Now, don't get me wrong, I like my customers more than anything else in the world, but I don't want to spend half my life answering the same questions over and over when I could just put the answers in front of the using a help desk software. But that's another topic, what I want to tell you is the strategy I used to actually increase my sales by reducing support.
Here's the breakdown of how I did it. The first thing was that I made a list of all the questions I was getting from my visitors. Not the people that had already bought my product, but the ones that were thinking about it.
I thought about all those things that I would personally tell my potential customers, and I wrote those as if I was writing to my best friend. I thoroughly answered all those questions I was getting and I explained with a lot of detail why they should get my product.
So after I had my list of what I called my "sales FAQ's" I put them online using my support ticket system. The use for this was to put those answers in front of them, so even before they asked a question, they would have found their response.
The result was a staggering increase of conversions. I went from having a 1.3 - 1.7% to a 3% conversion ratio. At first I didn't believe it, but the fact that people's questions where being responded upfront made a huge difference in settling their anxiety and helping them make the decision of going through with the purchase.
I was thrilled, and in all of my websites I started implementing this "support ticket system" method, to bring more profits, and take the work off my back as well. I started seeing the same results over and over.
One of the commonalities that I see in most online business is the lack of a structure to answer their potential customer's questions. This leads to failure in converting to sales. Of course, if you're doing it manually over and over it will become a pain, but if you set up your own automated system, it becomes like a well oiled machine you use to generate revenue from one of the most obvious places...the people that are already visiting your site.
Imagine that you work an average of 8 hours a day on your online business. I know most biz owners work more than that, but let's keep it conservative. An average online business will have 1% conversion rates, and it will also have 20% customer support request ratio. Again, this is an average, it can be more or less depending on your business, but let's prepare for the common.
What most people don't realize is that by installing a support ticket system they can reduce their workload by more than half. I know if you're not aware of this it may not seem like an accomplishment, but seriously, think about it.
-How much time do you spend answering emails every day? -Are you always pending of your outlook / email software always waiting for the next email? -Do you feel your customers / potential customers ask the same questions frequently?
If so, then the proper solution for you is definitely a support ticket system. You probably didn't know this, but the right software will come fully equipped with a database that you can fill out, so when a customer is asking for their question, they find their answer which you (very intelligently) put right in their faces so you don't have to deal with the questions that could be answered upfront. Which in most cases it will be more than half.
Not only that but having such a tool you can see all the patterns of the questions you get over and over, and you can see where you need to improve your product/service. Simply by knowing what your customers want.
Knowledge is power.
You'd be surprised with some of the things you can accomplish with some of the support ticket systems that are out there. You could also apply the previous concept on the sales aspect of your website. For potential customers that ARE THINKING about buying your product, if you were to display all their concerns in front of them on a cleverly placed database, you would see a dramatic impact on your sales, trust me.
These are some of the uses I've seen people double their money and their productivity with. You know how they say little things count. These is one of the things that seems like it's so little but once you have it in place you start to see all these benefits that you never imagine would come. But seriously, probably the most important one is having much more free time by not having to do so much support.
This provides you with unlimited possibilities, and as they say, time is money. My suggestion is to look for a support ticket system and try it for a few months. I'm sure once you try it you will not go back.
Gary Jezorski has sinced written about articles on various topics from Web Development, web development and Email Marketing. Discover the that I used to increase my conversions by more than double...in just two weeks!. Gary Jezorski's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.