Internet Business and Personal Success

I’ve been reminded recently that sometimes what seems like a great idea, can totally backfire.  You may have experienced something similar.

My Great Idea was to use different email addresses for everything I sign up for, whether online or off.  Each domain can have a “catch-all” email address where all email which doesn’t have a corresponding email account can be sent to.  This way I can effectively “key” every email address I give out, and determine if it’s being spread to other sites without permission, etc..  It also allows for very easy sorting in my email software of choice (Thunderbird).

All was well until about 2 years ago when my host at the time disallowed this functionality for all accounts.  It seems that their servers were being overrun with spam, partly due to this setting.   No problem, I was about ready to explore new hosting anyway, so I moved someplace which still allowed my “great idea”.

Well..  Over the past year, I’ve seen first hand what what the prior host have been talking about with an overload of spam.   You see, these automated spam programs will often use a random domain as the “sender” for their email.  So, even though an email doesn’t originate from your account, it still has a return/sender’s address from your domain.  Worse yet, it makes up new email addresses when doing this.

Why does that matter?  Well, every time an email blast gets sent by one of these programs, I end up getting several hundred (or even thousand) bounce messages from the systems of email addresses which don’t exist anymore, etc..  Some months this happens several time, others not at all.

There’s more… but I’m really here to rant a bit about the process of cleaning this up.  Since I have literally hundreds of these made up email addresses, it’s an ongoing process of updating everything to use one of a small handful of descriptive, but managable addresses.  Should be relatively simple.  Every time I get an email, just go to the link at the bottom to change my address in their system (or just unsubscribe).

Yet, almost half the time I either have to jump through hoops to make the change, or am only presented with the option of unsubscribing.  That’s insane!  Imagine someone moving their Internet provider, and not being able to move their subscriptions over.  The result is lost business, and a very sour taste in their mouth.

The worst of these are certain sites “powered by Infusionsoft” which apparently doesn’t have a single link to unsubscribe OR change user options.  The business owner must setup two links in the email footer… One for unsubscribe requests, and another for option changes. That would be fine if these business owners would provide both links.  often only the unsubscribe option exists.   So that’s what I do.  If it’s somethng I really want to track, I’ll sometimes resubscribe, but not always.

Other programs will require me to “log in” or otherwise  waste a lot of time making the change.  I only do this for relatively important sites.  All of the rest will simply get bounce notices when I make the switch away from the “catch-all” email addresses.

Sometimes, they allow me to change my name,  but not my email address!  How whacked is that?  While my brother actually legally changed his name, and women often change their name after getting married, I suspect email address changes happen a heck of a lot more often.

The simplest?  Everyone who uses Aweber, GetResponseor or 1ShoppingCart. The process is one or two clicks, and entering the new address.  Just like it should be.

So before you get your whole autoresponder or broadcast email list going, be sure to consider this simple usability issue.   It will reduce frustration from your customers, and possibly keep them for unsubscribing or falling off when their email address changes.

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There’s a lot of talk in the Internet Business circles about the “4 Hour Work Week“, and the processes that seem to make this a reality. In fact, the book is great, and is an exellent example of how mindset can become reality. Go check it out, if you haven’t already.

One thing which strikes me about it, is that it purposely goes out of it’s way to comment on customer support, and its importance in the overall picture. There are some purported experts out there who seem to think that they are too important to even deal with customer service issues. For all appearances their version of customer support is to call their customers names, insist on “training” them, and call them liars and frauds if they request a refund for lack of product fulfillment. Communication is impossible due to lack of help desk software, and email is unreliable at best, and it’s unclear where problems occur when there is no communication.

Yes, it can take time.

Yes, it can take money.

But when you do it right, it can and will, pay off in referrals, traffic, good will, and follow-up purchases. When you do it wrong, you cut your own throat.

In the book, support staff and call centers are allowed to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy, within a dollar figure ($100 or so if I recall). Not only does this end up saving money, but it creates a happy customer, who will go out of their way to refer business, and likely purchase again, even though they had an “issue” with the company. Compare this to those that have a poor experience, and no satisfaction during the transaction. Do you think they’ll tell their friends about that as well? Do you think they’ll buy again?

It’s relatively common knowledge that it’s harder to gain a new customer, than it is to keep an existing one. If your customer service sucks, you are going to always need a large influx of fresh meat…uhhh..prospects… to sell to. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this is a lousy way to do things.

Here’s another angle…

Some of the big name *players* get links to their blog, and business items simply because there’s a good chance of a mention in their blog. Hey, free traffic! But, rarely do these links carry the same impact as a post about how great a product is, and how awesome the support of that product is. The links are relatively empty.

These reciprocal links from the guru are a joke much of the time.. Hmmm… “check this out”. Great headline and referral–not. Sure, the back link will help traffic, and the groupies will follow it and gaze at the wonder they’ve been handed. Case closed, another sale. But maybe just one, if they don’t back their product up with solid support. And what if the product is a waste of $50 (24 hour special, of course-gotta pay for that trip)? If you return it for money back, do you end up on their fraud list? Or do they smile, and do something to maintain the relationship?

I guarantee, if you provide a quick refund, and maybe a useful product or service as a “make up” gift, the pissed off customer will likely turn into a happy prospect, and purchase in the future. He’ll also tell his friend and associates. If you don’t, you can write off that customer for good. But hey… You can always drum up another new customer, can’t you? They’re a dime a dozen, right?

Wouldn’t you rather do it right at first? If you care about your customer, AND your business, you will. Let people talk about you because you’ve done a good job at providing quality information AND service, not for the opposite. It will make your life much easier while building your business.

If you want examples of excellent customer support, and products, look no further than Fred Black, Robert Phillips and Terry Dean. All are on my blog-roll, and are non-affiliate links.

If you want some more examples, just contact me.

As for the opposite, why should they get any mention whatsoever?!

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