Archive for the ‘Customer service’ Category

Sell Books Blog Guide to Customer Service (part 3 of 3)

Monday, June 15th, 2009

You just wanted to make a few bucks selling used books online. It all seemed so simple and straightforward until you ran into the one thing you didn’t count on: dealing with customers. Now that we’ve talked about difficult customers and scammers, you may be feeling pretty vulnerable. Can a disgruntled customer damage your business by bringing down your seller rating? Can a spurned scammer exact his revenge by destroying your ability to create repeat business?

Calm down, take a deep breath and repeat after me:
“When it comes to selling on Amazon, there is no such thing as repeat business.”

That’s right. Oh sure, it happens occasionally, you’ll get an order from a customer you’ve sold to before. It’s usually by accident as much as anything else. But in practice, repeat business just doesn’t happen. Customers just have too much choice, they have too many options. Think about how the customer finds used books on Amazon. They search for the book they’re looking for and see who’s selling it. They don’t try and look up sellers they’ve used before, attempting to see if that seller happens to be selling anything they might want to buy. I’ve said it before, Amazon goes out of it’s way to try and make you as the seller invisible to the customer, and that’s just fine. Just be realistic. If you want to build repeat business, get your own website. If you’re trying to build a loyal customer base on Amazon, you’re wasting your time and effort.

So what does set you apart as a seller? It’s gotta be your seller rating right?

Wrong.

Hold on, let me back up for a second. The importance of your rating/feedback does vary from marketplace to marketplace, but let’s start by taking a look at Amazon.

There’s a percentage of customers who will look at your feedback and rating. However, in my experience they tend to be fairly lenient. On Amazon, a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars is considered good. It sure sounds good, right? But let’s think about that. 4.5 out of 5 means that a full 10% of your feedback was neutral or negative. 10%! In my opinion that makes you a pretty poor seller. Unless you are seriously messing up, you should have no problem maintaining a “good” Amazon seller rating.

Then there’s a whole other segment of Amazon buyers who don’t care about your rating at all. These are the customers who are just looking for the lowest priced seller and don’t look at anything else. These are the same buyers who purchase books that are clearly listed as “acceptable”, thinking that they are going to get new books. Whether it’s by virtue of ignorance or apathy, they just don’t pay attention to anything but price.

Ebay is another animal altogether. Ebay evolved in a completely different way. Because Ebay’s transactions weren’t and aren’t backed up by a big company the way Amazon’s are. That’s why Ebay developed much more of a community component; it was necessarily built on trust from it’s inception. As a result, its rating system is better at assessing sellers performance. There is also more of a tendency to look at feedback than there is on Amazon. On the other hand, it’s a much worse place to try and sell books these days.

Half.com is more like Amazon. Again you’ll find that buyers here are usually just looking for the lowest price.

Other marketplaces like Alibris and AbeBooks rate you as a seller based solely on your fulfillment percentage. However as you move into dealing in high volume, a lower fulfillment is just part of doing business.

Feedback and ratings are something to be aware of, but don’t lie awake at night worrying about it. If you’re generally doing the right thing, you’ll be just fine.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Customer service | No Comments »

Sell Books Blog Guide to Customer Service (part 2 of 3)

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Selling books, like selling just about anything else, means dealing with customers. In part 1 we talked about difficult customers. In this post we’re going to look at customers who just out-and-out lie to you, the ones who try to scam you out of your hard earned money.

Beware of scammers. Especially if you’re selling used textbooks online. There are a lot of college students who will try to pull a fast one on you, but it can really be any kind of customer or any kind of book. They will especially target new sellers, so it’s important to be on your guard from the get-go.

A common scenario goes like this:

You’re selling a used chemistry text book, you list it, someone orders it and you ship it out. Everything seems like business as usual, until all of the sudden the customer claims he never received the book.

Now a certain percentage of customers who say they never received a book are totally legit. On the other hand, a certain percentage aren’t.

A lot of sellers, especially small, individual sellers will just believe the buyer and give out a refund.

This is why it is so important to use delivery confirmation or tracking, especially on more expensive books. A lot of the time if you get a customer who claims to never have received a book, you can just give them the tracking number and you’ll never hear from them again. But believe it or not, there are some who will stick to their guns, even in the face of evidence against them. They will try and beat you with persistence. They think they can bully you into giving them what they want, even when you know you’re right. Don’t let them.

What I do when I run into a situation like this is to provide them with the delivery or tracking information, and if they still demand a refund, I very politely invite them to file an A-to-z claim. They can’t file unlimited A-to-z claims, they only are allowed a certain number. Even the most persistant of scammers will usually leave you alone at this point.

Don’t be afraid to have an A-to-z claim filed against you, especially if you can prove you are in the right.

Using delivery confirmation is a hugely useful tool, and a great deterrent. A lot of potential scammers won’t even bother with you if you use it. It’s also just good customer service.

Be aware that the post office’s delivery confirmation isn’t the same as having a FedEx tracking number, for example. Often times the only status update you will see is when it’s delivered. If I get a customer asking where a package is I check, sometimes they’ll get lucky and there will be an updated status I can give them. Otherwise, it’s the usual spiel about media mail taking 1-3 weeks, please be patient, etc. The important thing is to respond.

The other consideration is where to draw the line, deciding what price justifies shelling out for delivery confirmation. I’m still experimenting with this, but I’d definitely recommend using confirmation for any book over $3-$5. Again, just taking this one step will dissuade a lot of scammers from going after you, especially because they tend to go after the more expensive books.

So I’ve told you not to let unreasonable customers take advantage of you. I’ve told you how to stand up to scammers. You may be thinking to yourself “That’s great, what about my rating and feedback? What about repeat business? Can’t these people sabotage my business?” I’ll address all that and more in part 3.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Customer service | No Comments »

Sell Books Blog Guide to Customer Service (part 1 of 3)

Friday, June 12th, 2009

complaint-2Selling used books online is actually a kind of retail sales. Even though you’re not standing in a brick-and-mortar store, handing people receipts and wishing them a nice day, you’re still selling directly to individual customers, and that means interacting with those customers to some degree.

A lot of people learned all they know about customer service at their first job, believing deeply in the wisdom passed down to them from some 23 year-old assistant manager: The Customer is Always Right.

I’m not one of those people.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating treating your customers in any kind of disrespectful or unprofessional manner. On the contrary. However, to be a smart businessperson, especially in this business, you need to be aware that there are those people out there who will try and take advantage of you.

Most customers will be a breeze to work with. Things happen. People know that. Even if there is some problem or issue, if you make the effort to communicate with them, if you respond to their concerns in a timely manner, a lot of customers will be willing to forgive and forget (up to a point). Communication is the key. Be professional, be respectful and be reasonable and most of the time things will go smoothly.

Then there’s the rest of the time.

Some customers will be unreasonable. Before you even have a chance to work with them, they’ve decided to be upset and nothing you can do will change their mind. Don’t sink to their level. Be just as professional and respectful to them as you would to any other customer, but at the same time, don’t give them the shirt off your back just because they throw a hissy fit. Just accept that there are some people who will refuse to be satisfied, no matter how reasonable you are with them.

The customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is a jerk.

Also, sometimes the customer is a scammer. More about that in part 2. Of course, you may be concerned that the jerks and scammers can damage your reputation. Don’t let them hold you hostage. In part 3 I’ll talk a little about customer feedback.

For now, let me just repeat that I’m not saying I think all customers are jerks. Again, most of them are very reasonable. I’m also not at all suggesting that you be rude or anything less than totally professional. I’m just saying that no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. Accept that fact, and don’t let a few bad apples take advantage of you.

Tags: ,
Posted in Customer service | No Comments »