mailing address.
If you’re overwhelmed by the idea of a regular newsletter, remember that they’re not blog posts: they don’t need to be sent out at specific times every couple of weeks. A few months ago, I purchased “Louis CK: Live at the Beacon”, a stand-up comedy special that he released himself online. He has sent me only one email since, and when he did I knew it was something important about him and his business that he wanted me to know. Because he sent just one email in months, it was way more effective than frequent, regularly scheduled newsletters that I usually just end up unsubscribing from anyway.
The goal of the newsletter is to tell your past clients what they need to know, not bother them with filler.
Social Media
More and more focus on social media means you have an additional outlet available to reach your customers. Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+ (or all 4), ask your customers or clients to follow you. Don’t just use it to promote, be useful and helpful. The beauty of social media isn’t that it offers a chance to market directly to the consumer but the ability of the consumer to interact directly with you and your business.
Using The Right Tools
MailChimp is arguably the best email list tool out there and its users are very satisfied. It’s very easy to use and requires very little time to figure it all out. Simply create your list, customize your template, and start a campaign. The best part of the service is the result tracking features that tell you who is opening, clicking, Tweeting, and coming back for more. Accounts with under 2,000 and 12,000 monthly emails are free but larger accounts start at $10.
Another good option and old standard is Constant Contact, which does both email and social media campaigns.
For better control over your social media outreach, consider a tool like HootSuite, which allows you to see your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, FourSquare, and other accounts all in one application. They provide great analytics and offer a free account for up to 5 social profiles. The Pro account for unlimited profiles, message scheduling, and better integration costs $10 per month.
Microsoft’s attempts to finally create a touch-friendly interface is laughable considering they’re about 5 iPads late to the party. Even Amazon beat them to it. Upon trying out the preview version and seeing what other reviewers had to say, it turns out that Windows 8 is an even more awful foray into the touch-friendly world than I had imagined.
Windows 8. Is it a mobile interface? A desktop interface? Both! Sort of like combining peanut butter and jelly in the same jar and hoping it doesn’t end up an inedible goo. A bit of desktop manageability, a bit of mobile gesturing, and what do you get? A ton of confusion over basic functions and a bunch of extra things you have to do for simple tasks like getting the thing to power off.
It seems like Microsoft copy-and-pasted a tablet version onto the desktop version, or maybe it was the other way around. The OS is like a Frankenstein monster of operating systems, takings parts of Windows 7, iOS, and the acid trip the “Metro Design” developers were on and creating one amazingly annoying and burdensome look and feel that makes me yearn for the days of Vista.
It’s not all bad. The interface is a great start for a possibly useful tablet down the road, albeit three years after the release of the iPad.
The Pros
Finally some touch screen abilities! Better late than never, Microsoft is definitely diving into the tablet and mobile market headfirst with Windows 8, even if it means sacrificing the desktop version. It’s a good start, but only a start.
Faster boot time! Thankfully, Microsoft has taken steps to drastically cut their embarrassingly long boot times that Windows users often use to catch up on their reading or take weekend getaways to Vermont. The one good thing, literally one good thing, about combining the tablet interface with the desktop version is the faster start up and restart.
Integrated Anti-virus! Like Windows 7, Microsoft continues to try to catch up to Mac’s virus force field with an integrated anti-virus program, which is nice to throw in when you are trying to come up with a whole three Pros for the new interface.
Now, onto the real meat – the many things wrong with Windows 8 and the many reasons you’d be better off with Windows 7, XP, or a desk calculator.
Is it for desktop or tablet?
There is no start menu, which means you have to switch over to the separate start screen to open any desktop app and then back to the desktop to run it. It is similar to opening apps from the Android app menu except more unnecessary on a PC than a floppy disk drive.
Since people seldom turn off or restart their tablets, Microsoft has happily stashed away the “Power Off” and “Restart” buttons, formerly featured prominently on the handy, no-longer existent Start Menu, about four clicks away for your convenience. Good thing there are a billion updates coming so your PC will automatically restart for you, just about every other day.
Similar to a tablet, you’ll now have to exit an extra lock screen on your desktop before logging in. Yet another unnecessary extra step that Microsoft makes you take because they were too lazy to separate desktop and tablet versions. Perhaps your PC can show you how many bars you have in the top right corner too. Can you hear me now?
Remember how easy it was to switch from app to app in Windows 7? Well forget it. Windows 8 is so focused on pushing their non-existent store apps that you can conveniently find ALL of your open desktop apps in ONE thumbnail on the bottom task switcher like Word documents.
The App Store
The App Store is a key feature of all modern operating systems and obviously Microsoft is no different. Right? In total, the App Store contains a whopping 4,000 apps. 4,000? I’m pretty sure iOS has 4,000 fart sound apps alone. Microsoft claims that by January there will be over 100,000 apps. Your biggest new feature is “probably” going to have 2500% more apps in a few months? Besides, no one is going to make apps for this thing if no one uses it, kind of like the Windows 7 desktop widget store.
Even if they do, iOS and Google Play both have about 700,000 apps each. Not only are you playing some serious catch-up with the big boys, you aren’t even legitimately challenging RIM/Blackberry in the mobile market with those kinds of numbers.
Metro Mail
Outlook has moved onto the web to replace Hotmail, which leaves the new Metro Mail client as your built in email manager. Let’s just go ahead and set up our POP account… Oh wait, you can’t! It works fine with IMAP, but for some reason a brand new operating system released in 2012 doesn’t know what to do with a POP3 account. Not only that, it doesn’t even import anything from other Windows programs like Outlook or Windows Live Mail. It can’t even consolidate inboxes for multiple email accounts. Frankly, it’s amazing the thing has a Reply function. I checked just in case… it’s there.
Bing
This isn’t a massive feature but it really goes to show where Microsoft went wrong in creating this Frankenstein monster. Bing is obviously built very nicely right into the operating system. The Bing app has large images, great preview tiles, etc. Now click on a result and…oh, Internet Explorer pops up. Not only does it pop up to take you to the result, it covers up the entire Bing app. Now you have to go back to continue searching, only to keep going back to IE to see your results. If you have to do all that, what’s the point of a stand alone Bing app anyway? It seems like one of the many features created for the sole purpose of over-complicating the PC experience even more.
Windows 8: Not For Business
Perhaps Windows 8 will appeal to some, though probably not the Windows hardcore fans who won’t get much of what they are used to in this massive overhaul. It certainly isn’t built for business. With an interface stolen right from that failed line of HTC “social phones”, the OS is focused too much on social integration, catching up to the touch-screen capabilities of the big boys, and pushing their tens of thousands of store apps – that have yet to be built. It’s primarily designed for fun, not business and certainly not productivity when you consider all of the extra clicks and gestures that go into something as simple as restarting your computer.
Also, the operating system is still very buggy but Microsoft is rushing it like a beta version, ready to aggressively send users frequent updates to make their computer or device, you know… work. As someone with a business, I wouldn’t rush to a new operating system with this many bugs, anti-malware built in or not, knowing Microsoft’s long standing problem with security. And as far as the tablet version goes, with so many versions of iPad and Android gone by, why would anyone take a risk on a first-generation work-in-progress Windows tablet?
Overall, Windows 8 touch screen features ruin the desktop version and Windows 8 desktop dependency ruins some of the touch screen features. It’s something that Microsoft should have released as a test version years ago before they fell so unenviably far behind Apple and Google. It’s something that’s going to be updated – A LOT. Hopefully it will set up a fairly good operating system in the future but right now Windows 8 is just the really, really early version of Windows 9.
Email overload is a chronic state for many business owners and workers. From constant message alerts to non-stop back-and-forth question and answer sessions to neverending spam that gets through your filters, studies say the average person spends over a quarter of their day dealing with email. But that doesn’t mean it has to be this way. You know perfectly well there are better ways you can be spending your workday to increase business and get through your workload more efficiently. Let’s look at some ways to get that time spent handling emails down to a more reasonable amount.
Separate Work From Personal
This one should be obvious, but many people opt for just one email account for everything or occasionally mix in personal with business. You shouldn’t have any Groupon deals or Facebook friend alerts in your business email account. Leave personal distractions for later: your business account should have only the emails you need to deal with for your work.
Organize With Folders and Tags
Don’t simply separate your work and personal accounts, organize your work account as well. If you’re a small business owner, you have to wear many hats. Separate sales and client emails from co-worker and employee emails from contractor and service provider emails from bills and invoices, etc. This allows you to deal with just the emails you need to deal with right now and not have to be overwhelmed by the mass of other messages clogging up your inbox. I myself have about 10 different folders that I can check on an as-needed basis.
Schedule a Time For Email
Just because you can receive emails on your phone and read then on your desktop all day, doesn’t mean you should. Yes, a prompt response is usually expected but you have your own schedule to stay on top of and you need to stop dropping everything to reply to a message. Schedule two or three specific times in the day to deal with email, just like you schedule the rest of your tasks.
Set a Time Limit
Emailing can be infinite so not only do you need to schedule times to start checking emails, you need to set time limits to stop checking or writing emails once you’ve started. Schedule a small block of time and email only during those times. And be strict! Don’t fall into the “Let me just take care of one more message” trap.
Auto-Responses
It can be stressful knowing that co-workers, clients, or employees are sitting around waiting for your response. Consider adding an auto-response to your email account that tells people when you check your email, when they can expect a response, and how they can get in touch with you if it’s an emergency.
Unsubscribe From Junk
No matter how much we try, we over-subscribe to newsletters and updates and our email addresses end up on countless marketing lists. That cool housewares store’s newsletter seemed like a great idea at the time but deleting it every week takes actual time from your day. Handle unimportant senders immediately: Unsubscribe from their lists and nip it in the bud. A good tool for unsubscribing from many lists quickly is Unroll.me, a very simple little tool that can be quite effective at slowing the stream of junk to your inbox.
Create Template Emails
When you’re emailing clients, leads, project breakdowns, or anything else that you send out often, you’ll usually use the same stock wording in your message. Just like an automatic signature, create a few email templates to avoid writing the same things over and over again. Or check out the fabulous program ActiveWords that will substitute any text for a few simple keystrokes. This gives you even more fine control and virtually eliminates retyping of common responses.
Never Open The Same Email Twice
This is a big part of the Inbox Zero principle that is growingly popular on the web. When dealing with emails, it’s important to make a decision and act immediately rather than keep saving emails for later. By simply acting on each email immediately, your inbox will stop overwhelming you with stuff you needed to get to days or weeks ago. Keep your inbox clean and even retask it so that you’re dealing with things you really can easily take care of.
