Alan R. Bechtold has released the latest issue of E-Wealth Report. This featured article is titled “Tapping Your Clients For More Than Money”. [E-Wealth Report]


Alan Bechtold has released the latest issue of ‘E-Wealth Report’ Newsletter.

Tapping Your Clients For More Than Money

by Alan R. Bechtold

Web 2.0 is an online development I’ve long waited to see. I’ve said before – there’s little truly “new” about the so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon. It’s basically the ability on the Web to do what we always did online through the dial-up computer bulletin boards that pre-dated the Web by more than 10 years.

Basically, Web 2.0 brings user interactivity to the Internet. In enables your prospects and customers to interract with you and with each other, to share information, to point the way to quality products and Websites – and away from those best avoided.

Until just a couple of years ago, this capability was largely lacking on the Web. The Web was, until then, primarily a static medium.

For some (especially the least scrupulous businesses operating today), Web 2.0 should be a reason to lose sleep. For the first time in history, it’s no longer easy to cull a few weak sheep from the herd and fleece them quietly, without the rest of the world hearing about it.

On the other hand, it’s now much easier to quickly see word-of-mouth rewards when you go overboard for your clients and customers, give them real value for their money and meet their needs on every level.

It’s a double-edged sword and one that I welcome. I hope you welcome it, too, because that means you’re running your business correctly already. You’re already in line to reap some of Web 2.0’s sweetest rewards.

But, many businesses are missing another important aspect of Web 2.0. It’s now possible to have your customers and prospects build your products for you, handle some of your most troublesome customer service issues on your behalf – and help you make sales!

Most of the time, they’ll willingly do all this for free.

Here are some ideas that you need to embrace – and soon:

YouTube, Google Video and all the other video sharing sites out there today have shown us all that customers and prospects can build your product for you. Blogs with active comments are another example where your product can actually be created by your customers and prospects.

When I used to work with dial-up computer bulletin boards, I constantly told my clients that their callers WERE the content. Their messages and their postings on forums were the content that other callers joined a system to access.

Now you can benefit from this same automatic business-building power on the Web, tapping a resource that is nearly 1 billion users strong, thanks to Web 2.0!

Struggling to provide quality customer service? When you open a forum for your products and services, make certain you include categories for frequently asked questions, solutions to problems and similar topics. Then, direct new customers with questions to your Frequently Asked Questions forum topic AND to your other customer service topics in your forum.

You’ll be surprised to see how many of your clients and customers will eagerly come to the rescue of new members of the “clan,” answering questions and providing support that you would never have time to provide.

You’ll have to monitor the content and support that your clients are providing, to make sure it’s on-target and in line with what you want to offer to other clients, but don’t play the heavy-handed censor and remove negative comments or suggestions.

People today are smart enough to see through any attempts you might make to block criticism from appearing on your sites, once you’ve opened the doors. Just realize that your fans will also defend you when such postings appear and that the honesty you exhibit by actually allowing “the good, the bad and the ugly” to appear uncensored (except for outright profanity and objectionable comments) will endear you to the bulk of your clients.

This is actualy a double pay-off for you: free content that visitors will find attractive AND solid bonding and trust-building that you simply can’t get any other way.

Finally, when you have a customer who’s doing a bang-up job – maybe posting great comments and providing truely helpful support to new customers – reward him some way. Offer some free information services or a gift card – or just an award that’s VERY public on the site.

This will keep your clients and prospects working hard to do a lot of YOUR work FOR you!

This week I have a gift that’s going to keep on giving. And a BUNCH of gifts wrapped around it.

I’ve launched my Save Our Email campaign, to conduct the Great Email Experiment, this week. Through this experiment, I hope to prove exactly which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Email Service Providers (ESPs) are doing their jobs and which aren’t. BY NAME.

The problem is that most ISPs and ESPs claim they will deliver your mail AND protect you from spam. But – they’re tossing email BEFORE they check your whitelist, before they check with you to see if the email is coming from someone you trust and want to hear from.

Consequently, a LOT of important email is being lost in the shuffle. They’re throwing out a LOT of babies with the bathwater.

Participation in the Great Email Experiment is easy. The rewards could be HUGE for all of us. And – you’ll get a TON of great gifts all along the way during the entire two-week Experiment. Plus you get my special report about the state of Email today when you sign up to help me.

Check out the details, then get on board HERE!

We need a LOT of people participating to have the maximum impact. The more people who are involved, the more our results will impact email – and hopefully we can make it effective again!

See you next week!

Alan R. Bechtold

President/CEO

BBS Press Service, Inc.

‘E-Wealth Report’ Newsletter

*IMNewswatch would like to thank Alan Bechtold for granting permission to reprint the latest article.

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