Topic: Member Workshop: How to Win Over Buyers and Boost Sales: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Host: hostedsupport Date: Tuesday 07/15 Time: 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Pacific time Location: Workshop Board
Description: In this workshop, Jerad Schempp, COO of Certified Solution Provider Hosted Support will discuss how you can win over buyers, improve your customer relationships, and boost sales, via the lost art of communication.
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Welcome everyone and thanks for joining me today! Workshops are more fun and informative when there’s plenty of interaction, so please feel free to ask any questions related to this topic.
Our eBay ID is hostedsupport and Hosted Support is an eBay Certified Solution Provider. We’ve been in business since 2003 and have an eBay Compatible Application called ezSupport for eBay that’s built exclusively for eBay sellers. I’m very excited to share our experience and knowledge regarding customer support issues and how you can increase your auction listings (and your revenue) without getting swamped by customer questions.
Today I’m discussing how you can win over buyers, build more positive customer relationships and boost your sales by improving communication. Sales is all about communication. You’ve got something to sell, so you communicate that by listing an auction on eBay. Potential buyers communicate by placing bids and asking questions. You and the winning bidder communicate about shipping and other post-sale transaction specifics. When all is said and done, you give each other feedback (positive of course!), and this contributes to your DSR, which in turn communicates to new potential buyers.
Every stage of the sales process hinges on communication, so it’s easy to see how important it is for sellers to communicate well. When the Internet took hold over a decade ago our opportunities for communication exploded. We now have web sites, email, blogs, text messaging, etc. literally at our fingertips. So with all these new avenues for communication, you’d expect that our communication skills would have blossomed.
However, it seems (to me at least) that the opposite has occurred. We’re now are able to communicate at lightening speed, so quickly in fact that we frequently don’t take the time to make sure that what we’re saying makes sense to anyone besides ourselves. Speed has replaced precision.
In short, a lot of us have gotten sloppy about communicating clearly. And in the world of eBay this can translate into auction listings that are confusing, replies to customer inquiries that don’t answer the question, and inflated customer expectations that lead to negative feedback.
However, this din of miscommunication can actually be good news for the savvy seller. By making some small adjustments and paying a little more attention to detail, you can communicate better and stand out from the competition.
So now that I’ve gotten that rant about the lost art of communication off my chest, let’s talk some specifics about what sellers can do to improve communication on a daily basis.
COMMUNICATE when you List Your Auction It all begins when you create your auction listing. With the vast quantity of information each of us is bombarded with every day, most people just don’t take the time to read a lot of text or figure out something if it’s confusing…they simply click away. You need to be as clear and concise as possible when describing your items, and that goes for your shipping and return policies as well. Of course the tricky part of this is that you want to include full information so customers can make informed decisions without having to submit a lot of questions to you. Many times this can be accomplished by:
- Laying out your page to take advantage of spacing - Grouping information intuitively, and - Reducing blobs of text with bullet points, like I’m doing here.
Set Expectation Upfront Set customer expectations upfront for smoother transactions. This is especially important for your shipping and return policies. If shipping will take five business days, make sure you specify five business days, not just five days. And be sure to include any international rules or charges. Generally customers aren’t annoyed about the length of time it takes to receive a package. They get annoyed when a package takes longer to arrive than they expected.
It’s all about perceptions. The more you set expectations for buyers upfront the more they’ll actually feel in control of transactions. And this perception of control will lead to higher satisfaction. So communicate accurate expectations right from the start to reduce misunderstandings and you’ll have much happier customers (and higher DSRs).
Consider Getting Help As you’re probably all aware, designing a compelling auction listing is an art in and of itself that doesn’t come naturally to everyone. But creating a listing that communicates what your customers need to know in way that makes them want to buy from you is a key to success on eBay. Because this is so important, you may want to get help from an experienced listing design consultant, like As Was (http://www.aswas.com). Listing design consultants have the knowledge and experience it takes to create a clearly and concisely listed item that will generate higher bids.
COMMUNICATE when you Respond to Customer Questions A big bonus of designing your auction listings to communicate well is that the questions you receive from customers will be dramatically reduced right off the bat. And we all know how much time that can save you. However, no matter how well your listings are designed, it’s inevitable that customers with think of things they need to ask you.
Implement FAQs The first line of defense for customer questions is to implement FAQs on all your auction listings, so customers can find answers immediately without having to send them to you. FAQs work great for those redundant questions you get over and over pertaining to general information. (i.e. Do you ship to Australia?) Many of these questions are probably addressed in your auction listings, but having FAQs gives your customers another avenue to quickly find answers. eBay’s FAQ feature can be used to add a limited number of FAQs to your auctions, and our ezSupport for eBay tool can be used to add an unlimited number of FAQs that can be browsed by category or searched with natural-language questions. And don’t forget that it’s just as important to be clear and concise when writing your FAQs as it is elsewhere.
Use Speed, Clarity & Conformity Now we’ve come to handling questions from your customers, and communicating effectively when responding to your customers can be a tremendous challenge. Unlike with your auction listings and FAQs, customer questions require a quick reply that often needs personal attention. And if you’re a seller who has multiple support reps handling questions, you need replies to be standard so different reps aren’t giving out conflicting answers to the same questions. You need to strike a tough balance between speed, clarity and conformity. Whew! My head is spinning just thinking about it.
A great solution to this issue is to use a system that allows you to quickly populate “canned” replies into responses. Many questions are similar and require similar replies with just a little tweaking for individual cases. So having the ability to quickly pop a well-thought-out canned reply into the body of a message will help you be quick and clear, and answers will conform among different support reps. Our ezSupport for eBay tool provides this canned response feature, but more about that later.
Avoid Jargon This applies to your auction listings too, but be wary of industry-specific terms or tech-speak. How often have you been on a web page or received an email with technical terms or acronyms that you didn’t understand and were embarrassed to inquire the meaning of? DSR, UI, API? LOL! You may be selling items that are only bought by customers who are well-versed in industry specific jargon, but assume so at your own risk.
Proofread! Of course this really goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: Before clicking the “Send” button ALWAYS remember to spell check and reread your message. A few seconds of proofreading can save you at minimum great embarrassment and frequently a lot of time in having to clarify something you misstated the first time around.
COMMUNICATE with your Winning Bidders So you’re communicating well in your auction listings, and your communicating well when responding to customer questions. Now all you need to do is finish off the job by communicating well with your winning bidders. If you’ve done a good job of setting expectations upfront as discussed earlier, you’ve already won half the battle with your winning bidders. They should be well aware of your shipping and return policies, so you just need to respond to any further inquiries with the same speed, clarity and conformity we’ve already discussed.
Over Communicate You may think your job is done once you’ve shipped an item, but it’s a great idea to send the buyer a shipment notification message with the tracking number included. This is a nice finishing touch to show that you care and also to set you apart from other sellers. And once again this will help set the buyer’s expectations for when their package will arrive. Remember, it’s almost impossible to over communicate with your customers.
Be Proactive about Feedback And while you’re at it with that shipping notification message, take the opportunity to be proactive about feedback. Leave positive feedback for your buyer first, and then communicate something like, “Thanks for your purchase. Excellent customers like you are the cornerstone of my business. I’ve already left you positive feedback, and I’d certainly appreciate it if you’d give me a five star rating.” A call to action can work wonders, and as the saying goes “Ask, and ye shall receive.” You may also want to add that if the buyer doesn’t feel comfortable giving you a five star rating, they should contact you to discuss. It’s possible there is something you could do to fix the situation before it’s too late.
The tips I’ve discussed today can help you improve your communication skills. However, support tools are also necessary for you to implement these strategies efficiently and to provide valuable customer support in general. Effective customer support requires giving customers access to as much information as possible, responding to customer questions and issues in a timely manner, and keeping customer purchasing and support information organized and accessible for you and your staff.
Hello! This is my first workshop. I'm a new seller. I seem to get a good amount of questions about my listings, and quite a lot of people watching them, and yet no bids. What could I be doing wrong?
Hi giftsofjewelry. That's a good question. Is it possible that you're setting your opening bids too high? Also make sure to respond to questions ASAP while the potential bidders are still interested.
Hosted Support offers ezSupport for eBay, which can help you get a handle on buyer email and make it convenient for your customers to get answers. In addition to providing auto-response messaging for buyer questions, ezSupport for eBay offers an Advanced FAQ feature that allows your customers to find answers to their questions directly from your auction listings, rather than sending a question to you from the “Ask Seller a Question” form.
eBay sellers using ezSupport for eBay report the following benefits: - Most customer questions answered with “self-service” Advanced FAQs - Automatic responses to questions submitted via the “Ask Seller a Question” form - Automatic retention of all customer communications, stored indefinitely - 25% increase in listings and revenue due to time savings
Over 2000 eBay sellers use ezSupport for eBay, including top sellers like Eforcity. Case studies detailing how these eBay sellers are using ezSupport for eBay are available in the Case Studies section of our website, http://www.hostedupport.com.
I used to leave feedback right away, then I stopped doing that. I guess I can do it once again, since we can only leave positive feedback for buyers...
The most common question we get is " How much is shipping to (foreign country). Does hostedsupport provide a postage calculated service to auto answer a question like that?
thanks
Del IT'S ALL WRITE ~ Quality Pens & Refills ~ eBay Store TIMECATCHERS ~ Antiques & Collectibles ~ eBay Auctions
Good question cmpnk9s. I agree that it's really difficult to get people to read anything these days. The best thing to do is to be as succinct as possible. The shorter the paragraph, the more likely peoplw will actually read it.
Timecatchers, Hosted Support doesn't currently have a postage calculating service. However, you can have an FAQ that directs people to postage rates or a calculator if you have one.
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