Communication Is The Key To Happy Customers

I’m so angry at my son right now. He took my car last night to go to work (his is not running) on the terms that he’d be home by 7:00 am, so I can get my daughter to work and myself to work on time. It’s 8:05 and he won’t be home for at least another half hour, making us both very late. 😦

I’m not angry with him for being late. I get that stuff happens and we can’t always keep our promises. But he could have called. I had to call him 5 times before he picked up his phone….probably because he knew there would be yelling on the other end. But he could have avoided that by calling me first.

When you are in a family and something you are doing will affect another family member, the right thing to do is communicate. We all know this. By not communicating, it causes all kinds of friction. You’re all shaking your heads in agreement, I can feel it.

Well, it’s the same with your customers. If someone buys something from you, they expect at least to know what they need to do to complete the sale and when their package will arrive. And in this day and age, it’s really easy to get in touch, via email, phone, text message or even twitter! (Sidebar: What’s a twitter you ask? A really fun way to stay in touch! More about that in a future post.)

So guide your customers along the way. Talk to them. Email them when you receive payment, when you expect the product to ship, and when it has shipped so they know to watch for it. If you have a problem or are waiting on a back order of beads, email your customer and explain the hold up. Most people are very understanding, if you just give them the opportunity to be. If you don’t communicate though, and a package takes longer than expected to arrive or the product is not exactly what was pictured (and with handmade that is often the case), you might find you have an unhappy customer at the other end. And we all know we don’t want that.

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Who Is Your Target Customer And Where Are You Promoting Your Business?

I’ve been participating in Etsy forum discussions a lot since I’ve joined. There is so much great information there and everyone is so helpful. It’s definitely helped me get up to speed quickly on Etsy so I understand a bit about the navigation and the process. For example, renewing listings (which costs just 20 cents) gets you back on the home page of Etsy, if just for 30 seconds, where new listings are posted and rotate. It’s a great way to be noticed.

On the forums, there is a lot of discussion about “hearts,” or marking your favorite items or stores on the site. Etsy store owners get disappointed when hearts go away (it does hurt a little when that number goes down, I’ll admit), and there just seems to be this push to have tons of hearts. But really, if you are participating in a heart promotion on the forums or doing the “I’ll heart you if you heart me” thing, are you reaching actual customers?

The holidays are fast approaching. So my question is “Where are you promoting your store?” You can promote in the forums or on crafting networks like WeLoveEtsy.com or indiepublic.com, but are you reaching the folks who will eventually buy from you? I’m not saying that crafters don’t buy other crafters’ work; that happens all the time. We are a supportive bunch. But we are also all trying to make a living at this so we are less likely to purchase than say that fashionista or new mom.

Now is the time to think about your target customer, those people who are most likely to buy your products. And then seek out venues, social networks, Facebook groups, etc., where your products will not only be seen and marked as favorites, but purchased as well.

Hearts are great. Sales are better.

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