Archives For Google Apps

Amazing Customer Support is Amazing and Differentiating

July 8, 2014 — Leave a comment

customersupportDifferentiate Your Commodity Products w/ Amazing Customer Service

Just about everything you sell is a commodity – It’s your Intellectual Capital and Customer Service that will set you apart.

Google Has Great Support!

In my last post I shared a few words on CRM and why I made the move to Infusionsoft. There’s a lot here and I’ve been through a number of training classes, and have a personal coach working through the final steps of conversion.

Part of my conversion involved moving to gmail – and Google Apps…

Yesterday I had the opportunity to contact customer support while connecting my HP Printer to Scan to Email with Google. My experience was exceptional…some things to consider:

1. Simple menus – when I call Time Warner Cable the menu tree goes on forever and the hold times are enormous. In fact, many times I have to leave a message and they call me back. If I’m on the phone when they call, it’s my tough luck. Not with Google; two menu items and a pin number provided to me through my admin console and I’m speaking to someone live.

2. They use Join.Me to access my computer – with permission of course.  This gets them right to the problem. During this migration I’ve called Google numerous times and each time they’ve solved the problem quickly by looking at my screen and walking me through the process.

3. Taking responsibility – even when it might not be their issue. My issue yesterday could easily be an HP issue, not Google.  But the Google support person never even mentioned pushing me to HP. He did ask if I had HP support – generally that costs a fortune. As soon as he heard that, he pushed on to try several things.  He must have spent 30 minutes with me – never hinting at giving up. How many times have you been online with a support person who insists on giving you meaningless projects to go do and get back to them on? He never did this.

4. In the end, I had a work around, but we did not solve the problem. He agreed to look further into this – and asked me to keep him updated on anything I find. Even after hanging up without a complete solution, I was ready to give him 10 out of 10 points on my customer service rating. He was that good.

In today’s commodity product reseller world, customer service might be the only long lasting differentiator…

© 2014, David Stelzl

P.S. Anyone ever tried calling Microsoft for help?

If you don’t have my Special Report on Turning Prospects into Customers – Get it Right Here! (CLICK).

 

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The iPad; A Case Study Not To Be Ignored

March 3, 2011 — Leave a comment

The Ipad – Here are some sound bites: (Source: Wall Street Journal)

1 year old

90% market share

14.8 million devices sold

9.5 Billion in revenue in one year!

200 Million Apple Accounts world wide

And a new version out this month while the competition is still scrambling to compete with the first  release.

Innovation is key.  At the 2011 RSA conference, one of the most interesting presentations came from the founder of Palo Alto, Nir Zuk.  He talked about innovation, and repeatedly asked his audience who was using what – brands of cell phones, operating systems, etc.  Through this interaction he showed that many of the technology leaders just aren’t innovating any more, and people are moving to new technology – following the innovators.  These companies that lack innovation stand to lose significant market share if they continue.  This is a wake up call…not just to those with an iPad look-a-like, but for Microsoft and anyone else with significant market share.  Companies that are innovating will win over time.  The problem is, many of these new innovations compete with the margins resellers have depended on!

Example:  How many resellers are still selling PCs to make a profit.  Perhaps yours doesn’t, but there are thousands of SMB focused resellers still in this game.  Will they start selling iPads?  Well, maybe, but that is not very strategic.  A $500 device, already set up with an operating system that doesn’t require a daily reboot to recover from the blue-screen isn’t going to make up for the loss.  And with other technologies commoditizing and companies like Google putting free tools online (Have you tried Google Apps?), the market is bound to change – expect resellers to be out of business within a year if they are waiting on the economy to pick up, hoping to be placed back into the business they drove two years ago.

Innovation for Apple means, new cool looking products that appeal to the new mobile generation.  But to the reseller and high-tech sales person, it means finding new ways to help clients innovate, automate, secure, and become efficient.  It means finding new areas to help companies with technology that puts them ahead of their competition and cuts cost out of their current IT program.  And it means helping them secure what they have before they lose everything.

© 2011, David Stelzl

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