HOW TO SAVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN TWO HOURS

Using Your Web Site To Save Money, Give Your Customers The Answers They Want AND Get You And Your Employees Off The Phone

An Armchair Webmaster™ report by Ty Belknap

Page 6 - Put It All Together!

The greatest FAQ page in the world is no good if nobody knows about it and you don’t use it, so get off the phone! Start saving time, hours and MONEY NOW. How?

• Reference your Web site
• Tell your customers about it
• Quick phone answers
• Web-only specials

Let’s look at each of these.

Reference your Web site

You have to let people know about your Web site, even if you only have one page. Chances are, the most-asked question your customers have is about your days and hours of operation, or your shipping methods. These questions can be answered in a small section of even a one-page Web site, and those answers could save you time and create more sales from customers. You have very little to lose, and much to gain.
Put your Web site on your business cards, flyers you hand out, store window, magnets, or anything else you have for customers. The more awareness, the more likely they will look at your Web site for information before calling you.

Tell your customers about it

Your existing customers are your sales force. They will tell others about you if they like you, and they share shopping ideas. I told a friend of mine about a special I found out about online just the other day, and he ended up saving a lot of money. I’m glad I could help my friend, he’s happy he saved money, and the store (he didn’t even think of looking at that store until I told him) is happy for both the sale and a new customer.
Put your weekly specials on your Web site. This will give customers a reason to go there, and they will look through the rest of your site while they are there.

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Quick phone answers

Some calls seem to take hours, and others actually do take hours. I’ve lost entire days of work just answering questions on the phone, but it has to be done. Customers have legitimate questions, and our answers to those questions may determine whether they buy from us.
That doesn’t mean we have to keep spending days on the phone. For instance, I got a call the other day from a new customer, and she wanted to know how customers found businesses on the Internet. That question can produce a very long answer. I wanted to give her the information she wanted, but direct her to my Web site for more information. I told her the basics of search engines (about two minutes), and told her I had 3 pages of information on my Web site about search engines (as well as on the FAQ page). She became very happy that I had thought about her needs and created such pages. She called back the next day to have me design a Web site for her.
That phone call could easily have taken over an hour, but it was over in under 5 minutes, with a happy customer. You can’t buy that kind of response (although some companies try!). I cannot stress how much time creating an effective FAQ page will save, or how much people will appreciate that you did it!

Web-only specials

Internet coupons and web-only specials are great ways to get people to go to your site.

Previous Page | Table of Contents | Next Page | ebooks Home

Page 1 - Introduction | Page 2 - Saving Time, Man-Hours and Money Using the Internet | Page 3 - Stress Relief 101: Creating the Information That Goes Into A FAQ Page | Page 4 - Taking The Time To Save Time | Page 5 - Giving Your Customers Peace of Mind: Organizing Your Information For Best Results | Page 6 - Put It All Together! | Page 7 - Conclusion