PSPINC Official Company Blog

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 182 “What is a CRM?”

8月

24日

CRM stands for customer relationship management and refers to the overall process and system companies used to manage and analyze customer interactions with the goal of improving customer service relationships. With effective CRM software, it’s easier to track your business’s overall growth, efficiency, revenue, and profit. It gives you a good overview look at your clients as well as your employees. In addition to keeping track of communications with your customers, you can also assign and manage tasks to your employees.

However, CRMs can get pricey and are made up of complicated systems that even require taking certification courses to figure out how to use them properly. But luckily for you, PSP Pilot is completely free to sign up and easy to use! Organize client data, manage tasks and schedules, and create an employee portal with PSP Pilot for free, or upgrade to paid plans to add more than 20 employee profiles with PSP Pilot. Sign up for free today.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #businesstips #crm #customerfeedback #customerrelationshipmanagement #customerservice #digitalmarketing #marketing #newsletter #officetips #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #relationshipmarketing #tech #technology #web #webtools

What Makes a Great E-Commerce Site

6月

8日

For small businesses that sell online, a great e-commerce site is essential. While there’s still something to be said for brick-and-mortar stores, the ease of purchasing online is unmatched. And it’s only become more popular during the last few years as online shopping revenue grew by 20% in 2021 (according to Retail Insider). It’s also important to acknowledge that much of that website traffic comes from a mobile device. The number of people shopping online with a mobile device increased by more than double since 2018 according to a 2021 survey of global consumer insights. This only means that creating effective and user-friendly e-commerce sites is even more important today than ever.

While every e-commerce site builder is different, there are still a handful of features that every good e-commerce site needs. Without them, it’s unlikely that users will complete the entire purchase cycle. For a customer, these aren’t things they actively seek in an online shopping site. Rather, they’re what they expect to see. Without them, customers find it blatantly obvious and if it’s an important enough feature, they may find the site unreliable. So, here’s everything you need to create an exceptional e-commerce site.

Necessary Features

someone holding a phone open to an e-commerce site

First and foremost, making sure the interface is user-friendly is the most important aspect of any website. But even more so for a shopping site. What this entails is a simplistic as well as responsive navigation menu. Especially given that so many website visitors will be using a mobile device. Users expect to see categories with some subcategories, all of which should be clear as to what they mean. The last thing you want is to confuse your customers all because you wanted to use a more creative yet unhelpful category name. Your navigation bar should also include:

• A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page
• A Contact Us page
• A way for shoppers to view their cart, which not only incudes product names but also an image with it

Additionally, with it being a site where payment’s involved, the checkout process shouldn’t just be streamlined but also secure. The easiest way to ensure this is by purchasing an SSL certificate, which PSPINC offers in addition to our web hosting. Other vital security features include an address verification system (AVS) and a credit card verification value (CVV).

Regarding the purchase process, additional costs, shipping details, and return instructions should be clearly outlined before users check out. And they should have multiple payment options as well. While product pages should include images of the product itself, they must be high-quality images. And seeing products from different angle as well as how it works in action through multiple photos or even a video will make them more attractive to customers. Lastly, product descriptions shouldn’t just include physical attributes but also the benefits they can provide your customers.

Additional E-Commerce Features

a woman at her laptop while holding a credit card

From a marketing perspective, there are also some other features worth adding. If a product isn’t exactly what they’re looking for, they may want to find something similar. Putting recommendations makes it that much easier for customers. Plus, you can create targeted newsletters based on what customers looked at and/or bought previously. Allowing users to create a wish list of items they want but aren’t ready to purchase yet as well as a guest account option will also result in a better user experience.

A wish list persuades users to come back to purchase later while a guest account allows them to bypass the longer account registration process. There’s also the option of adding newsletter pop-ups or even in-browser notifications to encourage brand loyalty. Lastly, there’s the abandoned cart reminder. About 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, according to Shopify. To take advantage of that statistic, creating a reminder that sends an email out afterward can be a way to get those users to come back. As popular as e-commerce sites are for businesses today, building them can be a hassle. Luckily, PSPINC has an easy and reliable e-commerce hosting solution, YourHost, to help build your e-commerce site.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

#blog #business #businesstips #crm #customerservice #ecommerce #marketing #marketingdigital #mobile #onlinebusiness #onlineshopping #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websitebuilder #yourhost

The Key to a Good Loyalty Program

6月

1日

Brand loyalty is what every company wants. While the main goal is to increase sales, it’s much easier and cheaper to get customers that continually come back. In fact, it’s five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer when compared to retaining an existing one (according to Harvard Business Review). A loyalty program offers incentives (rewards) to build trust and increase customer retention.

From a business perspective, the goal of a loyalty program is to give loyal customers benefits that seem relatively high but don’t actually cost the company that much. In return, they hope the customer will spend on other products/services associated with the brand. But that’ll only happen if your company can build a successful loyalty program. In the end, it’ll be beneficial on both sides. It’ll promote the brand and encourages frequent and valuable transactions. And customers will be appreciative that the company’s rewarding them with exclusive discounts and offers for their loyalty. Like how our Dreamersi customers get InforMakers and WebdeXpress for free as well as exclusive discounts with their web and email hosting plans.

The Key to a Successful Loyalty Program

happy man holding two brown shopping bags

The most important thing to keep in mind when creating an effective loyalty program is the customer’s experience. The goal is to not only inspire and encourage loyalty but also create long-term customer engagement. While many marketing activities generally focus on the brand awareness and acquisition stages of the customer journey, relationship marketing focuses more on the post-purchase cycle. Namely, the customer’s satisfaction, loyalty, and evangelism levels. To do this, you’ll want to avoid the hard sale. Once customers opt-in for your loyalty program, you’re no longer trying to accomplish short-term goals like increasing customer acquisition and individual sales.

To do this effectively, you want to create positive moments that customers will not only remember but praise. Keep in mind that customers will remember the best and worst moments most. To give them the best experience possible, focus on boosting sensory appeal. And if you can find ways where your brand can go above and beyond customers’ expectations, even better. For the brand, it’ll also be important to identify where you can collect more customer data and discover ways to use it to meet (and possibly exceed) customers’ needs, desires, and goals. Transforming that data into meaningful experiences will also strengthen the relationship between the brand and the customer in the long run. All it takes after that is promoting it, which will be much easier if you’re providing true value to your loyal customers.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

#advertising #b2b #blog #businesstips #crm #customerexperience #customerservice #digitalmarketing #dreamersi #informakers #loyaltyprogram #marketing #marketingdigital #pspinc #relationshipmarketing #smallbusiness #tech #technology #webdexpress

Upgrading to Google Analytics 4

5月

25日

If you’re a small business owner or a digital marketer, you’ve probably seen the top banner in Google Analytics telling you that Google Analytics will be phasing out Universal Analytics (UA). Additionally, it tells you to switch and set up Google Analytics 4. Simply put, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a new version of Google Analytics that uses machine learning. By mid-2021, users already started switching over to GA4, less than a year after Google first announced it in October 2020. In fact, 60% of marketing professionals already updated their Google Analytics account by May 2021 according to databox. And an additional 22.7% said they hadn’t done it yet but planned to.

So, why the switch? Other than Google phasing out UA by July 2023, GA4’s use of machine learning allows it to offer new and attractive features. It’s also important to note that GA4 doesn’t use historical data, i.e., all the data users have built up over the years. But it can use data it’s gathered over time, so switching over to GA4 sooner is better than later. That way, it’ll start accumulating data in the new system before the old one gets shut off. Plus, it means you won't be starting from scratch when setting it up after support for Universal Analytics ends. And GA4 will improve over time, resulting in more accurate results when using its new predictive modeling features.

Google Analytics 4 Features

someone pointing a pen towards a tablet with google analytics open

GA4 uses a more sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI), which allows it to provide better insights into understanding the data moving forward. And it uses historical evidence it’s gathered over time to predict future outcomes. But GA4’s use of machine learning is continually evolving so it’s likely that it’ll introduce more AI tools in the future. The hope is that GA4 will eventually allow marketers to identify which users are more likely to convert based on specific website interactions. Other additional features GA4 offers include funnel analysis, tree diagrams, overlapping audiences or segments, and many more.

For users with multiple Google Analytics properties, it can be difficult to track individuals across multiple properties. And if you’ve ever used Google Analytics in a high-traffic area, you’re probably all-too-familiar with the loading bar, which can take several minutes to load. Google has made the process much faster by redesigning it from the ground up instead of relying on what was a 10-year-old data mining process. Additionally, tracking visitors’ overall customer journey as they travel between multiple channels is much simpler with GA4’s “Information Streams” feature.

To switch, all you have to do is connect Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 in the admin panel. Or you can switch by replacing an embed code. If the embed code is particularly old and doesn't reference gtag.js in it, the code will have to be replaced.

If you need any help in switching over to Google Analytics 4, please don’t hesitate to 800-232-3989 or emailing us at support@pspinc.com.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

#ai #analytics #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #crm #digitalmarketing #google #googleanalytics #googleanalytics4 #machinelearning #marketing #tech #technology #universalanalytics #update #web #webdevelopment #website #websites #webtools

A free and powerful tool for your small business

3月

17日

Many small businesses can’t afford to pay top dollar for software solutions, nor do they have hours of time to spare to train their employees how to use it. If this applies to your business then let me introduce you to PSP Pilot, a free cloud based application which will help to streamline your daily workflow. It’s completely intuitive and easy to use, no matter what your employee’s age or background. At its core PSP Pilot consists of these three major features:

Client Database

First and foremost PSP Pilot allows you to aggregate all of your customer data into one easy-to-use interface. Store contact info, files, notes, and much more. Easily import and export your existing clients via CSV file. Best of all, client interaction is all tracked and displayed with the included Activity Log, so you can easily pull up your client interaction history. Never worry about forgetting the little details ever again!

Employee Portal

Create a profile for each of your employees. You can include as much or as little info as you want. Photos, contact info, date of hire, etc. As your employees log in and make updates their work will be tracked. You can set administrators as needed. Employees will be notified of new tasks or important files.

Task Management

PSP Pilot makes it easy to create and manage tasks. Add and organize notes, attach files, schedule completion dates, set priority levels, add comments and much more. Best of all, the activity log will track all updates to a task. When you pull up a task, you’ll be able to see who has updated what, and when.

Since it’s completely free, you really have no reason not to give PSP Pilot a try. I think you’ll like what you see, and the time and energy it can save you!

Sign Up Now For Free

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPinc Creates Tools For Your Business

#PacificSoftwarePublishing #PSPINC #WebandEmailHosting #SeattleBellevue #SoftwareDevelopment #WebDevelopment #ApplicationDevelopment #Bloguru

#CRM #CustomerRelations #TaskManagement

Why your Business Needs a Help Desk

2月

27日

image source: pilot.pspinc.com

The point of Help Desk software is to help you provide better customer service more efficiently.

You can have wonderful, friendly and knowledgeable customer service representatives, but if they don’t know the first thing about a customer’s history of issues, calls or emails, you’re still going to run into unsatisfied, unhappy customers. In this day of social media, reviews and connectivity, you need to make sure your customers are spreading great feedback about your customer service, not the opposite.

How would you feel as a customer calling or emailing to follow up on an issue that wasn’t resolved, only to get a response from someone new who needs the whole background story again?

Help Desk eliminates this problem and PSP has the software to help you keep track and manage customer questions and issues efficiently. PSP Pilot acts a communal inbox for all your customer inquiries. This way your customer service representatives can easily access customer communication and quickly track and view all correspondence.

With PSP Pilot, there are no lost tickets or ghosted conversations – each employee with the proper credentials has access to a client page with the client's history.

Find out more about PSP Pilot Help Desk and how easy it is to sign up: https://pilot.pspinc.com/helpdesk

#Blog #BusinessTips #CRM #ENnews #HelpDesk #PSPinc #SmallBusiness #Software #Technology

FREE CRM Software for your Small Business

2月

20日

image source: pilot.pspinc.com

There’s no doubt about it: If you have customers, you should have a program for Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

To grow and scale, every company needs a process in place by which employees can follow. Good customer service, communication, and standardized internal processes will strengthen your business reputation and help you grow. These are all things that can be managed by a CRM.

PSP offers a service called PSP Pilot, which is a CRM software that automates and captures your customer data and tracks all communication. Our program eliminates the need for manual tracking in spreadsheets or files. It eliminates the need for a singular person to manage those files. And it eliminates the possibility of customer information getting lost or mismanaged.

Our cloud-based system is easily accessible to whomever is granted the right to view the data. We also offer premium add-ons such as tracking customer feedback and satisfaction.

Furthermore, this service is FREE to companies with less than 20 employees! Check out all the great features you can get with PSP Pilot and see how easy it is to sign up: https://pilot.pspinc.com/

#Blog #BusinessTips #CRM #CustomerRelationshipManagement #ENnews #PSPinc #SmallBusiness #Software #Technology

Customer Surveys: Ask the Right Questions

4月

16日

image source: pixabay.com

We often ask questions with some expectation of the answers before we hear them. When asking our customers for their input, however, we must willingly set aside our opinions and remain neutral if we want to get honest feedback and learn something valuable from them.

According to Peter Drucker, guru of business management, the fax machine is a prime example of the influential power in our questioning techniques.

Before the fax machine came to market, U.S. manufacturers conducted market research asking, "Would you buy a telephone accessory for upwards of $1,500 that enables you to send, for $1 a page, the same letter the post office delivers for 25 cents?" You guessed it; the answers were no and U.S. manufacturers did not pursue the fax machine.

On the other hand, as Drucker pointed out, Japanese manufacturers asked a more straightforward question: “Is there a market for what the fax machine does?" And they realized fax machines could replace courier services like FedEx in the 70s. As a result of asking the right question, Japanese manufacturers were first to market and more dominant in fax machines than U.S. companies in the 80s and 90s. It was too late for many U.S. companies to follow suit.

Collecting feedback from our customers is beneficial, but only if we phrase our questions in such a way that allows them to be honest and think for themselves. If we are going to take the time to survey people, make it worthwhile. Prepare ahead of time, keep it straightforward, and take the bad with the good – because it all helps to better your business.

#Advertising #B2B #Blog #CRM #CustomerFeedback #CustomerSatisfaction #CustomerService #ENnews #FocusGroups #Marketing #OfficeTips #OnlineSurveys #PSPinc #SmallBusiness #Surveys

Simple, Immediate Surveys get Results

4月

9日

image source: pixabay.com

The best time to ask a customer about their experience with your business is immediately after your transaction or interaction with them. Life is busy and our memories get muddled because of it, so don’t wait too long to get feedback. Ask when when it’s fresh in your customer's mind.

If you want to keep it really simple, ask just one question: “Are you happy?”

Here are two ways PSPinc is doing that:

Feedback Form

We implemented a simple email survey through our CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system so whenever our support staff helps a customer, the customer immediately gets a follow-up email asking them to rate their experience with us. This can tell us a lot about how we are doing, and also what kinds of issues customer are having.

Opinion Stand

On a tablet next to our lobby entrance, we ask customers, “How did we do?” and they have the option to give their feedback on the tablet as they exit.

Don’t miss an opportunity to connect with your customers. These simple and quick surveys can provide a lot of great insight into what you’re doing right and what you need to do better.

#Advertising #B2B #Blog #CRM #CustomerFeedback #CustomerSatisfaction #CustomerService #ENnews #Marketing #OfficeTips #OnlineSurveys #PSPinc #SmallBusiness #Surveys

How to Get Customer Feedback

4月

4日

image source: pixabay.com

Learning from our customers equips us with information to better our business. In a previous article we discussed using analytics as a tool to understand our customers’ online behavior. Now let’s talk about reaching out to those customers to get their feedback.

One of the best and easiest ways to engage with your customers is to create a survey for them. Surveys are easy to make and you can customize them to ask broad questions or get very specific – it all depends on what your company needs from it.

Here are some key points for you to consider before you start your survey:

- Determine your goal for the survey, and what you want to get out of it.

- Compile your customer list, preferably emails, to which you can send the survey.

- Consider offering an incentive (coupon, freebie, discount) if they take the survey.

- Come up with your questions. Keep it simple and neutral, don’t lead your customers toward a particular answer. Stay completely objective. Consider questions like: How do they like your product or service? Where did they learn about you? What else would they like to see your company offer? What is your strength / weakness?

- Keep it short and tell them up front how long it should take to complete the survey. Everyone’s busy, don’t get greedy with their time.

- Be sure to follow-up at some point so your customer doesn’t think their time and feedback was wasted.

- Consider asking some of the tough questions, even if you’re worried about receiving criticism. Remember, you’re not looking for a testimonial; you want to understand how you can improve. Customers might appreciate it.

Once you figure out your questions, then you can find the survey tools. PSPinc has an online form program, so if you need any help, contact us! We would be happy to assist you.

#Advertising #B2B #Blog #CRM #CustomerFeedback #CustomerSatisfaction #CustomerService #ENnews #Marketing #OfficeTips #OnlineSurveys #PSPinc #SmallBusiness #Surveys

PSPINC Official Company Blog

フリースペース

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 182 “What is a CRM?”

What Makes a Great E-Commerce Site

Necessary Features

Additional E-Commerce Features

The Key to a Good Loyalty Program

The Key to a Successful Loyalty Program

Upgrading to Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 Features