Let’s do Business with Real Online Companies

If there’s one thing that gets my goat, it’s lousy or non-exsistent customer service.

Let me define “customer service” for you. This is my opinion, but after owning my own “brick and mortar” business for 16 years, working as a customer service rep for a search engine, and being a “customer” for at least 50 of my nearly 63 years, I believe I’m heartily qualified.

Customer Service: It means to “serve your customer”. That means you provide for your customer before your customer knows they need service.

It means you prevent problems, and if a problem occurs, you correct the issue, keep your customer informed of what steps you’re taking to correct and then, MAKE SURE YOUR CUSTOMER IS MORE THAN SATISFIED.

Satisfied customers are the one’s who disappear from your radar. Sure, they got decent customer service, but because they had a problem and you merely satisfied them… they’ve gon searching for a company that makes them feel like a King or Queen forever.

Here are some of my picks for companies that provide excellent to “out a sight” customer service.

Most recently I’ve been using software from OIOPublisher. Everytime I”ve had a question, it’s been answered immediately… well beyond my expectations.

Entrecard, while experiencing “growth pangs” has been providing excellent customer service as they struggle to stay ahead of the curve. They’ve most recently added a dedicated customer service rep and he’s gone back through every “help request” making sure issues have been solved.

It’s been nearly a year since I first heard about Entrecard. It took me a couple of months to realize this was the right traffic generation/blogger community for me to join. Once I did, I spent countless hours “dropping”, reaching the 300 daily drop limit a couple of times.

There was only one problem… time spent dropping was time away from tending (make that writing) my blogs. Yes, I have more than one blog. I have five blogs that each use Entrecard to generate traffic and find new readers.

Here’s why EC works so well for me. I could care less about SEO. I’m a writer, not a techie. I write for my readers, not for search engines, so I have to generate traffic differently than folks who pay attention to keywords, tag clouds, etc. I choose to do it peer-to-peer, and that’s why EC works so well for me.

Do I have tons of traffic? No, but I have folks who spend time on my various blogs and when appropriate, leave me comments. I’m quite sure that over winter, when I have more time to “drop” and write, my traffic will increase substantially.

Entrecard is what YOU make of it.

If you’re a “speed dropper”, then you’ll likely get a lot of drops, but few folks who stop to read your blog.

If, like me, you love to discover new blogs, you’ll attract the same kind of audience.

Even with all the “first year growth” issues, Entrecard continues to lead the way for me in quality traffic generation, new readers, unique ideas, and new friends.

Quite some time ago, I instituted an “Advertiser Loyalty Program” for folks who belong to Entrecard, an advertising community for bloggers.

Here’s the deal on my “Advertiser Loyalty Program”.

Every time you purchase a 24-hr ad spot from me, I enter you into a pool of that month’s advertiser. That means, at least, you have a 1 in 31 chance of winning at least 60 EC from me. I have five blogs, so you are welcome to advertise across all five and compete for each of the pools.

I also keep track of how many times you advertise with me. See that “Most Loyal Advertisers” in my Blogroll? Each of those bloggers have advertised at least 10 times with me. They may have advertised two times on each blog, or 10 times in just one blog. Either way, they all earned a permanent link for their efforts.

I also have a “big pool” made up of all the advertisers. I set aside 25% of the credits I receive from advertising, and when that totals 500, I go to a random number generator and select a winner, awarding them all 500 EC.

Who’s been winning? That’s where the link love comes in… Be sure to check out these folks. They each received at least 60 EC from this blog.

May Winner: Easy Viral Traffic Blog

June Winner: Generate free money and traffic for Your Blog

July Winner:  Posh Mama

August Winner:  Time!

If you’d like to get in on the action, join me at Entrecard. It’s where bloggers really have come together to create a program that works.