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How do you feel about good Customer Service?

June 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It is my honor to introduce Sue Graber, the next specialist in our guest blog post series:  Without further ado….Sue Graber!

How do you feel about good Customer Service?

I just finished running a few errands, all of which involved interacting with Customer Service people.  I was really amazed at the difference in the responses I received.  My goal is to always go in with a positive attitude, a smile on my face and kind words to express whatever it is that I need help with – That was put to the test today!!

The first store I entered had a disgruntled customer in front of me.  I tried my best to get her to smile  with NO RESULTS! I’m sure she probably had been having a bad day and this was nothing personal, but it reminded me how easily we can let other people affect our moods and attitudes, whether positive or negative!

The receptionist wasn’t able to help me, although I must say she did try!  She told me that another lady had been in recently with the same problem!  She called for someone in SALES to help me.  Since my problem had more to do with getting a part fixed versus BUYING SOMETHING new, I felt as though there were $ signs in the eyes of the salesmen, and I was cutting into their time to spending making a commission!!!    Finally a brave soul came to help me.   I shared with him that something had gone wrong on one of my appliances that I needed help with, simply a latch on my silverware holder of my dishwasher had fallen off. (By the way this is less than a year old and was one of the top of the line.)

I had the part with me, so it was simply a matter of looking at a similar appliance and figuring out how to re-attach something.   When he finally did get it re-attached, he told me that there was something that looked a bit ”bent” that could be causing the problem, and HE HAD NO IDEA how that could have happened or what to do about it! (I’m thinking they just don’t make appliances like they used to!) …  He offered no further help and said I would have to get in touch with the manufacturer directly.

Whatever happened to good old Customer Service – Remember the day when they stayed with you until your problem was solved? This impacted me enough that I will not be going back there for future purchases.  CUSTOMER SERVICE IS IMPORTANT TO ME!!!   How about you?    Have you ever had this type of experience and how did it affect you?

CRAZY, isn’t it? What causes some people to reach out to others to help with that smile on their face and spirit of caring while others seem to just radiate negativity.  For some it’s simply a JOB instead reflection of their character and integrity?

ON TO A POSITIVE ENCOUNTER!

My next stop was so much more pleasant.  The Customer Service Associate who helped me had a smile on her face, even though I’m sure she had been standing up at her job for quite a few hours, and had a long line of people she was helping.  I told her how nice it was to have someone pleasant to help me.  There was a discrepancy on my bill and she took the extra steps to help me.  I thanked her for being so helpful AND pleasant, and told her that I appreciated that, especially after my previous stop.   She confirmed how true it is that some people seem to sometimes be  ”having a bad day” and I had to laugh when she added   “HAVING A BAD DAY EVERY DAY! We BOTH laughed and I again thanked her for not only helping me with my problem but also having such a positive attitude, which affected mine!  

WHAT A DIFFERENCE THOSE TWO ENCOUNTERS WERE!

Our attitude toward others – our kindness — our going the extra step to SERVE — it DOES make a difference!

Next time you feel like you’re having a bad day, try and   “put aside the negative” and think about something that will make you smile instead.   You just might create a chain reaction of positive, smiling people.

It doesn’t matter what industry we’re in, “service” is what’s important to us.   When we treat our customers with respect and put them first, worrying more about serving them than how WE are being affected, our relationships will be better and this will be reflected in our business.

Going that extra mile and communicating to our customers that THEY ARE IMPORTANT TO US will KEEP them our customers AND FRIENDS!   A simple thank you card expressing appreciation for great service will set you and your business apart from all the rest!

“Positive attitudes create a chain reaction of positive thoughts.”  — Unknown

Sue Graber has been happily married for 34 years, raising 3 daughters while working creatively from home as an administrative assistant and a fund-raising specialist. She loves reaching out to others in kindness and is on a mission. She has an amazing ability to teach others how to build and nurture relationships, spend quality time with their families while generating income from home with a greeting card and gifting business. Sue is passionate about showing others how they, too, can make a difference every single day!  www.suegraber.com

Filed Under: Featured, Local Area Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Brides and Wedding Photographers

June 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It is my honor to feature our guest blog post series.  Introducing Michele Tremblay…

 

Dear Reader, I have recently been thinking all about brides and their flowers and was inspired to write this post.

Dear Modern Bride,

There are so many things to consider when you are planning your wedding…..Ceremony, dress, wedding party, food, flowers, honeymoon, where will you live. The list goes on and on.

For some reason I was looking at my own wedding pictures today and suddenly it hit me…I knew exactly what I needed to talk to you about.

Your Pictures…and your photographer.

Truth is I don’t like my wedding pictures. They cost plenty of money, my photographer broke his leg before my wedding and sent a different fellow. BAD. Had I really thought about it I would have found someone else, BUT….I didn’t.

The really important thing though is that although I don’t really care for my wedding pictures, the photographer was not the problem…I was.

Please allow me to explain. I did not have a clue about what pictures I wanted. Saw all of the sample books and assumed (incorrect) that my photographer would know exactly what pictures needed to be taken. MY photographer probably did know what pictures needed to be taken, but, oh yes, he wasn’t there. His buddy was. I had never met his buddy before my wedding day. Another error!!!

So here is my short list of suggestions when selecting a wedding photographer:

1. It is your wedding. Instruct your photographer to do exactly as you wish. Ask for his/her suggestions because they will have had plenty of experience, but you need to have thought this through. Understand what your wedding pictures mean to you. Do you want a journal of the day or do you want only candid shots? My opinion is that your photographer should be able to do both.

2. What do you want pictures of? Personally, I loved my wedding dress. It was the exact dress i wanted. I do not have one picture where you can see the whole thing. It did have a train and I definitely wanted a picture of the whole dress…didn’t get that. In every picture there is either a big piece of furniture in front of me or we are in a place where there was not enough room. Getting married in January, plans could have been made to get pictures taken where there was enough space (like at my reception maybe?)but I didn’t know to do that. Plan for this. If you do it on your wedding day ad-hoc you will be disappointed with the results.

3. Who do you want pictures of? Again….my pictures are lacking. My Mom died when I was 19, well before I got married, but she has 5 sisters. I would have really cherished a picture of myself with all of her sisters. Didn’t think of it. What a lost opportunity.

4. Do you want any pictures of your flowers, the ceremony, the centerpieces, the cake, the band, the whole reception room, the receiving line, you getting ready for the wedding…you get the drift. Be very specific. If there is a picture you want or you think you might want, tell your photographer! You can always skip it if you don’t like it.

5. Most Important! Once you have decided all of these things find one good friend who knows your guest list, has a sheet with all of your wishes and introduce that person to your photographer. Of course, your photographer will also have a copy of the same sheet. That way, If you want a picture of Aunt Josie and Uncle Fred, you won’t have to point them out. Your designated friend can do that for you.

6. Do as much pre planning as you possibly can…it will relieve you on the day of your wedding so you will have only one task. Enjoy each moment and have a bundle of fun!

Michele Tremblay

www.micheletremblay.com

For the last 30 years Michele has been designing flowers for all kinds of people, from brides to prom goers, from dining rooms to boardrooms. Starting out as a fine artist (painter) and moving into the flower world gave Michele a vision that set her work apart from other floral designers. Designing flowers in a more relaxed,”unfloristy” way was always the goal when working for private clients.

Still doing artwork and designing various products from table linens to greeting cards to holiday decorations, Michele continues to have a unique and diverse style she brings to her work.

Her goal is to help people have an ease with flowers and encourage them to keep beautiful arrangements, simply and easily, in their homes and also to help brides approach the wedding flowers in a “can do” sort of way that allows for personal preference without breaking the bank.

Filed Under: Featured, Wedding & Event Professionals Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What Type of Bride Do You Prefer to Work With

March 22, 2011 By 9 Comments

Are you a wedding planner, bridal shop owner, makeup artist, photographer, videographer, DJ, or florist?

If you are a wedding professional, you have probably seen your fair share of different bride personalities.

Working in the wedding world can be exciting, fun, stressful, and sometimes even upsetting.

It can be a better experience if you are working with a bride that you truly enjoy!  What type of bride you do prefer working with?  Take a look at the following classifications of brides and make your pick!

Bridezilla

A bridezilla is probably one of those most difficult types of brides to work with.  This bride will want everything to go her way, no matter what.  It can be stressful dealing with a bridezilla because you may always feel as if nothing is good enough.  It’s important to remember that you just have to try to please her as best you can so that everything goes as smoothly as possible.  It is important to remain calm and stay professional throughout the entire process.  Try to think ahead, so that you can anticipate any problems that may arise and you will know how to fix a problem so that the bride is happy.

The Dream Bride

The dream bride is exactly the kind of bride that every wedding professional wants to work with.  She is appreciative, easy to communicate with and understanding.  While she may have some special requests, and has her own idea of how the wedding will run, she does not make your life difficult!  This is usually the best type of bride to work for.  Make sure to impress this type of bride, as she probably has other friends who are just as polite and kind.  You may be able to get a great referral!

You’ve probably seen both of these types of brides throughout your professional career.  It is always important to remember to provide excellent customer service no matter how difficult a bride may be.  With the help of a wedding pro assistant, you can make sure that each bride is happy with the services that you offer.  An assistant can help to check in with brides throughout the process.  Always try to please brides by going above and beyond in everything that you do.

If you are want to continue to bring in more business, it is important to analyze your bridal marketing plan. You will want to appeal to a certain type of bride.  Consider looking at the way that you explain your services when doing your wedding business marketing.  You can improve your wedding marketing by trying different advertising methods.

It may be a good idea to reach brides in new ways.  Consider using the internet, trade shows, and mobile media.  With time, effort, and planning you can be sure to have a successful marketing plan that will allow you to bring in more bridal business!

Don’t know, ask me how!

Filed Under: Featured, Wedding & Event Professionals Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Dominate Your Local Bride Market

March 22, 2011 By 9 Comments

Dominate your local bride market

The goal? Local market domination.

The game plan? Implementation of smart online and offline marketing tactics.

Let’s imagine you’re a blushing soon-to-be-bride and you’ve come to the realization that you need help planning your wedding.

So you set out to find yourself a wedding planner. Where do you turn first?

You probably start asking your friends if they know any great local wedding planners. If you don’t have any luck there, you’re probably going to work on finding someone close by.

Think about it. Brides are more likely to connect with you if you live nearby so put yourself in front of their faces so they just can’t ignore you!

Local is big right now. You can tell because Google’s jumping all over it.

Search is becoming much more localized which is a good thing for you (and for the brides looking for you). Most people will be searching specifically on a phrase like: wedding planner [town name]. FYI, Google has many services that will help you show up on in those results.

When it comes to online local marketing you should be using Facebook and Twitter and other similar tools to create a buzz about your wedding planning business too. (Hey, brides talk!)

Then there’s the whole offline marketing racket. You should be out and about, networking and getting familiar with the local brides. You want to become very well known as the local wedding planner to use.

Contact me today for help developing and implementing a marketing plan that will help you dominate your local market.

Filed Under: Featured, Local Area Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Attracting Brides with Mobile Media Marketing

March 22, 2011 By 11 Comments

Advertising your wedding planning business in the [insert big yawn here] Yellow Pages and Ye Olde Daily Newspaper?

In the words of a famous (balding) friend of Oprah’s, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

Unless you live somewhere on the planet yet to be connected to the Internet, these old fashioned methods of advertising are just plain useless.

The demographic that makes up the majority of brides [unless you’re marketing solely to the nursing home sector] don’t normally use the Yellow Pages to find anything and they generally read their news online or on their mobile device [the same place they go instead of the phone book].

The way we do business has been rewritten in the past few years.

It’s all about making meaningful connections.

So let’s thing about how we might connect with these brides who are no longer flipping through newspapers or Yellow Pages thanks to their handy, stuck-to-them-like-glue mobile devices…

Ahah!

We use a new medium…the mobile devices themselves.

Sounds kind of brilliant doesn’t it?

Use the power of mobile media to connect with brides by sending them important reminders, updates about the status of their wedding, any new specials you’re offering so they can send referrals to you or just to check in on how they’re doing.

You can integrate your mobile media marketing campaign with social media too and make it even more fun and uber effective. [Yes, I said uber.]

Run contests! Place mobile phone advertisements to attract new brides and laser in on your local area.

Just take a minute and chew on these numbers [and remember that by the time you’re done chewing the numbers have likely climbed way up again]. For the last quarter of 2010, the following are the ratios in the United States of all mobile phone users:

•    iPhone – 6.75%
•    Android: 7.75%
•    Blackberry: 8.53%

And what do we know about people with phones like these?

They use the heck out of them.

Hop on that bandwagon! Ask me how.

Filed Under: Featured, Mobile Media Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

OBM Larissa Parks Nominated for two Assist U Awards

August 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’m honored to announce today that I’ve received two (count ‘em…two!) nominations in this year’s Assist U Community Recognition Awards.

One is for the 2010 VA of the Year and the other is for the 2010 Techie of the Year. That one I’m pretty excited about because I do take pride in my technical skills!

In case you haven’t been following along this has been a very transitional year for me and it’s been full of changes (more on that later).I’ve been spending a great deal of time doing different training programs including one  that will make me an Infusionsoft expert (when I’m done) and another that gave me 1ShoppingCart expert status. I’ve also taken the exhaustive OBM Certification program.

(Psst….don’t tell anyone, but I’d really like to win the title of 2010 VA of the Year. I was nominated last year and so if I don’t win this year I’m going to develop a Susan Lucci complex.)

Dang it’s hard to type with your fingers crossed…. :-)

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , ,

Infusionsoft expert at your service!

June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Here we are on June 21 – the first day of summer – but it feels like I was just setting my New Year’s Resolutions! Speaking of resolutions, last week I started working on one of my goals for 2010 by enrolling in Infusionsoft Bootcamp.

In case you haven’t heard of Infusionsoft, it basically replaces your need for having a stand-alone email marketing system, shopping cart and CRM (Customer Relationship Management system).

Infusionsoft users can manage all of these critical components of an Internet business from one efficient, effective and highly integrated dashboard.

I’m busy learning how to set up and customize an Infusionsoft account, how to manage follow-up sequences, set up products and payment plans. I won’t lie, there’s a ton of other stuff to learn about order forms, templates, refunds, broadcasting and affiliate programs. But when I’m done, I will be a superstar and you will want to hire me to set up your account because trust me – you don’t want to do this yourself. (Holy hard work Batman!)

It actually might not hurt to contact me right now because I’m about to get a lot more popular. Give me a shout today and we’ll schedule you in for the minute I’m ready to transition you over to Infusionsoft or to take over your existing account.

Now I better get back to it – it is bootcamp you know!

Filed Under: Featured, Infusionsoft Tagged With: , , , , , ,

I’m a 1Shopping Cart Expert!

April 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Thank goodness it’s Friday. All this training I’ve been taking is really wearing me out. But don’t worry! I love learning and I’ve scheduled in lots of time to relax this weekend. (I definitely see a glass of wine and a bubble bath in my near future.)

Now I’m getting off track.

See…I told you a little while ago about how I’m now a Certified Online Business Manager but since then I’ve gone ahead and taken another very important course – this time from The Shopping Cart Queen, Christina Hills. That’s right! I’m now Certified in 1ShoppingCart! That’s great news for my clients because I can help them get more out of their carts now. Heck I’ll be able to take over the entire e-commerce aspect of their businesses if they want me to!

If the extent of your knowledge about shopping carts is how to put stuff in them and you have an online shopping element to  your site, we need to talk! Just not this weekend please. I have plans :)

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

I’m officially an Online Business Manager!

April 9, 2010 By 1 Comment

Wow, am I tired. I mentioned in my last post that you wouldn’t be hearing from me in awhile and I’m coming back to announce that I just earned my certification as an Online Business Manager! Yay me! I’m a Certified OBM!

In case you haven’t heard the phrase ‘Online Business Manager’ before, it’s defined as:

“A virtually based support professional who manages online based businesses, including the day-to-day management of projects, operations, team members and metrics.”

Sounds sort of similar to the definition for a Virtual Assistant, I know, but it’s different. A VA does tasks for clients but an OBM focuses more on the managerial role, strategy and project management. Besides, I am a firm believer in continual education so I can help my clients in as many ways as possible.

Of course I picked up loads of new skills and future clients – I hope you appreciate what I just went through for you.

OBM Training is a five month program but I did it in three days. Intense…ALL DAY…three days. I then did one entire week of grueling and rigorous certification. ONE WEEK. Those five days were spent performing real life strategy projects, working for actual six-figure and seven-figure clients. I created project plans, mapping and techniques to help the clients grow their businesses.

So there you have it. Larissa Parks the Virtual Assistant is now also Larissa Parks the Online Business Manager.

And I look forward to serving new and existing clients in an even bigger way!  Well, let me get back to spring cleaning, because a lot of changes are about to happen.

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Please excuse the dust, it’s spring cleaning time!

March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There are some very big changes happening behind the scenes here at Seven Winds and I want to take a break from the blog to focus our energy on the direction this business will soon be heading in.

I  know what you’re thinking, “Now, why on Earth would you just stop keeping your blog updated when you’ve gained some momentum recently?”

My best answer to that is that it could possibly do us more harm than good to be blogging without knowing for certain who, exactly, we’re going to be marketing to come April 1st and frankly, blogging is too much work to be wasting valuable post energy on irrelevant topics.

Now, this new plan being cooked up isn’t something I just plucked out of thin air, but I’m being completely transparent right now when I say that I haven’t ironed out all the details yet and until I do I’m not prepared to launch anything or to be blogging about it.

There are other spring cleaning items that are taking place around here as well, changes that are collectively going to improve our clients’ experience working with us and that will make team members happier…including letting go clients who are not holding up their end of our working arrangement.

So…we’ll be falling off the radar for a couple of weeks but my question to you in the meantime is this:

When did you last do some spring cleaning in your business?

  • Are you still doing things that aren’t working?
  • Are you holding on to clients because they pay you, even though they make you miserable?
  • Have you brushed off your marketing materials lately?
  • What about an updated list of service offerings or some spiffy new content?

Come on, guys, spring has sprung and it’s time to get serious about getting rid of the business clutter to ensure a healthy, happy rest-of-the-year!

You pick up your mop and pail and we’ll see you in April!

Filed Under: Featured, Virtual Assistance Tagged With: , , ,
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