This week's topic will be covering the follow-up tactic after the sale has been made. The best way to continue having regular customers is to create a trust. With a product that sells well, you can expect to see refunds. Refunds are a red flag that something in your sales tactic is not working. We will be addressing how to see less refunds as well as taking advantage of issuing refunds.

If you really want to go the extra mile with customer service, I would highly recommend phoning your customer. It takes 30 seconds to 2 minutes. After you get an order, at the end of the day(or whatever time works for you), call everyone who ordered the previous day saying, "Thank you for your order. It will be shipped _____." It is also a good idea to prepare what you are going to say, whether it be with a live person or a voicemail. I do this with a lot of my clients and it works extremely well. You or your assistant should do these calls. You will quickly see that your product and name will be remembered by customers.

A follow-up call, or a follow-up letter (also known as a stick letter), can be a powerful method. The follow-up letter is sent to your customer by using any methods possible (email, fax, mail, or to a website). There are various ways to send a stick letter. You will want to keep your company and product in the mind of the customer. It's almost 10% of your initial sales letter. This letter will attract your customer back to your site and product; perhaps to a new product that they had not seen before. People sometimes make impulse buys, and that's when you get refunds. etc. In addition, you need to take a further step and make an exciting offer to your customer. If you give people over-delivery, you're always going to end up on top. Because your customers trust you and know that there is a live human being behind their transactions, they will even refer their friends to your business.

The special exciting offer can be anything creative, such as a gift certificate. A gift certificate can be modeled after a simpler version of your product or 50% off one of your other products. I charge $600 per hour for my consultations. If I turned one of my consultations into a gift certificate for a twenty minute one-on-one consultation, that would be a $300 dollar value! Statistically, customers will not claim their gift certificate, but because you've added value to your entire product, your customer will feel that your company is striving to give them the best offer and will convert to being your lifelong customer.

Issuing refunds can also hold great customer relations value. Refunds are a great opportunity to connect with the customer and offer them a different product at a discounted price. For example, you send a customer their refund check and also send them a sales letter telling them about a similar product or even an affiliate product. Furthermore, you can give some sort of incentive so that they will go on the internet to fill out a questionnaire. The questionnaire itself can be peppered with ads for your or affiliate products that they may become interested in. These are just some of the systems I use to minimize refunds as well as taking advantage of refunds. Any situation can be turned into an opportunity!

About the Author

Segovia Smith is well known for is accelerated learning and teaching style. When he's not designing new software, split testing his web site traffic or working on developing new business ventures he can be found answering questions and helping people with their web site conversion through various forums and discussion groups online. For further information visit: www.SegoviaSmith.com