Last Friday 11/12 I was watching an ABC 20/20 about the Better Business Bureau (BBB). They were discussing that business owners are asked to pay a membership fee in order to get an “A” rating on their profile.
This has jogged my memory, as I was once a member of the BBB with an “A-” rating because I was a new member. The membership fee was really high around $400 a year, as I didn’t see any value in my money (no one during that year has told me that they found my business on the BBB) I decided to cancel it when the membership was up.
The following year I’ve notice that my grade has dropped to a “B”, but I didn’t have any complaints, in fact I had two positive reviews. When they called me to renew my membership I asked about the lower grade and the lady told me that after I pay my membership fee the grade would be improved. I was kind of skeptical but I was concerned about the grade and all those potential customers who would be seeing it. The lady also told me that hundred some people have viewed my BBB profile and offered me to pay the dues in two installments. Of course I wanted my grade to be improved, so I paid the first installment and the grade was improved the following day to an “A”.
When it came time for the second installment, I decided that something wasn’t right and I canceled my membership. If you look at my profile now, you’ll see that my grade is a “B+”, again I don’t have any complaints and still the two same positive reviews that I had back then. The only difference now is that I don’t really care how BBB grades me, my customer testimonials on my website are the proof of my work and reputation.
After watching 20/20 on this, I would caution anyone from taking the BBB seriously because I was scammed and I don’t think it’s fair for the public when business owners are tricked to pay for their reputation.
Have you been in a similar situation with the BBB? Leave your comments below.
The Holiday Season is quickly approaching. Countless people are turning to the internet to handle holiday shopping. With no long lines or stressful heavy traffic, many consider it the only way to buy gifts for loved ones. Get your website ready for the holidays and remember the importance of exceptional customer service. You may have a website that is selling a product or service that can be found elsewhere. If this is the case, you need to have a niche. You need to develop a small business design that will bring people to your business because you’re offering something others are not. Start with great customer care!
Remember to always be friendly when talking to clients on the phone. Train any staff members to do the same because people absorb the vibes you send out over the phone. If you deal with clients through emails, you can send good vibrations through that as well. Even if the customer is disappointed in the service or product, maintain that polite and friendly tone as you both work to resolve the situation. They’ll appreciate your honestly and may even return to your website in the future.
Be prompt with returning phone calls, emails and placing orders. It doesn’t matter how nice you are, if you don’t get back to a client within a reasonable amount of time (3 business days) you may lose the sale. Especially since people are starting their holiday shopping, they’re going to want fast and friendly service now more than ever. Make sure you’re prepared to handle the extra workload in these next hectic months!
One of the most important things you can do to provide excellent customer service is offer a no-fuss return policy. People get discouraged if they cannot find a return policy clearly listed on your website or fear that a return or exchange might be troublesome. Make sure to clearly post a return policy and make it easy for buyers to understand. With up-to-date product descriptions and high-quality photos on your small business website, you’ll make return and exchange scenarios less-likely.
The time is now to get prepared for the upcoming busy shopping season. By making sure you’re offering customers the best service possible, you’re helping your business dramatically. By adding this little touch of kindness to an impersonal website sale, you’re making your customers feel appreciated and more at ease with shopping online.
Most small businesses have competitors in their area or on the web. It is your job as the small business owner to check these businesses out to see what they’re doing right or wrong…then apply their strong points to your own business. Let’s talk about how to locate your competitors.
Use Google Places to find the competition in your location. Take a look at their website and if you can, try to make an “appointment” with them or check out their product if they have a store. You want to absorb the techniques they’re using if it makes them successful. What type of advertising campaign are they running? Can your small business design profit from borrowing a few of these ideas and applying them to your company? If your products are similar, find the differences and see if you need to make changes. Are they offering lower prices or even extras along with the product? How about their service? If it’s service competitors, consider using them and see how they go about it. How did they treat you (the customer) and how well did they do the job?
You may find out that businesses similar to yours may be doing things differently. This can be good or bad, so don’t run out and try all these different techniques all at once. If you know that a company is doing better than you, investigate and find one thing to apply to your business. If they’re taking out an ad in the newspaper and you’re not, maybe you are underestimating how much business you can get from local ad placements.
One thing to remember when you’re trying to improve your small business is the SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Whenever you’re checking out a competitor, just ask yourself the following questions:
• What advantages does your business have?
• What can your small business improve on?
• What opportunities are up and coming in your market?
• Are changes in technology going to hurt your business?
When you answer a simple SWOT analysis, you’ll most likely uncover things about your business that you can make changes on. Once again, don’t make a bunch of changes at once. When you see something that is working well for a competitor, give it a try. When you do too many things at once, when things don’t work out it’s harder to backtrack. While trying out techniques, keep in mind that you do want to have an advantage over your competition and that is to be unique. So take the good ideas from other companies and make them your own! Offer complimentary services the other businesses don’t offer. At the end of the day you want your small business to stand out, not blend in!
If you did a survey of people walking down the street and asked them “How do you find a business when you need one?” Many of them are going to say they use the internet. More people are looking up services through the web than flipping through the prehistoric yellow pages. The thing is: you can take advantage of local search marketing and apply it to your small business design without being “out of date.”
If you’re familiar with Google Maps, you may already be aware that if you type “Seafood, Miami FL” into Google’s search engine, a map of the Miami area will appear with a list of restaurants or vendors that specialize in seafood. That’s what local marketing can do for you. When you put your company’s information into Google Places, you’re making it easier for people in your area to find you. You can apply this information to not only Google search engines, but the other major ones as well.
Not convinced it will help drive traffic to your site?
Approximately 20% of Google searches are associated with location. Based on reports from Google itself: The Google Place sections are viewed millions of times each day. By not putting your company contact information, website and other miscellaneous data, you’re missing out on potentially millions of people who could stumble across your website. Local search marketing or “optimization” is just as an important small business practice as the SEO you use on your website.
There are features available specifically through Google Places that can help small business improve their search-ability. You can pay for Tags: Tags come with a $25 price tag per month and promote business features your company is offering. These are currently only available in certain cities, but expanding quickly. So if you want to use Google Tags for your company and your location isn’t listed, it may be shortly.
Google also can send a photographer to your business and offer a free, professional photo shoot. You’re not guaranteed to have a session, but you browse the available locations and apply. If you’re not in one of the major US cities that offers these free photo sessions, take your own photos and upload them to Google Places by yourself.
So, when you implement local search marketing strategies to your small business design, you’re helping to increase traffic to your website by at least 20% (according to Google). Besides a good-looking company website and a well-written blog, it’s one of the simplest ideas to apply to your business to get results.
For a small business, every dollar counts. You think long and hard before you spend – and that’s the way it should be. But while there are certainly many unnecessary expenses that you should avoid, or cut from your budget, professional Web design is not one of them. Here are the reasons:
You Need A Strong Online Identity
As a long-term strategy, you want to separate yourself from the crowd and have your own online identity. You should have a unique logo, a unique website, and unique business cards. If you use do-it-yourself Web design templates, you may be saving money in the short term, but you are hurting your business’ chances of leaving an impression. Don’t let your business look just like thousands of other businesses. The right design can make the difference between a struggling business and a smashing hit.
Professional Web Design CAN Be Affordable
Many small business owners mistakenly assume that they simply cannot afford small business website design. But this is untrue. You should find a designer who specializes in Web design for small businesses because this type of designer will be more sensitive to your budget constraints than Web designers who typically work with corporations. In addition, you should realize that you can start with a very small website, which would cost considerably less – all you need are a few Web pages and a strong design. You can always add more pages and functions later, as your business grows and your budget expands.
Built-In Search Engine Optimization
I’ve seen countless websites that were built by their owners using a template and that are not optimized for search engines. This means that no one is going to find these websites! Typically, after a few months, they realize that they keep working on their website, adding content and tweaking the design, but it’s all worthless because their website does not appear in search engine results. A good Web designer will make sure that your site is optimized for search engines, and will also make sure that the design elements are light enough that the site loads fast – people on the Web are impatient with slow-loading sites. In fact, Google has recently announced that it now incorporates website load time as part of its ranking system.
Save Time, Save Money
Your time is worth money. The time you spend on fiddling with your website design could be spent doing something else – something more productive, something you know how to do such as growing your business. You may think that you are “saving” money by not hiring a professional to do your Web design. But are you really saving if it means long hours of working on your site design, hours that never translate into the visual image you have in mind, simply because you’re not a professional? In today’s complex world, it makes sense for each of us to do what we specialize in. For you it means growing your business, and letting design professionals take care of your website design.
Helping over 120,000+ businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.
Business | Yiana Palacios | 
November 15, 2010 6:40 am | 
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