Cell-phone Messaging - Save Money And Increase Productivity

Schools, businesses, churches, non-profit organisations and others have realised that sending SMS messages is a far more cost-effective way of managing correspondence. It certainly make sense to use an SMS message to send a short message to someone rather than pay for a potentially lengthy conversation.

WinSMS offers a package which I have now used for some time. It allows the user to send messages to bulk recipients and will allow for long messages to be sent. The user can set up recipients as one would email addresses and using the downloadable software is a cinch.

This is a really useful tool and I have found the service reliable and effective.

Take a look at the site by clicking on this link - sign up now for 10 free credits to test-drive the service!

10 Commandments of Human Relations

I recently attended a business leadership presentation where the presenter gave each of the participants the 10 Commandments of Human Relations. I had never come across these before but I am led to believe they have been around for some time.

If we are serious about business then we have to be serious about people. These commandments give us a great platform on which to build a successful business.


The 10 Commandments of Human Relations - author unknown

1. Speak to People.
There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.

2. Smile at People.
It takes 72 muscles to frown, but only 14 to smile!

3. Call People by Name.
The sweetest music to anyone's ear is the sound of his or her own name.

4. Be Friendly and Helpful.
If you would have friends, be friendly.

5. Be Cordial.
Speak and act as if everything you do were a real pleasure.

6. Be Genuinely Interested in People.
You can like everyone if you try.

7. Be Generous with Praise, Cautious with Criticism.
Praise will win out when it comes to gaining friends.

8. Be Considerate of the Feelings of Others.
It will be appreciated.

9. Be Thoughtful of the Opinions of Others.
People love their opinions as they do their own children, calling them ugly won't get you anything but anger.

10. Be Alert to Give Service.
What counts most in life is what we do for others!

Personal Touch In A Digital World

In June I posted a blog entitled Effective Email Communication. In this post I mentioned AWeber as a service provider of email newsletters.

I recently signed on as an affiliate of AWeber as I have done with other affiliate marketing companies over the past year or two. Imagine my surprise when I received in the mail a letter from the company welcoming me as a new affiliate. No other affiliate company I know of has ever sent me a physical acknowledgement of signing up with them.

This strategy is brilliant for the following reasons :

1) It shows recognition of the importance of relationship
2) It is a reminder to the new affiliate of his/her link with AWeber
3) All the contact information is available on the letter in the form of a small block which can be cut out and placed in a visible spot
4) It is indicative of the efforts to which the company will go to ensure customer satisfaction

I am really impressed by this!

Can you, a small business owner, learn from this? Of course you can! Perhaps these lessons stand out :

1) In a digital world a personal touch is always very well received
2) Your relationship with the client/customer is paramount
3) Set up your customers to win
4) Show your customers/clients that you are prepared to do things differently/better than the rest
5) A little bit of effort can go a long way in retaining customer loyalty

Are you giving your business a personal touch? It doesn't matter how big you are, its the small things that count!

How to earn customers who stick

Last week I signed up with TrafficSynergy.com - an affiliate marketing company which is now also based in South Africa. When I signed up I had to give contact information which is the norm for most online registrations. The information asked for also included an option to fill-in my Skype contact details.

Usually I fill in the required information simply because the registration will not proceed without it. I enter the info and I never expect it to be used - ever.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I was contacted through a text message on Skype by the TrafficSynergy representative who is now my personal contact at the company. She informed me that her role was to be available to answer any questions I may have and to be of any assistance she could to me.

What a nice personal touch! I now have Shelley on my Skype list and when next I have a question all I have to do is give her a call or text her.

Entrepreneurs and small business owners take note - the personal touch from your company is critical as you build relationships with clients. Personally I do not like standard email responses from a company with which I have just signed up. The message I receive is "Thanks for helping us make money" rather than "Thanks for partnering with us. How can we help you?".

We need to ensure that relationships are the top priority in our business - it is the new economic model. Relationships are key - work hard at developing and maintaining them.

Fishy Customer Service

My family and I visited the Cape Town Fish Market in Lonehill last night. Our experiences with this chain have always been excellent and it has a great reputation. However, last night was not quite what it could have been . . .

After perusing the menu, we placed our order which included a fried egg for our 4 year old. As the egg was not on the menu I asked the waitress if this could be done. Without a thought her response was, "We don't have eggs." My wife then pointed out that there must be eggs in the kitchen as there was an egg salad on the menu. Our dear waitress then told us she may be able to speak to the manager. This she duly did and came back to inform us that they could do a fried egg but we shouldn't expect it to taste very nice as the kitchen staff only knew how to fry fish! I then offered to visit the kitchen and teach them how to fry an egg!

The food eventually arrived at the table (with a fried egg) and we all enjoyed our meals. However it would have been that much nicer had our waitress' response to our fried egg request been "I am sure we can make a plan for you sir. Let me check with the kitchen." Our attitude to the waitress and the restuarant would have been that much more friendly had the waitress thought about her reply before opening her mouth.

A customer-centric approach is always going to win more friends (read: loyal customer base) than enemies. This is true for any size business. Business owners will find that word-of-mouth referrals often come from satisfied customers who have been impressed by customer service.

The other lesson from this experience is simply that we need to think what we say to our customers before we open our mouths! This is true for ourselves and any staff we may employ. Our words reflect our business' values and so we need to be very careful with our words - perhaps more so than what logo we have or what our stationery looks like!

We will return to this restuarant and see if there is a different approach - I certainly hope so!

A Personal Birthday Touch

Today is a special day - it is my birthday!

Since early this morning I have had numerous SMS messages and phonecalls from businesses with whom I have relationship. Some have been simply "Happy Birthday" while others have offered a special birthday discount on a product or service.

This little personal touch is so welcome in an era where customers are often treated as numbers or just a means to a greater profit margin. I do realise of course that most of these messages are sent from automated systems but nonetheless they come across as a nice personal touch.

Small business owners would do well do sit up and take notice of this personal approach. It could mean the difference between keeping and losing a customer.

PS - Click on one the affiliate links on this blog to see what there is on offer. Think of it has helping me out on my birthday!

7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Communication

Jamie S. Walters, author of Big Vision, Small Business: 4 Keys to Success Without Growing Bigwrites in The CEO Refresher about the importance of excellent communications in business.

I have listed what he calls The Big Seven Mistakes in Communication here :

1) Contacting others only when you need something.

2) Not following up, or closing the loop.

3) Not returning telephone calls or email messages.

4) Foregoing basic courtesy.

5) Not listening.

6) Telling lies.

7) Spewing chronic negativity.

The entire post, along with explanations of the above may be found on The CEO Refresher site here.

Mobile Spam

First it was junk mail clogging up our mail boxes, then came email spam and with it advertisements shouting at us to enlarge various parts of our anatomy and details of how to make $1million in two weeks. Now we have mobile spam - unsolicited text messages on our mobile phones exhorting us to visit a clothing sale, encouraging us to visit a particular online store or inviting us to enter competitions from a varieyt of commercial enterprises.

I do not want this on my cellphone! I want the freedom to decide what advertisements to receive via SMS and I want the option of not receiving further mobile communications from a company.

At the recent Mobile Industry Briefing held in Sandton on Thursday 17 May, Brendan Hughes, senior associate of the Michalsons Attorneys, was quoted as saying the following :

“Even though there is no specific legislation that currently deals with this issue in South Africa, the provisions of data protection mechanisms can be found in the Constitution (section 14d), the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (ECT Act – section 45 and 89), the National Credit Act (section 68 and 74(6)) and the Industry code of conduct”

So without the legalese, what does this mean for us as consumer and business owner?

The following applies :

1) If you send unsolicited SMS's to consumers you must give them an option to cancel their subscription to your mailing list.
2) On request, you have to be able to provide particulars of where you sourced the particular consumer's communication details.
3) You may not give out any confidential information of any person whose details you have procured other than to an authorised party.
4) A customer has the right to demand that their cellphone number be removed from your database. If you do not comply with the consumer's request to stop receiving mobile communications, you could be fined or receive a jail term not exceeding 12 months.

Between September 2005 and February 2007 1077 complaints regarding mobile spam were received by Wireless Application Service Provider Association (WASPA) This resulted in 67 fines totaling R1,5 million.

Small businesses should not be taking chances with this form of communication. Ensure that you have a method of collecting customers' information in an honest, ethical manner and ensure that any communications with customers gives them an 'opt-out' option.

Need help identifying the owner of a commercial SMS or short code? Go to SMSCode and enter the offending details.

Do you understand me?

I had the experience today of walking into a rather upmarket clothing store which catered for fashion for people in the 40+ age-group. While the clothes were very impressive and the layout of the store friendly and inviting, there was one rather glaring incongruency. Blaring from the loud-speakers mounted on the walls was hip-hop, R & B and rap music! I was left to wonder how many 40+'ers had come in and remarked that the music in the store was what they had in their CD collection at home!

I questioned a sales assistant about the music and was told that the sales staff decided during each day what they would like to listen to! Excuse me, but who is the shopping experience for anyway? The sales assistants or the customers? Surely the choice of music should reflect the ethos and target demographic of the store. If the sales assistants don't like the music - tough!

The broader question at play here is "Do I understand my customer?". If our aim is to meet the needs of our customers to generate sales, repeat business and referrals then surely it is up to us as business owners to ensure our customers' shopping experience is a happy one. This goes far deeper than whether we smile at them when they enter the store.

1) Does the decor reflect our store's ethos and customer demographic?
2) Is the music reflective of the same?
3) Are our customers offered value-add services as part of the deal?
4) Do our sales force know and understand the mission, purpose and values of the business?
5) Is our branding consistent with the ethos of our business?

These questions and many more deserve our full attention if our business is to fulfill its potential.