First Customer Service, Then Location Marketing | The SMB Collective

Your business has decided to take the plunge into location-based marketing (LBM). You read Gregg Morris?s overview on LBM platforms and figured out where to spend your time. Or maybe you?re a virtual business who read Michelle Quillin?s post last year on how virtual businesses can use a service like Foursquare and worked to make it happen for you. Either way, you?re ready!

Or are you? How?s your customer service?

A recent Bloomberg Business Week article pulls from Micah Solomon?s book, Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit to point out how small brick-and-mortar businesses, or even small online shops, can compete with large internet retailers. The key, according to Solomon, is to provide customers with a superior customer service experience.

At #soslam we heard Trey Pennington describe ?the three-fold human hunger: every one of us has a desire to be heard, understood and to count.? He also says it?s the biggest opportunity in marketing today? ? ?it? being giving people that experience of knowing that they mattered. This is a synonym for excellent customer service!

Now let?s apply the idea of good customer service to LMB. Inspiration comes to me via Solomon, Pennington, and me. My credentials? Being consistently described as ?energetic? or ?perky? in every single job I?ve ever had.

• ?Shine the doorknobs?: This is from Solomon, who recommends trying to experience your place of business as a customer does. Do you, like in the example he gives, have trash outside your supermarket? Just how inviting are your LBM presences? Did you claim your Yelp, Google, and Facebok place pages, and clean up the information there? Do you have a nice Gowalla badge for your user passports? Are your Foursquare Specials easy to understand and find?
• ?Attend, acknowledge, and affirm?: This is from Pennington. Pay attention to your customers! Are you acknowledging those that take the time to check in via Foursquare or Gowalla, or those that leave a review for you on Yelp, Google, or Facebook Places? If someone leaves a negative review, are you reaching out to find a way you can right that wrong?
• People, people, people. You need the right people monitoring & acting on information from these channels. And by ?right? I mean responsive, technologically savvy, caring individuals who can think quickly and prioritize. If your people have these qualities, you can train them to be your front-line responders in handling both positive and negative feedback and in processing specials, deals, badges, and more.

What did I miss? What other customer service considerations should SMBs make when diving into LBM?

(Image credit: SpringBoardBusinessCenter)

Source: http://smbcollective.com/2011/05/customers-first-then-location-marketing/

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