I hear so much about user experience, but to me that misses the point. Referring to a potential customer as a user immediately diminishes the warm rapport you should be building. Instead, think of your potential customer as a guest; a guest in your own little corner of the Internet, your online shop.

Once you start thinking of the people who visit your online business as guests, you will naturally start to treat them that way. What happens when you have a guest in your home? You greet them with a smile, offer them an iced tea or a hot cup of coffee, give them a seat, turn on some music, put out some snacks, and chat with them about their lives.

Personalize Your Online Customer Service Experience

Brick and mortar retail stores have long thought of their shops as a place to welcome potential and returning customers. The good ones have, at least. And online retailers need to make sure that they treat their stores the same way they would if they had front doors.

Here are seven things that e-tailers should consider when creating a welcoming online space for their guests:

1. Smile: Although your guests may not be able to see a smile when they land on your homepage, your content tone and your voice should be warm and welcoming.

2. Emotional Ties: Grab them from the start with an image that evokes positive emotion and your guests will naturally want to get to know you better.

3. Newness and Change: When we meet with friends for drinks, some of our best experiences are when our friend has an exciting new story to tell, big news, or an amazing circumstance to share. Constant stimulation is one important way to maintain and build relationships.

4. Culture and Story: We tend to be drawn to people who aren’t scared to stand for something, share their feelings, and let their points of view and beliefs come through in life. Why should it be different with a company? Your company culture should come through in your content.

As the economy has struggled and business has become increasingly competitive, consumers have watched customer service standards slide. Many online business owners think that doing business over the Internet is supposed to be inherently impersonal.

Others simply spend less on customer service because they argue that service can’t be measured accurately and, therefore, doesn’t provide a legitimate return on investment. While measuring the value of service isn’t an exact science, its value is evident when sales are lost due to a lack of service.

The perplexing thing, though, is that we know without a shadow of a doubt that it’s much cheaper to market to our current customers (resulting in repeat purchases) than it is to attract new customers.

Bain Consulting has suggested that it’s over six times cheaper to retain customers than to attract new ones, and that repeat customers spend more than two times as much as new customers. Looking at the numbers, it seems obvious that businesses would do well to invest in customer service that will drive repeat purchases. Yet we frequently see businesses reducing service standards while simultaneously spending a fortune attempting to attract new business.

Providing Better Online Customer Service

The key to creating a better customer experience online is connection. Consumers who want the lowest price and an impersonal shopping experience can take their business to Amazon.com or Walmart.com. These sites can get away with not connecting with customers on a personal level because of their breadth of product availability and low prices.

The rest of the online business world has to instead compete on service or be driven out of business by one behemoths. Small e-commerce businesses must absolutely develop a connection with customers in order to keep them from leaving for the cheapest alternative (i.e. Amazon).

Here are a few simple ways that online business owners can offer better customer service and build a connection with customers:

1. Consistently provide order updates.

Customers hate being left in the dark in regards to the status of their orders. Make sure customers have an easy way to check on the progress of their orders–especially when the product is “made to order”.

2. Properly educate your customer service team.

There are few better times to develop a human connection with customers than when they call customer service to ask about a product. There are also few better ways to lose customers than to have customers feel like they know more about your product than your customer service team does.

3. Skip the customer service script.

Let your customer service representatives spend as much time as it takes to answer a customers’ questions. Many companies aim to minimize time spent on the phone with customers due to the cost.

However, you might consider looking at the cost of lengthy phone calls as an investment in customer retention. Zappos has a cult following for this exact reason — it believes that spending time on the phone helping customers in any way possible is going to drive repeat sales (even if that means spending over 10 hours on a marathon call with a customer).

4. Be available.

Provide a direct line for customers to get in touch with you if they need to follow up for any reason. One surefire way to make a customer feel disconnected from your company is to make him use an automated phone system. Small online businesses can win through good customer service, and making customers talk to a computer (as if they’re calling a large corporation) is certifiably bad service.

It’s easy to get caught up in cost-cutting and focusing on efficiencies when running an online business that never actually meets customers in person, but be wary of scaling back customer service. Great service may not be explicitly measurable, but it’s the best way to build a loyal following and drive repeat purchases which are, after all, the most valuable of all sales.

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Tyler Shearburn is the CEO and Founder of Comfy Sacks, an online retailer of over-sized beanbags. In order to really know his products, Tyler owns every size Comfy Sack his company sells. On the side, Tyler consults with e-commerce platforms on their structure and strategy. He encourages readers to reach out to him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

1. How to Attract, Engage and Relate to Your Most Valuable Customers

Have you ever considered who powers your business? While your business is an act of self-expression, guided by your unique vision, it exists in partnership with your most valued customers. When your business draws energy from your customers,  it no longer requires your constant support. You can then empower your employees to draw their inspiration from your customers; and create tools that empower your customers to help themselves.  Read more

2. Buyer Objections: Four Intimidating Questions You’ll Want Your Customers to Ask

Which questions from your prospects and customers scare you the most? While customer questions can be intimidating and sometimes difficult to overcome, they all have one positive thing in common – your prospect is giving you a signal that he or she is interested in buying from you — but here’s the catch, they need you to help them overcome their objections. Read more

3. Three Reasons Why (Potential) Customers Don’t Trust Your Small Business

As a general rule, potential customers will not buy from you or your small business unless they know you, like you and trust you. Unfortunately, many small business owners repeatedly make fundamental sales and marketing errors that immediate create distrust and the make it hard for customers to actually like them. Read more

4. 10 Creative Tips to Attract New Customers

Are you wondering how you’re going to increase sales? Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Finding new customers is a fundamental challenge for every business. If you’re looking to attract new business or service new clients here are ten creative tips to help turn prospects into paying customers. Read more

5. Where’s My Refund? 5 Ways to Turn Happy Customers Into Raving Fans

Refunds suck. Plainly put, they hurt your cash flow and can potentially cause a major bout of self doubt. No small business wants to believe that the products or services they sell are ever less than stellar. So when you get the dreaded e-mail or phone call asking for a refund, you very well may find yourself questioning everything single thing you do. Read more

Many researchers and professionals believe social media is merely a trend that will meet its end once a new successor takes the spotlight. What they don’t realize is that they are only partially right. There are many platforms in social media with some more popular than others, and new ones always developing to topple the current hierarchy of social media platforms.

While new sites are being introduced, others find their reign as ‘top dog’ diminished. However, one thing doesn’t change – social media’s existence.

In the last couple of years, companies have really dove into the aspects of social media. Some have hired in-house social media experts, while others have sought out social media companies to manage their company’s social media presence. Whatever the case, businesses know that if they want their brand to grow in this age of technology, they better step up their social media game.

However, status updates and tweeting about your brand isn’t enough. When consumers decide to follow or like a brand via social media it’s for many reasons – but I want to focus on these three:

1. They like the business.

2. They want to keep up with news surrounding the business

3. They want to engage with the business on a personal level

Consider this: when a customer visits their favorite store (because of a sale the store tweeted about), but has an unsatisfactory visit the customer is more than likely going to use social media to talk about their experience by writing on the company’s Facebook brand page, tweeting, or commenting on their Instagram pictures.

These types of social interactions create the perfect opportunity for businesses to empower customer service teams to address issues presented by customers.

Customer service no longer consists of only phone calls and answering machines. Businesses are now able to use various online platforms to publicly address concerns of customers. Since customers  have the ability to address concerns and such at any time they wish on any social platform, businesses must be ready to address issues when they arise.

By providing additional outlets for customer service – especially mainstream social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook – businesses are crafting their brands to deliver a higher level of customer service – one that is seen as dependable and accessible to their customers. In turn, businesses gain an active consumer loyalty which is what competitors are so actively fighting for.

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CRM software automates your customer contact management system and sales process. It helps you makes customer the core of your business by offering useful insight on their buying behavior. In fact, the emerging CRM trends are crucial determinants of your company’s future sales performance.

Here are five CRM trends that every small business owner should be aware of:

1. The Rise of Social and Mobile CRM

The growing popularity of social media has made it important for businesses to study trends in order to understand the changing mindset of customers.

Many companies have already adopted policies to monitor and maintain their social profiles. More importantly, the integration of social media and CRM applications is an important trend to follow. Social CRM (SCRM) can help your company monitor customer reactions, generate leads, improve customer relationships and loyalty, optimize brand promotion and management, and allow for quick and timely customer service.

Also, in the growing tablet market–driven by Apple, Android, Windows and a myriad of other operating systems–there is a robust demand for creating portable mobile device applications. Further, cloud computing has facilitated availability and accessibility of data across time zones and geographical locations. You can now constantly stay in touch with your customers from any part of the world using mobile CRM applications and software.

2. The Customer Experience

Too much automation of sales process has alienated many businesses from their customers — ensuing a lack of authenticity and trust.

“Trust. It’s a word we use often, and a foundational concept that crosses every boundary of our lives — personal, business, political, social, etc.”

“Researchers generally agree, and a Harvard University study confirms, that the tighter, and longer, the relationship, the greater the level of trust. This holds true, whether it’s a personal relationship, or a business relationship.”

Though online commerce is convenient, customers are increasingly missing the human touch of brick and mortar establishments. This trend illustrates, once again, that businesses are looking for solutions to improve peer-to-peer relationships with their customers.

Delivering goods or services no longer ends the transaction with customers. Rather, it starts a long-term relationship that will ensure their loyalty and create scopes for up-selling and cross-selling.

3. The Growth of SaaS Solutions

Software-as-a-service, or business process-as-a-service (BPaaS), is offering a healthy challenge to proprietary CRM products. According to a study by Gartner, 35% of customer software implementations in 2012 used SaaS services.

The growing popularity of SaaS CRM is mainly due to the elimination of hardware and software requirements; easy CRM customization solutions; cost advantages over on-premise products; quick and timely deployment; accessibility, agility and portability; and integration solutions with other BI applications.

How often have you, as a consumer, grumbled about a not so great customer experience? Have you ever purchased a product or service that did not meet your expectations? Was the service provider a little curt during the transaction? Has it ever been difficult to locate items you wanted to purchase on an online website? Have you ever experienced an issue that was resolved in a less than timely manner?

These are just a few scenarios that can cause a customer to refrain from doing business with your company.

Now think about how you felt during these situations and then examine your company from your customer’s perspective. Here are four ways to get started:

1. Call your company.

What do customers encounter when they call your business? Is your receptionist robotic or pleasant, professional and courteous? Did you know that your receptionist or answering service serves as the face of your organization? Therefore it is important to put the right person on the front lines of initial customer interactions.

What about your interactive voice response (IVR) system? Are your call center menus user-friendly or do you become confused or worn out in the first minute of calling your offices? If it’s confusing to you, it’s probably confusing to your customer.

2. Visit your company.

Okay. So you may be thinking to yourself, “Errol, I’m already here at my organization!” Yes, but start your visit with your customer in mind … where a physical visit starts for your them.

For example, usually when a customer physically visits your business, their experience begins outside and down the street. Consider this: Can they easily spot your company’s signage? What condition is your business signage in? Is your signage visible during evening hours?If you own an online business, is your website easily searchable? Could your logo and overall branding benefit from a redesign?

The next step for most customers (if you have a physical location) is your parking lot — what condition is it in? Is your business area well-lit for evening hour customers? Depending upon your industry, the distance from the parking lot to your entrance could be problematic (e.g. inadequate parking, unkept and unclean outside areas). Consider how you can improve the exterior experience for your customer.

Now, let’s go inside. What does the customer see upon entering your front door? Is your store or office designed with your customer in mind? Is it easy to locate products or specific areas in your store (online or offline)? If it is difficult for you, it’s more than likely a headache for your customer.

Over the last few months I have found myself in a position to give online dating a go. I’m merely a dabbler, but the process has left me wondering about what lurks in the murky depths below the surface of “matching and winking.” Even more so … how closely online dating ties to the world of entrepreneurship.

Online Dating Strategy: The Whole Truth is Not So Sexy

When I initially wrote my online dating profile, I made it big and bold. I used words like “ambitious” and “driven.” I reasoned that if a guy is turned off by that, he’s not the right guy for me.

But that is not the whole truth.

The whole truth is that ambition and drive are characteristics that don’t often lead to attraction. I don’t just say that because I’m a woman. Those same qualities in a man could translate into workaholism or keeping relationships at a safe distance. Not exactly sexy.

Four months into my personal experiment I can say I have come to one conclusion.

I put “ambitious” and “driven” at the front of my profile for one reason: I was not as serious as I thought about trying to attract attention. It made it easy for me to say “There are no good men on this site!” or “Men just can’t handle a woman like me.”

That same week I came across two online dating resources that piqued my interest. First, a book by eFlirt Expert founder, Laurie Davis called Love at First Click. The second was a Wall Street Journal article called “Hacking the Hyperlinked Heart.” Both are about online dating strategy. They are both based on loads of personal experience and tons of research.

Adjusting Strategy in Life, Love and Business

So after gaining more information about the online dating world, I decided to adjust my profile. I followed theWSJ article advice and toned down the work stuff, concentrating on what I like to do when I am not working. I talked about being driven by curiosity instead of ambition. I led with my love of travel, lattes, and wine. I talked about cooking and eating out.

It was true. It was sincere. It felt attractive.

Then I messaged a few guys, winked at a few more, and ate dinner. In the span of a few hours, I had more activity on my profile than I’d had in four months.

No telling where it will go from there, but I felt like I was taking myself and my goals seriously, all the while not allowing myself to blame anyone else.

So, what does this have to do with business?

I’ll tell you. Many small business owners nowadays do and say a lot in the name of sincerity, authenticity, and transparency. Sometimes this takes the form of blatant over-sharing, but it can also take the form of not following through on a big idea, not polishing sales copy, or simply ignoring solid practices because they want to do it “their way” in an effort to be different for different’s sake.

While your business is an act of self-expression, guided by your unique vision, it exists in partnership with your most valued customers.

When your business draws energy from your customers,  it no longer requires your constant support. You can then empower your employees to draw their inspiration from your customers; and create tools that empower your customers to help themselves.

But how do you find your ideal “most valued” customers?

Unfortunately, most teachings about your “ideal customer” are:

1. Business-centric.
They assume that customers don’t have lives outside of waiting for your company’s next offer.

2. Lacking insights.
They don’t account for ways to reach real people that are multifaceted; customers that may read Sunset Magazine, shop at REI, and buy a lot of Colombia clothing.

3. Missing deep empathy.
They don’t consider what customers think and feel, along with the mindset and internal scripts that guide them.

Now that you know what is missing from the “usual advice” on finding your “ideal customer,” let’s reconstruct some fresh ideas about who these people are and how they can power your business.

Attracting Ideal Customers

As a small business owner, both you and your customer play equal roles in attracting each other. Just like you can’t stalk the subject of your deepest affections, you can’t chase after customers if they are not interested in what you are offering.

You may meet your ideal customer, but they may not be interested in–or ready for–what your company has to offer. Therefore it is important for you to communicate with them but also develop a clear strategy for winning over customers who are ready and willing to become your customers.

This could mean that a) you’ll need to alter your “ideal customer” profile, b) you have been chasing people that are all wrong for your business and c) you need to shift your mindset from “stalking and converting” to “romancing and wooing.”

Adopting a Customer-Centric Viewpoint in Business

Next, the work you do around better understanding your customer should be customer-centric, not business-centric. For example, typical business-centric survey questions include:

“What features would you like to see the next time we update this product?” or “What topics would you like us to cover on our blog?”

Your business is top of mind so it’s understandable to think that this type of questioning is the easiest way to approach customers. However, your customers will give you much more valuable information if you first imagine that your business does not exist.

Weird, I know.

But this approach works whether you are sourcing information directly from your customers or from your own brain. Focus on their needs, questions, and desires. Think about their problems in terms of stumbling blocks or barriers. Consider the work (e.g. social, functional, and emotional) they need to complete on a daily basis.

“Even in a negative economy, customer experience is a high priority for consumers, with 60% often or always paying more for a better experience.” In fact, “81% of companies with strong capabilities and competencies for delivering customer experience excellence are outperforming their competition.” But more importantly “Poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 Billion loss by US enterprises each year because of defections and abandoned purchases.” (Sources: Harris Interactive, Customer Experience Impact Report; Peppers & Rogers Group, 2009 Customer Experience Maturity Monitor; Parature Customer Service Blog)

In short, delivering great customer service should be one of your top business goals this year.

If you are unsure where to start, think about the four C’s of customer service – Commitment, Completeness, Consistency and Communication.

Let’s take a look at each one.

1. Commitment

In order to deliver great customer service, there must be commitment from your organization’s leadership. Commitment must be visible through action. It’s easy to place posters and signs on the wall, but your commitment to customer service has to be infused into your company culture.

As a leader it is important for you to show commitment by championing the charge to determine what great customer service should look like within your company. Develop and adhere to core values for your organization and commit to finding ways to determine what’s important to your customers. Start by becoming your customer by utilizing your product or service in order to gain the customer’s perspective.

Most importantly, your commitment to improving customer service should be readily apparent to your employees. Regularly communicate you commitment to your entire organization– start with action!

2. Completeness

Once you are committed to delivering great customer service, ensure that everyone on your team is on the same page. Completeness means that everyone within every department understands their role in providing great customer service.

Take time to assess your company’s operations to identify areas of opportunity. All customer touch points should be evaluated for efficiency.

Ensure that what matters to your customer is identified and utilized in further development of your company’s product or service. Also, pay close attention to your internal customers ( stakeholders, employees, investors, etc.) in order to determine how to best meet their needs as well.

Everyone on your team should be aware of how their daily actions impact both internal and external customers.

Money determines the future of your business. But does it have to govern every decision you make? Does the price make you change who you are and why you do what you do?

When I started Big Fish Presentations in 2011, our team of college students was excited to do anything and everything possible to make this company successful. We worked tirelessly to please our clients because we wanted to increase profits, expand, hire new people and do more great work.

As we continued to slave over our goal, a pattern emerged. It seemed we would take on just about any client, just as long as we could handle the workload and turn a decent profit. We thought we were invincible, that no matter how bizarre or terrible the clients were, we were resistant to them — thanks to great customer service.

However, this wouldn’t last long.

Certain clients pushed the limits of our time and resources with strange requests, indecisive direction and a severe lack of communication skills. Some even had awful attitudes as a bonus! It takes a lot of patience to deal with these kinds of clients; you’ve got to set aside your pride and vision to please a small group of people.

What to Do When Clients Misbehave

One day, a big-name client contacted us for a project, and of course, we accepted the challenge.

It was rocky from the start. They didn’t know what they wanted out of the project, so we had to interrogate them for details. They were unresponsive when we needed them and too responsive when we didn’t, and their attitudes were extremely negative. It didn’t help that their internal structure was disorganized — as was the feedback they gave us throughout the project.

Despite continuous customer service and quality work, they just couldn’t be satisfied. It was as if they felt that because they paid us, they owned us.

We struggled for a while, taking nonstop and unreasonable requests from the client, and often receiving unnecessary hostility in the confusion. It was literally getting out of control.

So, after some deliberation, my business partners and I decided finally to “fire” this client; we just couldn’t work with them any longer. It was the right decision for us, and I’ll never regret doing it then or doing it again in the future.