Create your own custom “Glass” buttons in CorelDraw…

… watch the video!





Or use your own favourite drawing package – the principals will be exactly the same.

Today I’m going to show you how to create a glass button (for your website) which is fairly simple, but if you don’t know or haven’t done it before it can be something of a mystery.

I’ll be using CorelDraw not because it’s better than other packages necessarily but simply because version 4 shipped back with my first PC way back in 1996 – and I never quite got it together with Photoshop.

I’m now on version 12 so there really is no turning back, you should be able to do this in your own drawing package (even PowerPoint).

You can find the video here…

CorelDraw Video Tutorial

Customer service – what is it?

About a year or ago I was selling rare casino chips on eBay. Now when I say rare, I mean rare – some of these chips could only have been bought from me or my supplier.

Some of these chips were from casinos that never opened their doors to the public; some were “end-of-run” uncompleted chips from the manufacturing companies.

So you get the picture, they were rare;O)

I would scan these chips and post the picture on eBay with a brief description. Because of the light weight of the items I would offer worldwide shipping at a flat rate (this was before eBay was swamped with 1 cent and 1 dollar items with 10 dollar shipping charges).

There were also a few warnings such as “PayPal Only” and “don’t ask for a shipping discount if you win multiple items, even if you live next door to me”.

Now this worked very well in terms of pre-qualifying people for the sale: you had to pay by PayPal and I would not field any enquires about shipping rates – if you could do this I was more than happy to pop these rarities in the post.

Now of course eBay is some kind of super-magnet for crazy people and a few did slip through, there was one guy that won and asked if he could send cash in an envelope (from the US!), I said it was PayPal Only, but he doesn’t have a PayPal account (he didn’t see the big orange letters – PAYPAL ONLY, he opens a PayPal account, then send me a nasty email blaming me for the hassle it’s caused him, he sends the money via PayPal, I return the money (via PayPal) tell him I don’t want to sell to him then ban him from all of my auctions

Another guy bids an item way up then asks if he can send me a money order, erm no… it’s “PayPal Only” I loose the sale, he tries to bid on another auction but can’t and wants to know why I’ve blocked his bidding, so I block his email… etc… etc…

I have maybe a small handful of stories like this, nothing new to people that use eBay regularly. Maybe these people aren’t crazy, maybe it’s a communication thing or a language thing, anyway I still managed to keep my 100% positive feedback rating to date.

Back to the theme…

Something that was never in my description was bonus chips, for every person that bought chips from me on eBay I would send them a bonus chip or two, equally as rare as the paid-for item. I would even keep a record of who got what so as not to send a duplicate chip, you would only get a chip you had not yet purchased or been given free.

So one guy buys some chips from me in the US and I post them from the UK. About a week letter I get a complaint (it was curt at best) regarding the non-delivery of the item. I check when I sent the item (I keep all postal receipts) it was a day or two after I received the money, from then, it’s about five days.

Now airmail to the US from the UK can take 5 – 7 days easily, even 10 is not uncommon.

What do I do?

First-up I log into my PayPal account and refund the full amount including postage, I then write an email explicitly apologising for the delay, I explain when I received payment, when I physically posted the item and speculated that it could still be on route. I inform the bidder that I have made a full refund and that I have sent a replacement item and ask him to accept it as a gesture of goodwill on my part.

What happens?

The very next day the original items arrive (with the bonus), the bidder sends me an email and is clearly flawed, he apologies for his hasty email and goes on to explain that he has had a string of eBay sellers either send items late or not-at-all.

I go from eBay zero to eBay hero, the buyer cannot thank me enough and escalates his praise in my feedback.

THIS is customer service, customer service is fixing the things that go wrong. If your operation runs smoothly 90% of the time that is not customer service, that is basic service, that is your job, that is what you are paid to do. Customer service is the 5-10% of the time when things go wrong, this is your opportunity to gain a life-long customer whether it was your fault or not.

People won’t remember the times things went smoothly, they will remember the times something went wrong and what you did about it.

I recently ordered some boxes for a promotion I was running, the items were sent to me via a company called Parcel Force, I have had many things sent to me via this courier and have always been in to receive the item and have never had a problem.

Until… the day I wasn’t in. Once I fell outside the loop it was a disaster. I called the premium rate phone number: 5, 10, 15 minutes no answer, I visit the website it says I can reschedule but gives no option for AM or PM. I call the next day get through (eventually) they say the parcel is at my local post office, I go there, it’s not there, I phone back they say they will get the depot to ring me, they don’t ring me…

On and on… it’s a customer service disaster.

What’s even worse is that the box supplier did a superb job wrapping the items and sent them in a reasonably timely fashion, and probably has no idea about the problems I had trying to receive the items. The next time I need to re-order, well I don’t know, I might look elseware the boxes weren’t unique to this supplier.

So your customer service even extends to the 3rd party vendors you use.

If you want to master customer service (and you do!) just look at the poor customer service you receive from others, find a parallel in your own business and commit to mastering this area, put a system in place, have a back-up plan, make it sooooo outstandingly good that you can even incorporate a marketing effort into it.

Your customer needs to FEEL that you did something, that you went the extra mile, that you ACTUALLY value them, their feelings, their business.

No one will champion your business more than a customer who experienced you putting something right.

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This article is FREE to republish as long as you:
a) Publish the article in full
b) Include the following information with a “clickable” link back to the blog:

Author: Noel Byrne
http://sitesforbusiness.blogspot.com/
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Lifetime value of your customer (and how to loose it)

On 4 June 2006 my Wife and I were due to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary. My Wife currently lives in the US and I live in London. So I went ahead and booked a flight, and a room at the Waldorf Astoria in New York and a dinner reservation at their famous Bull & Bear restaurant – where we celebrated our wedding exactly one year ago to the day.

I am not the most creative when it comes to celebrations and recreational ideas but I felt pretty good about this, I thought it would be nice for me and my Wife to revisit the scene a year later, just the two of us and reflect on that day and the loved ones that travelled so far to be with us.

On 30 May I was in what I can only describe as extreme pain, I went to see my doctor and he sent me to hospital directly. As Dave Ramsey likes to say “Life Happens”, and it did.

It’s Tuesday (I’m in hospital) and my flight is on Friday and our wedding anniversary is on Sunday, it dawns on me (even though I’m a guy) that things are probably going to get cancelled.

I call my Wife from the hospital and calmly let her know what’s going on – she books a flight to London.

I ring up Virgin Atlantic to cancel the flight, they say (due to the circumstances) they will honour the flight another time – until they realise I have booked through a travel agent and inform me that they can’t make any alterations and I should phone the agent.

I call eBookers, explain the situation, they tell me the ticket is non-refundable (I know this) but they can refund the airport taxes after charging me an administration fee. The airport tax is almost a third of the ticket price so I take it and then phone my travel insurance company who send me out a claim form.

On Friday evening I get discharged from hospital, my illness, although causing me a great deal of pain is not uncommon, is not life threatening and will remedy itself. My gratitude, my relief are hard to describe, my belief and faith in God and in Jesus are magnified, tears are shed.

By this time I have clearly missed my flight, which I had already cancelled and in any case my Wife is with me. I call the Waldorf Astoria – this is the instructive part of the story – and explain the situation, the lady on the phone explains the reservation I made is non-refundable. I thank the lady and put the phone down.

Frame of reference No 1 (me)

I knew the room was a non-refundable booking when I booked it, when I went to the website to book a room they had a special/promotion Sunday night booking for $367.45 (yes, this is the special discounted rate) – I booked it – non-refundable, it makes no difference to me, it’s my anniversary.

The flight – same deal exactly, I don’t take transatlantic flights on a whim, if I want to fly to New York on a particular day it’s because I have good reason.

I have no grievance with the Waldorf or eBookers, do you know why? Because when I booked these I knew they were non-refundable, life happens, I’ve just been discharged from hospital, my Wife is by my side, I am a happy man! (even considering the pain even considering lost wages, as a contractor, I listen to Dave Ramsey – I have an emergency fund in place and am not too out of pocket).

Frame of reference No 2 (my Wife)

My Wife chose the Waldorf Astoria above many other possible venues, this decision was not based on price. She chose the Waldorf to celebrate her marriage to me with the important people in our life. Our tiny gathering was nothing compared to the Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones extravaganza but it was our special day.

She has travelled 3,000 miles at short notice, at great expense because she has been told that her husband is in hospital, she does not know what’s wrong with him.

So my Wife rang the Waldorf about 3 minutes after I finished speaking to them and after a quick pre-amble with the operator asked to speak to a supervisor, after some wait a supervisor came to the phone. My Wife explained how exactly one year ago we had our reception at the Waldorf – (the booking was still “non-refundable”), my Wife went on to tell the supervisor that she works for a large investment bank in New York and when travelling on business only stays at the Hilton (the Waldorf is owned by Hilton Hotels Corporation) and actively recommends it to colleagues (all true!) still the booking is “non-refundable”.

Exasperated my Wife asks if the booking can be moved or a credit be put towards another stay (clearly our intention was to stay there in particular not just any hotel in NYC), nope, the booking is non-refundable, non-transferable, non-redeemable just about any word with the prefix “non” – were we in France? Non!

The conversation ended suddenly with the sound of plastic striking Formica (neither the phone or table suffered any damage). I was in the next room, not because I’m scared by my Wife or because she is a scary woman but because she had a very serious look before phoning. When my Wife looks serious… it’s serious.

So what IS my point?

My point is this: the Waldorf Astoria were correct in upholding the non-refundable status of the booking. If I never went there again it would make no impact on their business, if Michael Douglass never went there again it would make no difference, if everyone in Hollywood boycotted the Hilton on his say so, it would still probably not make any difference to their bottom line.

A few years ago the big business buzz-words were customer-focus, customer-orientated, customer-led… Clearly in retrospect this was in fact a fad, borne out by out-sourcing and off-shoring the new not-so-buzz-words.

One of largest business costs is still customer acquisition but somehow businesses fail miserably in the area of customer retention. This may in some ways be irrelevant for a publicly owned company with huge critical mass, such as Hilton Hotels. They could probably close their customer services department tomorrow (maybe they have already;O) and still do business for the next decade leaning on their brand name alone.

But for other small businesses, entrepreneurs and marketers this story is instructive. You can NEVER underestimate the lifetime value of your customer, their ability to endorse you, to recommend you, to even build your brand for you – at no charge!

Nothing can take away my memory of our wedding day and the evening we spent at the Waldorf, it was exceptional, the attention to detail, the staff, the timing, really were faultless, nearly everyone made some remark to this effect.

At the end of the day the Waldorf get to keep their $367.45 and rightfully so (it was, after all, non-refundable), and my Wife and I get to choose were we stay and were we spend our money.

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This article is FREE to republish as long as you:
a) Publish the article in full
b) Include the following information with a “clickable” link back to the blog:

Author: Noel Byrne
http://sitesforbusiness.blogspot.com/

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